It’s official -  Madonna, undoubtedly the queen of pop, is returning to the Balkans following her Budva, Montenegro, concert last year. Gigs in Belgrade, Ljubljana, Bucharest and Sofia have been added to the the second half of her Sticky & Sweet Tour, which will visit 22 European cities this July and August.

Rumours have been circulating for weeks that Madonna would play at Usce, at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers in Belgrade,  and they were officially confirmed yesterday by the State of Exit and Live Nation organisations. Madonna will play in Ljubljana on the 2oth of August, Belgrade on the 24th, Bucharest on the 26th and will finish the tour in Sofia on the 29th. Paul Oakenfold will be her support act.

I bet there’s some annoyed Belgraders who wished they’d waited and had not spent a small fortune on travelling to and accommodation in Budva last year! Usce can hold 50,000 and it’s no doubt going to be a sell-out.

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Post tags: Belgrade, culture, Ljunljana, Madonna

Viktor gives his opinion on the article which is a bit sensationalist at times and also contains some factual inaccuracies.

Click here to read Viktor’s post with a link to the original article.

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Post tags: Belgrade, Belgraded, Serbia

Following on from their article on Albania’s sworn virgins, the BBC has written about one Albanian family’s plight resulting from a decades long blood feud:

“Eleven-year-old Nikolin dreams about the day he can walk out of his house without fear and attend the local school…Seated on the porch of his parent’s small farmhouse in northern Albania, he looks wistfully towards the gatepost which marks the boundary between safety and danger.”

Nikolin, his siblings and his mother are confined to their home because the family has a vendetta on their heads – the father murdered a neighbour during a street fight as a teenager. He spent time in jail but under the rules of the Kanun (Kanuni i Leke Dukagjinit) the victim’s family is allowed to take revenge on any male member of the murderer’s family, even years and years after the crime was committed.

Photo by em_diesus

According to reports, there are some 20,000 families, mainly in northern Albania, who remain in their houses (the code does not allow those seeking revenge to enter) in fear of being killed because of a crime committed years ago. This ancient practice dates back to the 15th century and was suppressed during the strict communist rule of Enver Hoxha in the 20th century. The tradition has had a revival since the fall of communism in the very poor, more traditional and remote areas of the country.

In an even more disturbing twist, the Telegraph reported last year that blood feuds have started being ‘outsourced’ to private hitmen which has doubled the number of blood feud killings in recent years.

It’s pretty amazing to read about these old, and I suppose very barbaric, medieval rules still being practiced in a European country, which aims to join the EU, on such a grand scale. The Albanian authorities certainly have a lot of work in front of them to combat these crimes and stop children and others suffering such a cruel punishment for the crimes of their extended family. Why on earth should Nikolin and the other children be denied schooling and the right to play outside with friends?

I had heard about these blood feuds before but didn’t really comprehend how serious it was in Albania, so take a look at both of the articles because they are certainly a very interested read.

What do you think of Albania’s blood feuds? Do old habits die hard? Click here to leave your comment.

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Post tags: Albania, blood feud, kanun, social issues, society

One such woman, Qamile, appointed herself as the man after her father died when she was a teenager. She wore, and still does today, traditional male clothing, cut her hair and socialised with the other men in the village. She was accepted by them as a fellow man and was even allowed to pray with them at the village mosque. It is certainly a very admiral step to take to help your family, but unfortunately, not all of these women enjoyed their new roles.

Albania is certainly a very interesting country with very old traditions many of which, such as blood feuds, continue to this very day in the more rural and undeveloped areas of the country. It’s certainly a very interesting article and it’s well worth learning a bit about this fascinating and little-known tradition.

BBC: Last of Albania’s ‘Sworn Virgins’

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Post tags: Albania, culture, tradition, women

Photo by foC

Ever since I discovered that Albania, wedged between Italy, Greece and (former) Yugoslavia, existed, the country has continually fascinated me. As a teen at high school, when the Kosovo war and NATO bombing were in full swing, I remember some UNICEF workers giving us a presentation about the aid they were providing to Albania. I was very intrigued by the thought of an extremely poverty-stricken country in the middle of Europe – I had always thought that all of Europe was pretty well-developed and rich.

I began reading some history books on the country and was fascinated that the world’s most isolated state (prior to 1992) was right next door to Italy and just above Greece, and the fact that I had not had known about this before (and, quite possibly, because they used to have a king called Zog).

I’ve never been to Albania, even though I’ve been harping on about going for the last 7 years, but I will go, one day, it’s not particularly far now, is it? However, for the time being, I’m quite content with the very interesting snapshots of daily life in Albania which the following blogs offer:

Inside Albania
A foreigner, who has lived in Tirana for ‘long enough’, shares his/her thoughts and experiences of living in the Albanian capital ‘that never sleeps’, and claims to be still ‘regularly amazed’ by life in Albania.

A Nevada Yankee in King Zog’s Court
This blog by ‘an American who accidentally stumbled into Albania and fell in love’ has some very well-thought out and interestingly written observations on life in Tirana and Albania.

Stepping Stones
Kim, an expat from Canada, shares her nice, homely tales of her life in Tirana, a far cry from her home city of Toronto. She also has photos from her travels around Tirana’s streets and other Albanian towns and villages.

Living in Shkoder, Albania
Kolin, a fellow Scotsman, abandoned his life in cold, dreary and damp Scotland in the early 1990s and settled in sunny Shkoder, a town on the Albanian-Montenegrin border. Living with his Albanian wife and three children, Kolin shares his thoughts and experiences of living in northern Albania.

So, if you’re intrigued by this small, and often forgotten, Balkan country, I recommend that you make yourself a coffee and check out these unique and interesting blogs. Enjoy!

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Post tags: Albania, blogs, Tirana