One of the best things you can do with your time is hire a boat that you can sleep on and float up a river for a few days.
Time stops.
Absorb the weather, whatever form it takes, but sunny is best. Breathe in the air. Sleep as the boat gently bobs up and down. Contemplate. Talk. Play games. Eat. Swim.
Peace descends and nothing much matters any more.
I’ve done this several times on the Thames and, having just spent a few days in Serbia, I now plan to do the same thing on the Danube. I just had a little taster.
I flew out to Serbia because I was speaking and performing at Liberpulco, the European brother of Anarchapulco, an anarchy meet-up - I hesitate to call it a conference - held every year in Acapulco. The idea is that the European version should take place in Liberland.
Wait! What? Where?
Gornja Siga is a small area of river islands and floodplain in the Danube about three square miles in size (more when the river is low). For some context, it would be about the size of Gibraltar.
The Danube forms the border between Serbia and Croatia. Following the break-up of Yugoslavia, there was no agreement as to who owned this floodplain. It was terra nulla.
Enter Vít Jedlička, a Czech politician and entrepreneur, who declared the territory the Free Republic of Liberland and has been trying to establish his own micronation ever since. “We are building the greatest tax haven the world has ever seen,” I once heard him declare in a presentation.
Jedlička is a wonderful speaker, a great publicist and highly entrepreneurial. For obvious reasons, the project appealed to alienated libertarians around the world.
He began selling passports and citizenship. He appointed various ministers. The nation’s coffers were held in bitcoin. The nation even declares an annual profit.
However, he needs another nation to recognise Liberland, which no one has yet done (despite, I gather, Argentine president Javier Millei being a citizen), and of course the idea has gone down like a bucket of sick at the UN.
You also can’t currently access the island by boat from Serbia without running into the Croatian police. If you should attempt to dock your boat, the police will arrest you. I think the grounds are entering the EU illegally. I swam to within about 5 feet of depth but then lost my nerve as the Croatia police boat approached and swam back into deeper water.
Keeping a boat permanently stationed there is costing the Croatian police millions. Most days nothing happens. The police just sit there bored. What a waste of a life.
You can access Liberland from the Croatian side, and some settlers live there in tents. Might for fun for a bit, but probably not a long-term option except for the most dedicated.
Jedlička has now bought a plot of land beside a lake in the nearby Serbian town of Apatin, called it Ark and declared a government in exile. They have built a campsite, a small conference centre and various other facilities. It feels as much like a holiday resort as a country.
Here is your author by said lake giving his best salmon impersonation.
I don’t know the ins and outs of the whole thing, but the project appeals to me if only because I find its sheer irreverence very funny. And because everyone wants to start their own nation. Who actually does?
So that was what brought me to Serbia. And I am most grateful to the organizers for having me.
Dogs and cigarettes
We flew into Belgrade, which itself is a tricky place to get to (try getting there from the south of France) and from there drove three hours to the town of Sombor and our hotel.
I loved Sombor.
I felt as though I had gone back in time to how European cities used to be: sleepy, friendly and safe. The country is 99% Christian Orthodox, and, from what little I experienced, both there and in Belgrade pretty monocultural. Serbs mostly seem to speak very good English. They are shy, polite, respectful, ambitious, hard working, driven and they take whatever they are doing very seriously.
It’s not like many other countries I could mention where you get accosted everywhere you go. People mostly left you alone to get on with whatever you were doing. But if you needed anything, they couldn’t have been more helpful.
In Belgrade, for example, taxis don’t seem to stop on the street and there is no Uber. It took me more than 24 hours to work this out. But randoms on the street were more than happy to stop, get their phones out and call a taxi for me. If I asked a random in London to call me a taxi, Lord knows where that would end up.
The food was delicious. Lots of trout, catfish and pork. Not particularly cheap.
People looked pretty healthy, I must say. No rampant obesity. Although there were plenty of older men who looked as though they had drunk their fair share of beer over the years.
That was another thing that took me back in time. Everybody smokes. Lots of sitting around in cafés, smoking and presumably discussing existentialism. You go into restaurants and there is a smoking area and a non-smoking area, and the smoking area is often more crowded. I’m so used to non-smoking restaurants that I have to say I didn’t particularly like the smell.
Belgrade was the same. Not particularly cheap. Some excellent food. As good a steak as I have ever eaten.
Av ery high dog per capita ratio too. Everyone seems to own a dog and, what I liked, even in the capital many seemed to walk their dogs off a lead. Like the UK in the 1970s early 80s before pitbulls, health and safety arrived.
Belgrade’s location where the Danube and Sava rivers meet means it has been enormously important strategically. How about this for a stat? It has been fought over in 115 wars and razed 44 times
Lots of splendid Orthodox churches. Look at all that gold leaf.
Quite a bit of graffiti too. I couldn’t understand what it said, but presumably something to do with the war.
It has an unpopular and corrupt government that faces weekly protests. According to one taxi driver, always a reliable source of political opinion, it promises to join the EU and never does. Like somewhere else I could mention, the population is split 50:50 as to whether joining the EU is a good idea or not.
A beautiful central park with a fortress that looks like Helms Deep. Lovely walks along the Danube. Lots of views. Here’s one of them.
I managed to rupture a tendon in my knee playing pickleball a month back, and this gave me an unexpected insight into the Serbian healthcare system. My knee was hurting so I took to google and got an appointment that same day with an orthopaedic surgeon. The clinic was not in the centre of town so we got some insight into ‘the real Belgrade”. What struck me was the relationship between the doctors and their patients. It seemed so good. They all seemed to know each other. There was affection. They seemed to feel part of the same community. It was so good to see.
I then had an MRI the following day, all for about a quarter of what I would have expected to pay in the UK. That was a good experience too.
I liked Serbia and will go back. Next time I am going to get a boat and drift up the Danube for a few days. There is something about being on a river that strips life down to its essentials. For a few days at least, I will drift, gently sway, bob up and down and nothing much will matter any more.
Here is this week’s commentary, in case you missed it.
The Three Financial Storms on the Horizon
Yes, physical gold is a safe haven, but gold also attracts a lot of speculative capital, particularly the paper markets. Gold futures are among the most traded futures in the world, and there is nothing physical about them. So when there is a panic, gold tends to sell off along with everything else as liquidity dries up and everyone rushes to cash.
Until next time,
Happy Sunday,
Dominic
If you live in a third world country such as the UK, I urge you to own gold or silver. The pound will be further devalued, as will the euro and dollar. The bullion dealer I use and recommend is The Pure Gold Company. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe. More here.
