To Penzi (in English)

[Gość: pirin65]

Najpierw do forumowiczów:
Wybaczcie Państwo pewna nietypowość, ale pozwolilem sobie zaprosić do tego
forum Panią z Serbii, z ktorą będę dyskutował o różnych sprawac jej kraju i
Polski. Rozmowa bedzie po angielsku - nie wiem jak nam bedzie szlo, ale Pani
jest przemiła i symaptycznie odnosi się do Polski, a ja do demokratycznej
Serbii. Jednoczesnie zapraszam wszystkich, ktorzy tez chcieliby w dyskusji
uczestniczyć :)


To Penzi,

Dear Penzi,
I will be more than happy if you wish to stay with me inthis forum here and
discuss things and just talk, gossip, whatever. I have made a short
introduction in Polish, saying I wish to have you here (although its EU
forum, but no logging is necessary). If the moderator advises us to leave
(which I do not think he wil do) I will find something else. I have invited
others to joind us if you do not mind.

My very warm regards

Pirin

That's a great idea!

[loquin.phd]

Although I won't be able to participate, I wish you good luck for your
discussion!

Vive la Serbie i przyjaźń polsko-serbska!

Kijów do kosza, Belgrad na agendę.

[Gość: Penzi]

Hi Pirin,
Did I menage somehow? This option works without log in. If I succssed, I came
to EU without "Shengen" visa! Huraaaa! (virtualy, of course!)
Regards!
Penzi

Hi Penzi,

[Gość: pirin65]

As you can see sometimes one can be very succesful without all that hard work
that is usually needed :))

This is one of the nice forums, ie people do not swear that often and do not
call themselves names. This is why it has been allowed to use without logging
in - in the top forums (Świat = World Affairs; Kraj = Polish Affairs) the
emotions go so high sometimes that the moderators had to make logging in a
requirement. Now, one of the risks of discussing without logging in is that
some people may assume your/my identity. This may be not much of a problem for
you becaue your IP may be difficult to use but this may happen to me. If this
were to happen, then I will start to log in, but for the time being let us hope
that all will go smoothly.

I am so happy that you have reached this Forum :)))))

Pirin

Hi Penzi (again)

[pirin65]

And this time I write with my login logged in (luckily it was free).

[Gość: Penzi]

Hi, here I am again. I'm happy that I can escape abroad, even it is only
virtualy. So Pirin I have to ask you what gender are you - man or woman? This
zile_car who wrote in serbian thought that you are a man. I thought from very
begining that you are a woman. It is not very imporatant to me, but I'd like to
know. Let me tell you somehing about my self. I am an old lady, 62 years of
age. I can't tell you what my proffesion was (now I am retired) because some od
my fellowcitizen could recognize me. I live in Novi Sad. My city is small in
comparison to Belgrade. It has about 250 000 citizens (Belgrade is 10 times
bigger) Novi Sad iz about 70 km. north from Belgrade and is a capitol of the
province of Vojvodina. This province was a part of Austrian-Hyngary empire till
1918. The aboriginal people in Vojvodina is mixed. Serbs, Croats, Hungarian,
Romanians, Slovaks, Russinians, Ukrainians, Germans, and many others. We lived
in peace and tollerance until the last war started. Than the Serbs (I am the
Serb too) sudenly became a great nationalists and started to feel jeopardizided
from the others! What a nonsens! Those of us who did not shared that feellings
were excommunicated. The former started to call us traitors and forign
hirelings. We started to fight for democracy and tolerance. In the peacefull
revolution that happened in oktober 2000. we thouht that the democracy won.
What a dissapointment came later! Ooops! I've noticed that is very late, now.
Good nigt! Hope we'll continue soon.

[Gość: pirin65]

Thank you very much for this letter about yourself and other things. Let me
only tell you that it is best not to give too much personal information on any
public forum, so you have done wisely not to give your profession. We can
always share this info once we start writing private e-mails. I am 40, male,
and I live in Poznań (population about 600 000). Anything else you might want
to know about me I will be happy to write you in private e-mails (just write
to: [e-mail] and let me know on the forum you have done it). We do not
have any secret police spying here, but unfortunately there are more and more
strange people using the internet (plain stupid or vicious individuls) whom it
is best to avoid by not giving them any chance to find who you are.

I am about to finish the book of reports about Yugoslavia written by Ryszard
Bilski I wrote you about - there is not much about Vojivodina there probably
because it was relatively safe in these years compared to other regions in
SFRJ. Today I have seen in our stores a ladies' magazine with Underground DVD
in it for 9.90 PLN (=2.5 EUR).I am sure going to buy it.

I will write more soon

pirin

[Gość: Penzi]

Hi Pirin,
Here I ma again. I've tried to login. I wrote "Penzi" in the login, But the
server rejects my Haslo (password?) By us you can put letters and numbers by
your choice. When i did so, the server answered:"Haslo jest neprawidlowe"
(Password is incorect?) Should I wait on server to give me password?

Dear Penzi,

[Gość: pirin65]

First the simple things - I am so happy we have established this form of
communication. It should work fine I believe. Now, the technical things for you
if you want to register and have your e-mail account with gazeta.pl:

1. Open this link:
konto.gazeta.pl/konto/0,0.html
2. Start registering (maybe login Penzi is still free)

- kod pocztowy = postal code (write for example: 02-486 , city: Warszawa)
because I think it might not accept non-Polish postal codes

- czym się zajmujesz (what is your job?) - choose anything

- in the end, do not forget to put a yes-mark to the left of the consent:

Wyrażam zgodę na przesyłanie przez Agorę S.A. treści informacyjnych oraz treści
o charakterze informacji handlowej pochodzących od Agory S.A lub innych
podmiotów na adres poczty elektronicznej w portalu Gazeta.pl.

Note:
- you must fill in only the blue lines

- rewrite the word that they show in the picture

And it should work fine - you will have a good e-mail account with our
newspaper.

Once you have the account you can write in the forums using your permanent
login (but before you must always click: "zaloguj sie" = "log in"

Soon I will write more

Regards

Pirin (40)

[Gość: Penzi]

Dear Pirin, you are only three years older than my dauther. So, if I am dull,
you just tell me, and I'll stop. This way of communications will do. Maybe I
don't nedd to log in.
Perhaps you don't know about Vojvodina, but our province is not so quiet as
you think. During the last war, many refugees came here. The refugees from
Croatia and Bosnia. They found a new accomodation here by ethnic cleansing the
domestical Croats. The refugees didn't do it by their own choice. Mr. Milosevic
and especially Mr. Seselj organised these things. Mr Seselj cinically called
it "The retorsion". He and his companions disloged thousands unserb people from
Vojvodina. What a shame! What a sin! I feel compassion for the refugees on both
sides! Because of this things mr. Seselj is now in ICTY, acused for war crime.
He was also a commander of paramillitary formations named "White Eagles". They
have done a lot of crimes in Croatia and Bosnia. But the most incredible thing
is that his political league still exists and has a great support from ordinary
people. Last septemer we had an elections for local government. They won in
Novi Sad (because of so many refugees). Now we have a mayor from SRS (srpska
radikalna stranka), and radical local parlament. What a shame! When I heard the
results of local ellections I wished to be dead! Now I must stop writing, my
grandson (he is 9 year old) wants the computer. He needs it for his homework.
Regards from Penzi.

[Gość: pirin65]

Oh, no, do not even try to think this way (age, etc.)!!! It is you who is doing
me a favour and discussing things with me - things I so much want to know more
about. To have a virtual friend like you is pure pleasure and my good luck -
just look at what kind of answers I was getting on the RTS forum!! It was so
sorrowful and pathetic (sorry to say so, but you yourself described them
accurately in your last reply of today on the RTS forum - thank you).

Thank you for all the accounts (I will soon write you something about Poland if
you wish). Now, I understand that life in Serbia (including Vojivodina) has
somehow returned to more or less normal status. I just wonder what the
situation in the economy is, eg what is the pay of a teacher in Novi Sad, or
what is the unemployment level? Did Serbia regain some of its economic capacity
(I mean manufacturing, first of all)? Coming back to my questions from the
initial post on RTS - how is it with Srpska republika - does it still exist (I
Know Krajina was annexed by Croatia). I also understand that Bosnia and
Hercegovina is a state now - is Srpska part of BiH? In the book I have
mentioned by R. Bilski there is much about secret dealings between Milosevic
and Tudjman - Milosevic is said to have made a deal with Tudjman and as a
result people from Krajina (Serbs I mean) were unnecessarily instigated by
their Serbian authorities to start leaving the area supposedly to escape the
great attack (Oluja) by the Croats. Then it turned out that Belgrade just
wanted these Serbs in Srpska to improve the ethnic composition of the area.
What I understand (and what you wrote about) is that you have hundreds of
thousands of Serbs, Croats and others (eg Muslims - I know it is not a
nationality) that had to leave and now they live in each other's houses, so to
say. It was strange to me to find out that a city like Knin (so close to
Adriatic and Croatia) was a matter of dispute and was part of Krajina - the
borders of Krajina were so bizzare that knowing the whole situation you could
immediately say that this "semi-state" will never be able to exist, as the
Croats would not allow it.

As for the present times - are you free to travel - I mean do you have
passports at home and do you need any visas to go to, for example, Poland or
other EU countries? And what about the roads - are all, or most, of the roads
on maps passable or are some of them destroyed (eg as a result of NATO
bombings)? Is it easy to get to Novi Sad from Hungary?

That much for now - excuse this bulk of questions I can show my gratitude by
telling you things about Poland if you wish :)

Pirin

[Gość: Penzi]

Pirin, you are very well informed about the events in former Yugoslavia. That
book you've mentioned vas very helpfull! What else can I say? Yes, Republika
Srpska still exists, but as a part of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Anyway, BiH is a
strange state. They have two entities, one central and two entities
governments. But the suprime governer of BiH is mr. Paddy Ashdown (if I spelled
his name correct). He can change and recall every politician and statesman if
he wants. That means that BiH is a protectorate, not a real state. The same is
with the province of Kosovo. Kosovo used to be the province of Serbia, now is a
protectorate, and who knows where and when this problem vill be solved. The
other parts of Serbia are now safe. We have many foreign tourists, visiting
Belgrade, Vojvodina, beutifull mountains and lakes, aswell as the baths with
geotermal watter. The tourists use to say that Vrnjacka Banja is very alike to
Baden-Baden, or Karlove Vary! In the last 15 years we can't travel anywhere
without visa. The exeptions are, as I know, only Bulgaria ant Turkey and North
African states (i.e. Tunis, Egypt etc). For Hungary, witch is our nearest
neighbour we need the "Shengen" visa, aswell as for other members of EU. I
don't know why. Maybe they are afraid of refugees. But they shouldn't be!
Everybody who wanted to escape from Serbia, has already escaped, or could find
the way how to escape! Many od young, educated people are already settled in
EU, USA, Canada, even Australia and New Zeland. Our economy recovers, but very
slowly. We did not reah the level that we had in 1989. (the last peacefull year
in ex SFRJ) About 25-30% of young people are unemployed, the selleries are low
and the most people are poor. Our retirement paychecks are miserable. But I
don't want to surrender myself. I am still figthing (in my way) for better life
for my children and the grandson. I hope that this boy will have a decent life
and beutifull youth, as we used to have.
"See you"! Penzi

[Gość: pirin65]

Dear Penzi,

If this is all right with you I think that in addition to this forum which we
may still stay on we might try some e-mails. Write to me to [e-mail],
please, and choose some of your e-mail that I could use.

Warm regards

Pirin

One question

[Gość: Penzi]

What is going on i EU? What is your opinion!France and Holland rejected the
Euroconstitution? Why? Only because of Turkey? I doubt! Will the EU last untill
Serbia fullfils all condition to become a new member?

EU issues

[Gość: pirin65]

My understanding of the situation is as follows: The Constitution has long been
rejected in numerous circles - The Economist has long been against the
Constitution (though it is British based). Do not forget that the Const. was
drafted by some elitist circles (including Valery DEstaigne - a friend of
former Bocassa emperor - a very nasty figure, indeed). I must say I did not
read the document - I did not even see it in reality and I think the people in
the West just thought it ridiculous to vote Yes on sth they did not know what
it is and it just smelled of the elitist, closed circles of Paris ad Brussels
that tehy dislike in general. I believe the good core and patterns of the EU
shall stay the way they are with more members inflowing (Bulgaria, Romania, and
later Serbia, I am sure). I also think that there is so much regulation in the
EU that one more big bureucrat thing like this Constitution was not necessary.
I do hope the EU is going in the right direction without the Constitution - I
am sure we shall soon travel freely across the Balkans - it is a matter of 4-6
years I hope. Moreover, the people in the West may be more conservative than we
think. And a conservative (like myself) thinks this way: "Do not mess too much
with sth that is working all right." And the EU is, though it certainly needs
more members included in a step by step process.

Warm regards

Pirin





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