Southern Serbia, Ajvar, Grozdober & the Grape Harvest

Where to begin—life’s been non-stop lately. Autumn is officially here and while the month began grey and cool it’s now southern California like—mostly sunny and in the 80s. I’ve begun my recruiting season with a lot of preparation here in Skopje and a visit to southern Serbia last week. With two colleagues, an American from our Belgrade office and a Kosovar from our Priština office, we met in one of the most southern Serbian towns, Vranje. A town of 55,000 (according to my Lonely Planet), it’s just a half hour over the border from Macedonia and in the Preševo Valley. Its proximity means its dialect its distinctly mixed—predominantly Serbian but with some Macedonian similarities, and famous as a result. Apparently it was used in several films to create a distinct flavor for the characters way of speaking. A “southern accent”, if you will.

The town was cute though—on an incline as it led to a castle and small mountains beyond, but sophisticated enough. Further, its location lends to a diverse lot on the streets. Despite it being inhabited by mostly Serbs, there are several towns and areas around that are in fact predominantly ethnic Albanian. We had several students come to our exams from these areas, but I also heard Albanian spoken on the streets and in the bus. The town of Bujanovac just south is particularly Albanian—all the signs I saw as I went through were in the language, as is the town of Preševo itself. The area, unfortunately, is also well known regionally for conflict between the Yugoslav security forces and Albanian population. Atrocities occurred here and around that are still being resolved, including news this week of two Albanian-American brothers who were killed by Serb forces and dumped in mass graves in 1999, and that those accused were acquitted for it in trial. On a lighter note, I’ll return to Vranje in a few weeks for a few more days and hope to have a closer look around. Next week though I’ll be in Albania for the entire week—in Fier and Tirana. More on that later.

Here in Macedonia, I’ve enjoyed the shift to the autumn season. With more pleasant and hospitable weather, people are out and in neighborhoods, towns, villages, making “zimnici”—jarred winter goods. These include jams, vegetables, and most famous of all, ajvar. Ajvar is a condiment made from roasted red peppers and eggplant, which is then peeled, chopped, and stewed for hours. The process is arduous but the result a delight, and I was fortunate enough to take part in it with my in-laws. As I mentioned that day on Facebook, it was 60 kilograms (130+ pounds) of peppers that we roasted, which was quite time consuming. Stewing and jarring didn’t come until day two, but what’s most glorious in addition to the smell in the air is the cleaning of the pot with a loaf of bread at the end!

Politically, I wanted to mention an interested and overdue change that’s come about this week—the Macedonian government will change the seal of the country. As can be seen, the seal was created in 1946 for a Yugoslav Macedonia and reflects a socialist and agrarian tradition. While the latter may still be the case, the red star will be removed and the imagery may change as well. This makes sense, in my opinion, as Yugoslavia is a country long gone, and Macedonia should (and has already in other ways) re-brand itself for a new era.



Last but not least, I want to build on this agricultural note to mention the grape harvest and changes in the life of grape growers here. As my in-laws live in the wine region and have small vineyards themselves, we spend much time there. The “Grozdober”, or grape picking festival, was thus not to be missed! It is actually a relatively recent affair, but includes parades of schools children, farmers, motorcycles and more, as well as concerts and plenty of barbecue, beer, and wine in the streets and parks of downtown Kavadarci—the “capital” of the Tikveš wine region.

What’s most interesting about Tikveš though, and which I intend to do PhD research in, are the changes that have occurred then since the fall of socialism. Although the country has had relatively significant foreign direct investment (FDI) in recent years with its “Invest in Macedonia” campaign, the privatization of formerly state owned enterprises, entrepreneurship, and increased tourism, the post-socialist transition has created a much greater disparity between rich and poor than existed before. Macedonia’s significant grape and wine industry has not been left aside. Privatization and a changing economy have meant both investment by foreign and domestic interests, and a split between the business-oriented class that benefits from the new economic order and the traditional, land-oriented farmers. In the grape industry, with prices falling along with government subsidies annually, grape collectors and wineries are profiting and growers suffering.

Whereas during the socialist Yugoslav era there were only a handful of public grape collectors (vizbi) and wineries in Macedonia, there are now dozens. With a drive for increased wine-tourism and production, the quality and variety of grapes and wines has improved. Unfortunately, what have not changed for the better are the quantities of grapes produced and the lot of the growers. Unlike in the past when grape growers were paid a guaranteed price for their grapes, they have more recently been left at the whim of wine producers and the market. Although it could be argued that this may be necessary in order to improve grape and wine production, grape growers, their families, and surrounding communities whose lives depend on the vineyards have been marginalized by the shift from a subsidized system to a less regulated, “free market” one. Such as in other countries where protesting farmers can wreak havoc (the dairy protests in Western Europe this week come to mind), there are political ramifications as well: Just this year grape growers have demanded 30% higher prices for their grapes (which is small given the incredibly low price of grapes—approximately $.15/kg), protested, attacked some businessmen affiliated with the Tikveš winery, threatened to leave their grapes unpicked, and some have even abandoned their vineyards and migrated to Italy to work for significantly higher wages (try 2,000 euros a month compared with 200-300 euros in Macedonia).

Combined with increasing prices for food, commodities, and utilities in the country, rural communities feel unable to buy what is deemed necessary to maintain a modern standard of living, and are being forced to change their customs and lifestyles as a result. While the marketplace may be to blame for this, the reluctance or uncertainty of grape growers to change is another aspect to take into consideration; growers seem slow to realize that they must change. Forming strong agribusiness associations, which exist in Greece and other EU countries, would likely improve their lot (though perhaps cause greater protests!). Such associations allow growers to collectively make purchases, lobby for their greater good, and embark on the expansion of their business endeavors. Yet many growers in Tikveš remain too uncertain and perhaps distrusting of each other, and unaware as to how they should go about taking such action. I’m indeed interested in examining further not only how the livelihoods and identity of grape growers in Tikveš are in constant flux as a result of changing economy and competitiveness in the grape and wine industry, but what factors contribute to their inability to better protect themselves and their industry, given how vital it is to the Macedonian economy. One should look beyond economics and the marketplace to the myriad factors that compose the changes occurring in Macedonia as a result of privatization and free market development, as they are in fact a complex web of culture, patronage, and politics.

Back in the Yugosphere

I recently read an Economist article about the thriving “Yugosphere” of trade—commerce minus the ethno-nationalism. Money does make the world go round, but whether post-Yugoslav business has gotten so good as to put aside the 1990s and before, I’m reluctant to believe. Regardless, I like the term and notions of spheres. For unlike the square cut states of the US (admittedly not all) and our predisposition to like things boxy, the notion of overlapping circles of people, society, influence, are much more applicable to the real world. Well, here in the Balkans at least.

Back in Macedonia this last week after nearly a month away, I’ve again felt refreshingly foreign. Having been elsewhere in Europe and home in the US, I’ve been contrasting things again in a “bi-cultural” manner. Primarily, (and stealing another term, though one from an anthro course long ago), it’s the “social life of things” (Appadurai, for anyone who knows him) here that really puts life in contrast to that in the US.

Now don’t get me wrong—people are friendly in the Midwest where I’m from, but the extent to which we socialize and perceive our time as ours is in fact quite different. For example, a large family lunch my wife and I went to when we were visiting Indiana a few weeks ago included a couple of aunts and uncles and some of their kids (all adults though). However, unlike in Macedonia where a family lunch of that nature—a reunion, or just at the weekend—will last hours, if not all afternoon into the evening, my cousins all departed with an hour of arriving, having other things to do (two admittedly have children who they needed to attend to apparently). Yet lunch only then lasted another hour, and things wrapped up—the eating, and moreso, the several concurrent conversations occurring at once. And this is another difference between here and home—in the US we all want to be engaged in conversation, whereas here, unless it’s a very large group, people often sit around listening to one person speak at a time, or a conversation that’s passed off as it changes. “Macedonia, Timeless…”

Thus the social life of things in a general sense is quite different. Even last weekend we spent with my wife’s family at their weekend house, and when her parents departed the evening before us, some neighbors came over and insisted that for us “not to be alone” we should come over to their place. We had to say no a few times for them to back off, as it’s really not a part of Macedonian culture to be on ones own, even a young couple. And independently? Most Peace Corps volunteers here know the feeling of going through culture shock while living with a host family during training and wanting to just be alone, to read or write or think or sleep(!) But it just doesn’t work like that—when you’re awake you should be with other people. It’s not written as such, but that’s largely how it is. It honestly makes me wonder when people have time to reflect. I think the notion of reflection is thus somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. I couldn’t say how many cultures value it, but it seems to be a characteristic of an individualistic society, and thus in the US we tend to consider it a value that we learn and grow from. Americans don’t want unsolicited advice, we want to figure things out for ourselves.

In Macedonia? Society and cultural customs are far more complex. Children are given much more freedom in some regards, but they’re quickly indoctrinated into the family and very much raised by it. These are somewhat of generalizations, but overall, while in the US we consider ourselves to raise our children, they are actually very much raised through their education, extracurricular activities, and things they’re exposed to through extreme exposure to various media. Whereas I’ve always thought “I must return to the US to raise my kids (for the educational system),” I’ve met Macedonians who’d lived abroad and returned here for the opposite reason once their children reached school-age—they want their children around their family and culture (to heck with the school system!) This is without a doubt a reflection of the economic system in which the two countries I write about live under—one is wealthy and one much less so, but it’s also cross-cultural. What is available for consumption in Macedonia pales in comparison to the US, and the notion that good education will always lead to success is not highly considered here, particularly post-socialist and perhaps more among the Albanian minority (who were largely excluded from the benefits of the socialist machine). Less educated (institutionally), their financial success today is evidence of this. But to make my point: it's not all materialism here (or hasn't been in recent decades), and thus I'd wager to say that the family unit and the culture from it is deemed more valuable than in the US, where we cherish the notion of the nuclear family, but have much less of it overall and expect the system and society to be a large part of our lives. Within them is where we live, work, spend, buy...

Yet speaking of the “things” aspect of Appadurai’s statement, it was his economic anthropological work assessing cultural values of commodities that led him to write his book titled as such. His research explored how in one South Pacific island culture TVs were seen as prestigious items, even when there was no electricity to power them. Plastic bags were less prestigious but nonetheless seen as foreign and used in various ways for practical and material purposes.

To this end, while Macedonia is an industrialized country, their poor economy would make one think that consumption and goods might play less of a role in their lifestyle. They admittedly buy fewer new items (does anyone buy more than Americans?), but something that’s long fascinated me here is the prestige associated with commodities, particularly technology. Anyone who knows Mediterranean culture knows that image is an important aspect of peoples’ lives, but Macedonians have several customs associated with products and purchases that seem unusual to Americans at first.

In particular is style over practicality, such as in dressing certain ways and showing off by purchasing expensive items (from new phones to cars) when one truly doesn’t have the money to do so. Their commodities may be being used, but for their intended purpose? What does a barely employed guy need with a Blackberry or iPhone? This happens stateside, but perhaps because of our development of such technology and the technology gap, I would say Americans understand the functionality of the technology and use it as such—sms, email, internet, etc.—and much more frequently.

Technology aside (though I’m always fascinated with our use of it, despite my personal technological ineptitude!), also on my mind recently has been work ethic and moreso behavior within the workplace. As we see when growing up, many Americans work long hours, often being absent from home for at least nine if not ten, eleven, twelve hours a day, merely for their job. In addition to the lengthy workdays, we have a pressure filled work environment where “if there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean [house].” The movie Office Space summed it up well—the busy-ness, bureacracy, and rather beguiling way we’re convinced to work long days (money, but also "team" effort, corporate spirit, "flare"...). Not to mention, it’s a job and without it one's life can be purposeless.

But here, things are very different. A job is valued as something to have which provides income, but once it’s gotten people tend to take it easy. Not to say there are no hard working individuals here, but there’s much more an attitude of “we’ll get the work done when it’s time…in the meantime, let’s drink coffee and shoot the breeze.” And team spirit? Not much. A work environment, in my experience, is more pleasure filled and laidback, but perhaps lacking in advancement—the work may get done, but if everything’s at the last minute there’s not much time to make corrections or revisions. (Perhaps that’s just the writing instructor in me, but this happened today at work…) A lack of incentives to work hard (eg, moving up the "ladder") though is certainly a factor...

Well, must wrap up this note, but wanted to try to post given the swift disappearance of the month of August. A fantastic wedding in Italy, then a visit home, and return via Kyiv kept me quite busy. My job though, with American Councils, will put me on the road a good deal in the coming months, as I travel to Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Bosnia, in addition to throughout Macedonia, repeatedly, so hopefully I’ll have more fodder to share. Thanks for reading and happy Labor Day (and on September 8, Macedonian Independence Day!)