About The Christopher Deliso Blog

This blog celebrates the singularities and unexpected revelations of the Balkans. That is on the good days. Other times there is just news from the 'industry' and my opinions on it.

Big Railroad Blues

June 26, 2008 • Comments

The train can be so fun. Yesterday I found myself riding the rails in Greece advising a Bulgarian Turk from Shumen, in Macedonian, about the best way to get to Novi Pazar in Serbia via Skopje and Kosovo. Talking to people is worthwhile. Which makes it sad when they don't exist.

'...Giati den echei kosmo'

Indeed, a lack of demand is what has (according to the Greek railway man who said the above to me yesterday) led to the cutback in train service from Thessaloniki to Skopje (and other Balkan cities thereafter). It was always twice a day, for many years.

Now it is once a day, at 4:15pm from Thessaloniki. From Skopje it goes at 8AM, when it is on time, which is not often. The scariest thing to see was that there now appears to be one air-conditioned first-class car (at least from Thessaloniki). I of course preferred the hot old cars. I was reading a book and I could discolor the page with a drop of sweat and recall the trip later that way. And the heat was all the better when the sudden summer storm erupted around Klisura, threatening to derail the train in a sharp wind storm, fat drops of rain splattering on my head.

One might suspect that with the recent blustering and bad relations between Greece and Macedonia over the 'name issue,' the train cutback was the outcome of a Greek squeeze on international transport. After all, they have been accused of limiting access as much as possible (no bus from Thessaloniki to Skopje, no more flights from Athens to Skopje, no bus from Florina to Bitola, etc), however if he is to be trusted the railway man simply pins the blame on lack of passsengers.

That of course is the result of politics and public perception. Since Greece effectively vetoed Macedonia's NATO access in April in a failed bid to bend the tiny country to its will, relations have dropped to their lowest point since the 1990's. Macedonians and Greeks have cancelled travels and vacations in each others' countries en masse, leading to huge losses for travel agencies and tour operators. Macedonian lamb imports for Hellenic Easter dining were blocked. The Macedonian president's plane was blocked from entering the country because the word 'Macedonia' was on it. TV reports in Skopje interviewed would-be tourists whose cars had been busted up in Greece for having Macedonian license plates. Greeks also claimed that some of their diaspora citizens traveling through Macedonia had been relieved of their money by border guards. ANd there are plenty of other murky tales.

It was interesting speaking with friends these days in Thessaloniki to see how wildly speculations and misunderstandings are growing in this period. Some statements were not not far from 'is it really true that the Skopianoi eat their children?' The situation is crying out for journalists from both countries to foster communication in some organized way, so that when a controversial episode is reported (or not reported) it can be checked for accuracy and this unfortunate tendency towards hate based on mutual ignorance can be reversed. Of course, it is much more profitable to reproduce scandalous, ill-sourced tales of provocation.

It will be interesting to see, once the summer has passed, whether there will have been any effect on the Greek tourism industry from the current cold war. Macedonians traditionally flock to the shores of Halkidiki and the Katerini area, as well as to the island of Thasos. Maybe their lost numbers will be offset by Serbs, Bulgarians or others. But I would bet that some of the small domatia owners and smaller hotels will be affected. In Macedonia, Bitola and Ohrid are already seeing far fewer Greeks this year than usual.

Sustaining a lack of human interaction among regular people is the dream of blowhard politicians. Keep the people apart, and you keep up the negative stereotypes, mutual mistrust and misunderstanding that accompany and perpetuate phony nationalistic positions that build ratings. Bring the people together and the alleged insurmountable problems simply melt away. On that note...

-why is there no swimming race in the name of international friendship through the Greek, Macedonian and Albanian held parts of Lake Prespa?

-why is there no train from Sofia to Skopje?

-why is there no bus from anywhere in Greece to Macedonia?

-why is there no intensive comparative language course in border areas of Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia that could be held over the course of a month or two and bring revenue to the poorest parts of these countries?

Travel can defeat politics, if people demand it. But first they have to be aware of what they have been missing out on.