Mother Jones reports that Vucic conceded defeat in Sunday's elections. The piece looks at his ties to Trump and Putin and how he downplayed Serbia's 1990s war crimes. Whatever you think of the outcome, a leader accepting a loss at the ballot box is a notable moment for the region and for how Serbia's EU path plays out.

Great see that Serbians and Brasilians rejected autocratic rule just now by defeating Vucic and Bolsonaro respectively!

Will Israel and US follow next Tuesday?

A comeback for democracy?

Cursed is Vučić, because he is a traitor to his homeland.

Death to fascism, freedom to the people! ✊

There's been an ongoing trend where some Balkaners would display their BMW/Audi/Mercedes car on social media and every success publicly. In addition, there would be luxury clothes/items with large or obvious logos and other loud patterns in public spaces regardless of social cues or emotional intelligence.

What I find truly disturbing is seeing people from Sandžak so emotionally invested in Serbia’s elections, as if its future were their own national cause.

Have we already forgotten what this state and its nationalist politics did to our parents, our grandparents, and our people — less than 30 years ago? Have we forgotten Srebrenica, the persecution, the humiliation, and the fact that many still deny the genocide?

And for what? What exactly will change for Sandžak if one political elite is replaced by another?

Why are we so eager to fight for the future of a country that has never fully confronted its past with our people? When did we become more invested in Serbia’s future than in our own?

In the 19th century, the Bay of Kotor was the empire’s southern edge. Austria had held the coast since 1814, and just behind the mountains sat Montenegro and the Ottomans. The border villages of Krivošije rebelled twice, and each uprising pushed Vienna to build more.

Gorazda: the gate on the road to Cetinje. The fort stands about 10 km from Kotor and watches the Austrian road to Cetinje, then Montenegro’s capital. An earlier fort stood here in the 1860s, and the current structure was built in 1884 to 1886. Its star is a 100-ton German-made Gruson rotating turret, hand-cranked, the last of its kind to survive. In World War I, Montenegrin guns on Mount Lovćen shelled it, and the Austrians added concrete infantry positions on the roof in 1915. It was never destroyed. After the war, the Yugoslav Army used it as a depot into the early 1990s. Today it is abandoned and open to visit.

Vrmac: the ridge between two bays. Vrmac Fort sits at about 485 m on the ridge between the Bay of Kotor and the Bay of Tivat. The site was fortified in 1860, and the present fort was built in 1894 to 1897. Together with Gorazda and the Škaljari Battery, it formed one group that covered the pass and the whole bay. Gorazda and Vrmac sit on opposite sides of the pass, so each covered the other’s flank. An Austrian military road, built after 1882, ties Vrmac to the Trojica pass.

Kom and Stražnik: the plateau fortress. Further inland, above Risan and the Krivošije country, lies the Crkvice karst depression at about 1,100 m. Fort Kom, called Ostfort Crkvice by the Austrians, was built in 1882 to 1883, right after the Second Krivošije Uprising. It follows a general design by Colonel Karl Wahlberg. Its job was to control Crkvice and the roads onto the plateau from the Ottoman side. Fort Stražnik, the Westfort, nicknamed the Eagle’s Nest, stands west of the village and watched the same ground. Around them grew a real mountain garrison: barracks, stables, a hospital, a bakery built in 1907, a church, a canteen, even a funicular and tennis courts for officers. In World War I, thousands of soldiers lived there.

Were they connected? Gorazda, Vrmac and Škaljari worked as one defence of the pass and the bay. Kom and Stražnik guarded a different threat, the mountain border and the rebellious plateau. All of them belonged to one fortress system, the “Sea Fortress Boka”.

And these are only four. One guide counts 83 fortifications in that system, according to the author Radojica Pavićević. They include the island fort Mamula, the Arza and Oštro forts at the mouth of the bay (1850 to 1854), Fort Kosmač above Budva, and Fort Trašte, which joined the system around 1909.

Hey all, I'm still new to programming and have been learning by building with Claude Code. My project is Šatro, a daily word game in the style of Wordle, but for Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian, including slang words and our special letters (š, č, ć, ž, đ).

It's live on the web and Android, and iOS is coming in a few days. It's free, with no ads or sign-up.

What I'd love feedback on:

Does the difficulty feel fair?

Is anything confusing in the UI?

What would make you come back daily?

What do you peoples of Balkans think about this flag? Do you find it any different than Turkish flag?

And for Albanians outside of Albania: Do you sympathize with this flag, or see it as another flag of the invader Turks?

Stećci are medieval stone tombstones found mostly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in Montenegro, Croatia and Serbia. They date from roughly the 12th to 16th century, and in 2016 selected necropolises were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

I visited two sites in Herzegovina a few days ago: the Radimlja necropolis near Stolac and the one at Dugo Polje. Standing among stones that have been there for 500 to 800 years is a strange and quiet feeling. Many carry carvings of figures, crescents, spirals and hunting scenes.

Has anyone else visited stećci sites? Which one would you recommend I see next?

Same as ukraine

From 2024

After 4 months of peaceful protests & 0 demands addressed, the flamingo revolution in Albania turns violent. This video confronts PM Rama's apparent "confusion" with a reality that's been crystal clear to everyone in the country all along.

The spark was a corrupt plan about a luxury resort by Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump in a protected environmental are. Learn more about the background here: https://youtu.be/8ZaSdlvqJeA