The Blue Vet Diary

 

Robert Popa was indignant when I entered his consulting room in Timisoara, in the most western corner of Romania, and the image I saw was just all too familiar to me:

Robert had just examined a one-year-old terrier with a non-weight bearing lameness that had for all of two weeks not responded to rest and oral pain killers.

Only reluctantly his owners had decided to seek a second opinion.

While already a limited clinical examination had been anything but encouraging, a set of radiographs had confirmed the diagnosis Robert had feared when his patient had limped through the door ….

Presenting a classic example of why it is important to take whenever possible two or more X-Rays of an area of concern, the first- cranio-caudal – film had implied a seemingly normal alignment of the bones, while the second film had unmistakably confirmed the presence of a distal diaphysial femur fracture.

Over the preceding two weeks, callus formation and muscle contracture had managed to immobilise the break somewhat, but one could just imagine, in how much pain this dog must have been.

What had frustrated Robert most was not only the time it had taken to get the condition diagnosed,  but the reluctance of the owners, who had arrived in a shiny new Bavarian SUV, to consent to the long overdue surgical management of this injury for the very reasonable fee of 400 Euros or the equivalent of a couple of tank fillings of their car….

“Ok, we will think about it…” was their – not very encouraging – reply, before leaving the clinic with their still half sedated canine companion……

While the cost of veterinary care is slowly catching up with other continental European countries, there are still many pet owners in Romania, that consider spending money on a dog or a cat as a superfluous expense.

Just an hour earlier I had arrived at the small airport of Timisoara, a city that had been completely off my radar, but a place I should have heard of, not at least because it was the first town in Europe that had a horse drawn tram (an excusable knowledge gap), the first place in continental Europe with electric street lights (less excusable…) and  the home of at least two Nobel laureates (inexcusable….) plus the birth place of Johnny Weismuller, the Olympic swimmer and world famous Tarzan actor (completely inexcusable….).

Here Oana and Robert Popa had designed and built their own functional and well-maintained veterinary clinic. Their team provided not only first opinion care, but the couple had also established a reputation as a referral center for more demanding cardiology, dermatology and orthopaedic cases.

While a standard consultation here had a comparably priced fee of 30 Euros, a cardiology referral appointment for 120 Euros appeared rather inexpensive to me.

Pet insurance cover and health plans remain virtually unheard of in Romania, and while telemedicine services are available, here in Timisoara, they did not seem to be used routinely by veterinary clients.

When a small dog with an acute onset of gastroenteritis entered as the next patient, I witnessed a familiar picture which  I had observed before in many other Eastern European countries: both the patient and the client were admitted to a dedicated room, where the owner had the opportunity or was expected to stay with their dog during the administration of i/v fluids. The introduction of the smart phone in combination with the availability of an excellent wifi connection had replaced in this situation the need to bring along a good book…..

The small and functional consulting rooms, equipped with foldable examination tables and the seamless, rounded connection of the flooring with the walls, were an indicator of how much thought had gone into the design of every little detail at this clinic.

While the vast majority of Romania’s veterinary practices – like Oana and Robert’s place in Timisoara – remain in private hands, the first national and international corporate groups have already started to take an interest into this fast-advancing, new veterinary market.  

The professional progress made in Romania can also be judged by the steadily increasing delegate numbers at the annual congress of AMVAC, the Romanian Small Animal Veterinary Association, which is held in the autumn in the city of Sinaia, in the center of the country. By now the congress has firmly established itself on the list of events of note on the international veterinary speakers’ circuit.

Looking at the clinic’s drug shelves, the in-house laboratory, the posters about the judicious use of antibiotics or at the screens of the fully computerised practice management system, that allowed a direct transfer of all digital imaging into the patient files, I could not see much difference to most UK veterinary clinics these days.

Somewhat unsettling I found a poster in one of the consulting rooms, displaying not less than nine different native species of snakes. However, following my comment on this, Robert assured me, that the poster had more to do with the interest of one of his colleagues in exotic animals and wildlife species, rather than with a heavy case load of snake bites, which in fact – at least in the region around Timisoara – he had not encountered in years.  

Once again it struck me, that Oana and Robert’s clinic in Timisoara were another testimony of the impact of the international exchange of knowledge and transfer of both clinical and management skills. Clearly a result of the important work of international veterinary organisations, exchange programmes and surely also of the uninhibited flow of information in a digital world.

While this stream of knowledge over the last decades has been running from the West to the East, it becomes progressively apparent, that the tide – not only in Timisoara – is rapidly turning.

 

“She’s got a smile that seems to me

Reminds me of childhood memories

Where everything was as fresh

As the bright blue sky

Now and then when I see her face

She takes me away to that special place

And if I stared too long,

I’d probably break down and cry….”

                                        (Sweet Child O’Mine, Guns N Roses)

 

It was 11 o’clock at night when Denis phoned and he was unapologetic:

“Listen man…. Laurent is coming and at the same weekend Guns N’ Roses are playing in Belgrade! So, no way that you can refuse that !…..”

He had a point …..

Denis Novak, one of the partners of the family owned Veterinary Clinic Novak – an institution not only in Serbia’s capital, but a place that over the years had been visited by all the Great and the Good in Companion Animal Veterinary Medicine, a disruptor and rethinker of veterinary continuing education on the Balkan and in many other Eastern European countries, a connoisseur of good rock music, addicted to dark fruit juices (preferably freshly squeezed blueberry juice) and authentic Italian pizzas (strictly limited to Margheritas), had – once again – an offer for me, that was impossible to resist.

Laurent Locquet, a fast rising star of veterinary cardiology, who, when not applying his trade at some of the UK’s finest veterinary referral clinics, can usually be found scanning the hearts of tigers, lions, chimpanzees and other more unusual creatures or designing smart phone applications to improve the cardiac care of both humans and animals, had – following some serious arm twisting by Denis – agreed to pass on some of his knowledge and skills of cardiac ultrasonography at Denis’ training facility near Belgrade. A free concert ticket had apparently been the ultimate argument….

Four weeks later, and I found myself together with Laurent and Denis right in the center of the crowd in-front of the stage at the Gun’s N Roses concert venue not far way from the Sava river…..

I have to admit, that I am not a great fan of large crowds, but once we had identified the place with the best acoustics, there wasn’t too much of a squeeze and fans who had travelled from around the world, were reassuringly polite and relaxed with each other.

Gun’s N Roses, like so many other groups that had come to fame and fortune at the end of the last century, were giving their career a final push this summer with another concert tour, possibly to show that they still “could do it !” and certainly to cash in ‘big time’ once again.

While some of these performances were of questionable merit and at some occasions provided extremely poor value for money, the same could not have been said for what Axl Rose and his band had install for us over the following three hours of non-stop performance…

40 years of repertoire were rolled out to an enthusiastic crowd, below a cloudless night sky. People of all ages were dancing to ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’, ‘Paradise City’, ‘Patience’ and ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ or to a few solo guitar performances by Slash or Duff McKagan.

This was rock music at its finest and some decades old T-shirts worn by die hard enthusiasts vouched for a lifelong love affair.

Axl Rose was drenched in sweat after the first hour. Slash’s guitars were exchanged faster than you could down a can of lager.

During the guitar intro of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, the combined amplification of well beyond 100 000 watts appeared to make the loudspeakers glow red hot, putting a real strain on Belgrade’s electricity grid. As a result, the reverberation of the rhythm of the drums through the rib cages, the shredding on the guitars and the melodies of the lyrics massaged the thirsty ear drums of every lucky ticket holder in a thoroughly physical interaction with the music – something that only live performances are able to achieve.

What a night….

The next morning it was time for the performance of a veterinary ‘rock star’ supported by a happy band of Scottish Terriers.

Just outside of the capital, in a room equipped with padded examination tables and a number of ultrasound machines, Laurent took a group of veterinarians, that had arrived from all over Europe, on a ‘Tour de Force’ through the intricacies of cardiac ultrasonography.

While the dogs visibly enjoyed the stroking and the constant attention, every little details of their hearts were measured, the function of their valves was assessed, the ratio of the diameters and the volumes of different chambers were compared and the velocity and the direction of their blood circulation was displayed in vibrant colours on the adjacent monitors.

Once again the ears were tuned, this time to the rhythm of pulse waves that were entering and exiting canine hearts.

While Laurent didn’t need to break the same amount of sweat as Axl Rose the previous night, his performance left an equally lasting impression on his audience and in addition, one that is likely to benefit dogs with failing hearts for many years to come….

 

‘Cause nothin’ lasts forever

And we both know hearts can change

And it’s hard to hold a candle

In the cold November rain’

                        (November Rain, Guns N Roses)

 

Oleksandr Nazaryshyn was preparing his consulting room for a busy afternoon surgery. Outside his small practice on the ground floor of a multi storey building in Irpin, just a few miles west of Kyiv, pet owners already started to queue to have their animals seen.

Together with his colleague Alina Klechanovska, a native of the nearby town of Bucha, all veterinary care they provided in this small practice was free of charge and entirely funded through donations to the Four Paws animal welfare charity and to UVMF, the Ukrainian Veterinary Medical Foundation.

Their small clinic provided predominantly preventative care including vaccinations, anti-parasitic treatments, minor surgeries and neutering procedures. For the latter, Oleksandr still used and cherished the scalpel and the needle holder of his grandfather, who also used to be a veterinary surgeon.

The service Oleksandr and Alina provided, was much appreciated by the local residents, who were mostly refugees in their own country, with very limited means of income.

Standing outside the practice, which was conveniently located right next to an excellent coffee shop, it was hard to imagine, that this neighbourhood had seen some of the worst fighting at the beginning of the war. More than 70% of the buildings had been damaged or levelled to the ground and yet, due to a well working re-building programme and helped by international funding, I found myself surrounded by well attended modern apartment blocks with a number of playgrounds and a good variety of shops. While some of the buildings still showed some signs of damage caused by shrapnel and bullets, lagged this neighbourhood completely the familiar tristesse and ennui of traditional soviet style suburbias.

It makes sense, that physical and mental healing is progressing much better in a healthy environment and this was, what was provided here, both for humans as well as for their pets.

On our way back to Kyiv, I asked Nadia, a colleague from Zaporizhzhia who was driving, to stop at a sight, that had caught my eye just next to the road when we were entering the town.

A huge pile of mangled bodies of destroyed and often burned out cars and vans, all left to the elements and by now covered with a solid layer of rust, had been left in the middle of a parking place. This was Irpin’s ‘car cemetery’.

More than any man-made sculpture, each of these cars told its own story of fear, terror and tragedy. These cars were left behind by local families that had tried to escape the advancing Russian troops at the beginning of the invasion. Most of these cars were carrying women, children, elderly people and family pets and a few hastily grasped belongings.  

 

Some of the cars were left behind when no further progress could be made, as the only bridge connecting Irpin with Kyiv had to be destroyed by the defending Ukrainian army, forcing the civilians north of the bridge to flee on foot. These were the lucky ones….

There were numerous cars, that showed signs of bullet holes and nearby explosions and one could just imagine what horrors must have happened in these vehicles when they were overtaken by the advancing Russian forces….

Some artists had tried and failed to improve this place of carnage by painting sun flowers, the probably most iconic of all Ukrainian plants, on the outside of some of the destroyed vehicles, but while the buildings in towns like Bucha and Irpin could be restored, will this never be the case for the people and the animals who lost their lives or who had to witness what human beings can do to each other, not only in the dark days at the beginning of the invasion, but also in the still ongoing conflict…..  

 

We were just approaching the Maidan, the very heart of Kyiv, which by now was a Sea of blue and yellow flags that were commemorating fallen Ukrainian soldiers, when my phone exploded with the sounds of my first real air raid alarm.

Both drones as well as rockets were approaching the capital, and we had to take cover.

“I know just the right spot for us” said Andrij, my trusted companion. “Just follow me….”

While heading north-west in no great hurry towards the glass dome of the Globus shopping mall, Andrij explained that an air raid alarm in Kyiv usually leaves you 10-15 minutes time to retreat to a safe place. There was more time to react in Lviv and understandably far less in Kharkiv or in Kherson, which were much closer to the front line.

Right next to the dome we descended into the underground and found ourselves in-front of a door with an illuminated sign with Cyrillic letters I could not read.

We entered and after a few more steps we found ourselves in a dark room, with countless hands protruding out of a black wall.

This unusual barrier was guarded by a young girl who demanded a password from us to proceed…

Overcoming initial confusion and puzzlement by this unexpected demand and helped by a little nudge from the gate keeper, Andrij eventually recalled the quintessential passage of Taras Shevchenko’s poem “The Caucasus”, which was both a verbal attack against 19^th century Russian Imperialism as well as an elegy for his fallen friend Yakiv de Balmen, and he said:

“Boritesya – poborete!”  – Fight on and you will prevail!

yet without the following passage, which stated that “God is on your side”.

And sure enough…. the seemingly impenetrable black wall opened, and we were allowed to enter one of the most famous restaurants in Ukraine….

Ostannya Barykada, the “Last Barricade”, had for many years not only been a shelter for writers, poets, philosophers and for the politically persecuted, it was now providing us with a safe roof above our heads, while at the same time presenting us with the finest offerings of the Ukrainian cuisine!

Once we had settled as more or less the only guests, we were first treated to an unusual choice of exclusively Ukrainian cocktails.

The “Svitovan” – the “Traveller” – seemed a fitting choice for me and the careful blend of grapefruit vodka, lemon, sugar, egg white and orange juice certainly helped to steady any frayed nerves….

Waiting then for our food, it gave us some time to take a closer look at the interior of our “shelter”…..

Illuminated display cabinets that were hanging off the walls, contained various memorabilia of both Ukrainian as well as of foreign historic events and political struggles.

A scarf and tie worn at the ‘Orange Revolution’ protests twenty years ago, could be found next to a brick of the Berlin wall. A framed letter, sent from Minnesota in 1990, supported the “Revolution on Granite” which was followed by Ukrainian independence a year later.

A pair of gloves and a thermos flask gave an idea of the freezing conditions  during the Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity during the winter of 2013/14.

Throughout these struggles, the “Last Barricade” had been a place of shelter and sustenance for many protesters.

In an adjacent room, a “Mother Motherland” sculpture and a modern anti-drone gun reminded guests very vividly of the harsh reality of the ongoing conflict.

Large poppies on the wall near the entrance commemorated all the victims of revolutions and wars.

Eventually our food arrived and while enjoying the delights of a green and a red Borscht, the air raid App announced the end of any imminent threat.

While we were allowed to live another day and had probably one of the most enjoyable and educational experiences you might have in a bunker, we had to remind ourselves that many good people before and after this night hadn’t been or wouldn’t be so lucky….

 

Exiting Vystavkovyi Tsentre metro station, we first had to pass a considerable amount of tank barriers, which had been placed conveniently on the pavement next to Akademika Hushkova Ave, to be always at hand to set up an impromptu road block on this major trunk road leading into the centre of Kyiv and to the Dnieper river. It looked like an odd assembly of concrete blocks and pieces of rusting metal, that had been welded together in a hurry and were now discarded like the unwanted toys of a giant toddler.

The occasional portraits of some of the defenders on the boulders however confirmed that it had been ordinary people and not disgruntled giants who had used these items to defend their city.  

Walking through the gates of Ukraine’s Expo Center, Andrij and I found ourselves standing next to a full sized Tupolev TU-134A-3, which someone had decided to park here. While there were a number of impressive exhibition pavilions, including the spectacular “Grain and Oilseed” Pavilion, which featured a huge female statue on a central column, the aim of my first excursion in Kyiv was far more hidden in one of the minor and less eye-catching buildings at the other side of the central square.

Here the Patron Pet Center was – with the support of an army of local volunteers – looking after not less than 200 dogs and over 120 cats, some of them badly injured and traumatised and most of them rescued from the Kharkiv area.

What struck me, while standing in the brightly lid reception area of the building, was that I could hardly hear any barking or any other noise indicating that so many animals were kept here under one roof.  

The reason for this was explained to us by Iryna Podvoyska, who was both the head vet, the general manager and the main brain and engine behind this unusual shelter.

Helped by an industrial ventilation unit, all animals were kept in sound proofed and climate controlled small rooms, that had a large glass front door and could be cleaned easily. All of these units were placed in huge timber framed cubes, which filled out a large hall inside the building.

Some of these units had been adopted by individual artists, by local celebrities, by partner cities or by foreign animal welfare organisations.

There was a centralised food kitchen, a dedicated treatment room and an operating theatre to meet all the needs of the animals that were kept here.

While being located in the middle of a public park in Kyiv, the urban community was encouraged to visit the center and to take suitable dogs for a walk. The thus established human-animal bond proofed to be helpful for both the dogs as well as for the families that had been traumatised by the ongoing conflict. Unsurprisingly, a fair amount of the dogs were later adopted.

Cats had a separate home on the first floor with a dedicated room with individual care units, as well as some larger rooms, where groups of cats were housed together, depending on their individual immunological status.

The whole set up was already impressive, but Iryna had even bigger plans…..

A large feline play zone was in the process of being build and a café, right next to it and overlooking the park was due to follow soon.

Iryna carried the undeniable signs of chronic sleep deprivation, which I recognised so well from my own work in emergency clinics, but there was at the same time an iron will and determination, that I felt was on a different level than I had ever seen before.

While running this huge rescue centre, Iryna was already planning to return to Kharkiv and to the towns near the front to rescue even more animals. Relentless commitment fuelled by coffee and adrenaline….  

(If you like to learn more about Iryna’s work or like to support the Patron Pet Center, you should visit their website at https://patron.center or follow them on the usual social media channels)

 

It wasn’t exactly a journey I was looking forward to, but it had been too many times that I had found excuses for not visiting my colleagues in Ukraine at their annual vet congress despite their warmhearted invitations, that I would have felt too much of a fraught, if I wouldn’t have gone this time. In addition to this, there comes a time when you have to show your support, even if it seems to be not more than a grain of sand on a beach….

Admittedly, the timing wasn’t that great, with Kyiv experiencing some of the worst attacks since the beginning of the war. Leading up to this trip, I had downloaded an early warning air raid App and I had started to use it while I was still at home, but after a couple days I had to de-install it again, as it was going off too many times and it was starting to irritate the people around me….

The ever helpful Robert had dropped me off at Warsaw’s East station well in time before the train’s departure and while I was standing in front of the visibly dated carriages that were supposed to be my home for the next 17 hours, I found myself reconsidering his offer to spend a few more days with him and Magda in Poland instead.

But some things in life are just not that easy…..and so I found myself a few minutes later inside a cramped compartment with the train moving towards the East.

Once I had found some space for my minute suitcase – I was travelling light – and after accepting that my iPad had stayed behind in my room in Warsaw….I acquainted myself with my fellow travellers. There was a young Frenchman, who was supposed to work for the next three months at the French Embassy in Kyiv. From being very communicative at the beginning of the trip, he became progressively quiet the further we were heading into Ukraine, before stopping all conversation and starting to perspire when we drove into the capital. The other traveller was a Ukrainian businessman with an American passport. As his family had decided to remain in Ukraine, he had done this train journey many times. After enquiring why I was going and commenting that I was “a brave man”, with an ever so slight undertone that made the words “brave” and “stupid” easily interchangeable, he retreated into the top bunk and wasn’t seen again until we reached the outskirts of Kyiv.

I like train journeys and following an initial conversation with my French travel companion (while he was still talking), I watched the plain and contour-less landscape outside disappearing into the night.

I then immersed myself into the book I had thankfully not forgotten as well and enjoyed an occasional glass of tea, which was the only kind of hospitality to be had on the train.

After crossing the border, while everyone was trying to get some sleep, the whole train was moved into a giant workshop and was taken apart to adjust the wheel set from the 1435 mm European gauge to the slightly wider 1520 mm track, which used to be the standard in the Soviet Union.

I was tossing and turning in the bottom bunk, with sleep a distant dream, while a maelstrom of thoughts was crossing my mind….

While the wheels were being changed, I realised that we would be sitting ducks, and I wondered why the line – so far – had never been attacked….

“How were weapons moved from the west to the east? …

Were additional waggons packed with armoury attached to the train while we were asleep or was there an unofficial agreement not to do so?…

How was Kyiv going to be like?…

If drones would attack the train, was it better to be at the front or at the end carriage?…

How were other lecturers travelling to the conference?… Was this crazy?… Should I have stayed at home? …

What would Paul Theroux on his epic “Railway Bazaar” journeys have made of this situation?…

Was there only tea to drink?… And where were here the drunken hustlers playing cards throughout the night?…

What was I doing here?….Come on – go to sleep!….”

When eventually I woke up, the train was moving again and first day light appeared from behind a wall of trees. Looking out of the window, a landscape not much different from the pine forests in the South of Sweden appeared gradually. Without a restaurant compartment on the train, there was no need to get up early and while nibbling on the dry rye bread I had been clever enough to purchase just before leaving Warsaw, the GPS signal of my phone indicated that it was still a couple of hours until we would reach the capital.

The buildings along the railway line looked as run down and dilapidated as everywhere along busy train lines. Driving through smaller towns, I couldn’t see any signs of damage or military build up. In some way I was struck by the deceptive triviality of warfare in a big country – while towns and cities were razed to the ground in the east of Ukraine, people here were going about their seemingly normal lives as if nothing was happening. The streets were busy with morning traffic, shops were open and early morning joggers could be seen sharing the countryside lanes with the occasional dog walker next to the railway line.

The sky was grey, and light rain started to fall when we reached the outskirts of Kyiv and my first thought was, that this was a big place. May be not in the same league as London, but on par with Berlin or Vienna. This together with the absence of any visible conflict related signs of damage very much reduced my anxiety. Eventually we arrived in a railway station that wasn’t much different from that in any other European city, possibly with the slight difference of its dome like central building and the grand arrival hall, that with its marble interior and the huge chandelier, reminded me of some underground stations in Central Moscow.

Right at the platform I was greeted by Andrij, who was carrying a large sign with my name on it.

From here on he would rarely leave my side and would turn out to be my universal fixer, always providing help, advice and translations, so that in the end this journey felt far less daunting than expected.     

 There is no other river, that is so quintessentially Polish than the Vistula.

With its source in Barania Góra in the South West corner of the country, close to the border to the Czech Republic, this stream of water connects Krakow, Warsaw, Bydgoszcz and a number of other Polish cities, before its waters flow into the Baltic Sea at the Bay of Gdansk.

It had just gone past 6 o’clock in the morning, when I woke up and looking out of the window, I could follow Zajęcza Street all the way down to Swiętokrzyski Bridge, which like a double sided white harp span the width of the river.

You couldn’t stay more central in Warsaw then at this house, which was one of the few buildings that had survived the air raids and the destruction of the Second World War.

Once again I was enjoying the hospitality of Magdalena and Robert, who had made this place their home.

This time however, I was in for a real treat : taking a look at Magdalena’s new clinic !

Just around the corner from their flat, Robert had identified the former branch of a local bank as an ideal site for  a much needed veterinary clinic.

Once the lease had been agreed, work had resumed immediately and following a few months of hard labour, the new place had opened just over a month ago.

Unsurprisingly, it had been a flying start….due to Magda’s reputation as one of Europe’s leading veterinary nephrologists, the appointment book was full from day one and over a thousand appointments were recorded just in the first four weeks. Apparently there was already a two months waiting list for new clients….

Honestly, I wasn’t surprised….

Following an excellent breakfast at a local bakery just down the road, we entered the Vistula Vet Clinic just after 9 o’clock, while the team of fifteen vets and nurses were already looking after the first patients.

 Despite the fact that we were in the centre of a European Capital city, the whole place had the feel of a family run practice, where everyone greeted each other and Magdalena seemed to know every client and patient we came across as if they were old friends.

All the consulting rooms were functional and flooded with light due to floor to ceiling windows. The windowless rooms at the other side of the building were sensibly used for diagnostic imaging with a high-end ultrasound machine that was running all the time.

Following the stylish corridor, there were separate seating areas for canine and feline patients and in addition to this, purpose build shelves allowed the placement of cats in their carrier boxes in a more relaxed environment.

A lot of thought had been given here to every little detail and this went from the tasteful combination of the colourful spotted tiled floor, the indirectly illuminated, welcoming logo and the occasional wood panelling, which gave the place a more homely feel, to water bowls for thirsty canine visitors and even to a good selection of female sanitary items at the clients’ restroom.

Despite the central location in the city, there was ample space for inpatients and the clinical area featured a brand new and functional designed operating theatre.

While the treatment of patients was in full flow on the ground floor, a group of builders under the watchful eye of Robert was preparing further rooms, including a small lecturing room in the basement.

I have to say, that I was envious…not only to have a place like this to work at, but also for having a practice like this to bring my own pets to….

Magda’s Place – the new Vistula Vet Clinic – was certainly worth the journey and staying an extra night in Warsaw !

 

Back in Sarajevo, following a week of travelling and hiking, it was once again time to get some washing done, but this time I had decided to leave my dirty clothes in the gentle care of “Tito’s Iron Fist”, an institution no traveller to the city should miss, regardless of their need for a laundry…

While the walk to this laundrette was much shorter than in Mostar, it still meant that I had to cross the border between two entirely different worlds.

Stepping out of the front door of my accommodation, I found myself on Ferhadija, the busy High Street of the capital, which with its international brands of shops looked not very different from similar pedestrianised areas in Zagreb, in Vienna or in any other larger city in Continental Europe.

However, turning left and walking for not more than 100 meters, I crossed from an occidental world of multi-storey shops, churches, cafes and bars into a relict of Ottoman street life, where single story buildings with artisan workshops, shisha bars and mosques set the scene.

Cappuccinos were replaced by Bosnian coffees, Palatschinke by Baclava, Aperol Spritz by freshly squeezed pomegranate juice and Wiener Schnitzel by Börek of different varieties. Even the ice cream outlets had changed from Italian style Gelaterias to Turkish ice cream vendors, who you virtually had to fight to earn a cone with a single scoop of vanilla….

Resisting the urge to settle in one of the comfortably cushioned coffee houses, I carried on walking and crossed Baščaršija Square with its famous wooden fountain.

Just on the other side of the road, hidden in the bowels of an old building, I finally arrived at one of the most unusual laundries you can imagine.….

A room of not more than 16 square meters was filled with a couple of rows of washing machines and tumble dryers, most of them decorated with a large red, golden rimmed star. And yet, all of these machines were performing their useful work under the watchful eyes of Karl Marx, Lenin, Che Guevara and of course Marshall Tito.

That was, when the washing machines were working…

This morning however, road works outside of the building had damaged a water pipe and as a result the water supply to the whole building had been cut off. A problem that even the most advanced energy efficient and water saving washing machine technology couldn’t overcome.

While these were bad news for my fellow travellers, it gave me a chance to take a closer look at the place and to have a conversation with Kris, who could be described as half laundry owner and half history teacher.

Kris’ laundry featured not only a number of busts of the poster boys of communism, but also a pretty comprehensive library of the key works of marxism, communism, socialism as well as the odd handbook on guerrilla warfare.

When pushed on the subject of Tito and the former Yugoslavia, Kris missed no time to cover a vacant ironing board with a huge tourist map of this historic country and the  detailed narrative that followed, was illustrated with the help of a coffee table book featuring the Marshall with all world leaders of that time. Another of Kris’ treasures that came on display, was his private collection of old Yugoslav passports.

Arguably  “the best passport in the world at that time” , this document was apparently the only one that allowed visa-free travel to both East and West Germany, as well as to the United States, to the Soviet Union and to Cuba. Pretty handy, but I wondered if Finnish or Swedish passport holders would have agreed with this assessment.

While all the enthusiasm for this part of history didn’t result in clean clothes, a constant stream of loyal customers who had to be turned away, as well as a large number of favourable Google reviews confirmed, that “Tito’s Iron Fist” might be an unconventional laundry, but regardless of one’s political orientation, one that certainly gets the job done.

If there is water….

Well,…. may be next time ?!

       

 

Today it is hard to imagine that the peaceful valley of Sutjeska, at the eastern rim of Hercegovina, was once the setting for one of the bloodiest battles of the second world war.

Josep Broz Tito, then the charismatic leader of just a few, hopelessly outnumbered brigades of partisans, but who eventually would prevail to become the President of Yugoslavia, got wounded during the fighting here and more than seven thousand of his followers perished, together with his trusted German Shepherd Luks, which was killed by the same grenade that injured his owner.

If Tito shed tears over the loss of his canine companion, he might have shed even more, if he would have witnessed what happened to the Yugoslav nations half a century later…..

Even now, when I looked at a hiking map of the area, several sites were still listed as “No Go” areas because of the risk of thirty year old landmines. Some of these areas were located just a few hundred meters away from the time warp of a rapidly decaying socialist party holiday camp I stayed at.

I have to admit, that I found the giant memorial of the battle deeply moving, with its tons of concrete which were – as if defying gravity – reaching  unsuspended into the sky like a set of wings and with numerous hollow faces, suddenly emerging out of its amorphous walls of stone.

And yet there had been a very different reason that drove me to this place: the nearby Perućica Primeval Forest.

Here, due to the remoteness and the inaccessibility of this mountainous region at the border to Montenegro, a commercial use of the vast forest had never been possible and as a result, this small spot on the map remains as one of the few pristine areas of mountain forest in the whole of Europe.

This area of woodland features an unmatched biodiversity of Alpine plants and animals, which includes one of the highest density of apex predators like wolfs and bears.

Seeing now two good reasons for getting killed by hiking on my own in this area, I  deemed it sensible to hire a driver and a local guide for this adventure.

The next morning, while the first rays of the sun were crossing the nearby mountain ridge, letting faint clouds of steam rise from the grass of the nearby meadow that was still covered with a superficial layer of nocturnal frost, Dayan and Muzza were waiting for me in front of the hotel with their pick up truck.

While driving uphill on a narrow untarmaced road to the other side of the forest and when appreciating that Muzza’s head went straight into his broad shouldered trunk without the luxury of a neck – an executioner’s nightmare – two things became crystal clear to me:

there would be no discussion about whatever I had to pay and if we would have a puncture, we probably wouldn’t need a car jack……

Eventually we arrived at the highest point of the forest and leaving Muzza and the car behind, Dayan and I descended along a narrow track, slowly back to the valley. Other than us, there was no other human soul in this forest and we were soon surrounded by tall trees and thick undergrowth and we were engulfed in a concert of birdsong and the humming and buzzing of thousands of insects.

Frequently our progress was blocked by small waterfalls and by fallen trees, which were just left where they had fallen for the forces of nature to take care of their disposal.

Soon we were standing in the middle of a giant field of wild garlic and I noticed that the individual plants and their white blossoms were easily twice the size of ramsons I had seen anywhere else.

These plants are one of the favourite diets for brown bears when they wake up from hibernation and unsurprisingly Dayan had come across the foot prints of such a hungry visitor at exactly the same spot just three days earlier.

Around us there were a number of trails of squashed plants that were running right through this field of garlic. Unmistakable signs of a nocturnal feast. Once again I was happy that I had invested in a local guide……

Near the streams, in the moist grass or on the few spots where the sunlight had managed to penetrate the dense canapé, were great places to spot adders and the more dangerous aspisvipers, as well as amphibian forest dwellers.

Here just the sun, the rain, wind and snow were the foresters, and what eventually ended up on the forest floor became the fertiliser for fungi and for millions of small plans and insects which sustained the larger, more visible animals.

As humans, we were only fleeting visitors, not designed to fit in here, not meant to stay but just to observe, to admire and to appreciate, what by now we have already lost in most of the forests and mountains of our continent.

When eventually we emerged at the other end of the forest, where Muzza and the truck were already waiting for us, the thought crossed my mind, that beauty and destruction so often seem to coexist in close proximity.

 

After a week on the road, it was time to get some of my limited supply of clothes washed.

As it turned out, there was no laundry near Lučki Most and a half an hour walk, covering the length of the city was required to get to a laundry that was open on a Saturday.

A good opportunity to see more of the place I thought and so I set off….

Crossing the bridge and passing the Emina Café, where local men were enjoying the warm spring sun and some strong Bosnian coffee, I came across a crack in the pavement, that had been repaired masterfully with a colourful pattern of small tiles. The damage of the road surface had become the canvas for the artist. A mosaic of bright red, golden, lilac and light blue ceramic shards appeared from underneath the tarmac, as if a superficial layer had been peeled away, revealing a far more interesting multi-coloured world underneath it. 

What a great, yet unobtrusive way to make the world a bit more colourful.

Following the Neretva in a northerly direction, I had to cross the river again and just after passing another building that was still carrying the scars of war, I came across a second, slightly larger installation.

Starting with a circular red tile in its centre, rows of yellow, blue, grey and slightly textured red tiles were radiating across the whole defect, like a piece of a torn colourful table cloth that had been spread across the tarmac.  

It then didn’t take me long to find a third, more complex pattern of ceramic pieces and another outstanding example of “flacking”:

Here the damage caused by a grenade, had been used as the outline for an elaborate graft of golden tiles to cover the circular crater. The scars in the pavement around it were left unchanged, to not excuse or to hide what had happened here. The work done at this place served both as a means for remembrance, as well as a statement that sometimes a repair can be even better than the original condition.

Finally I had reached the laundry and while my dirty linen were getting washed and dried, I had some time to investigate a bit further, what had now sparked my interest.

It turned out that all of these installations had – unsurprisingly – been the work of the same French artist and that he had applied his craft not only on the streets of Mostar.

Ememem, started his work in 2011 in Lyon, but by now his beautiful mosaics can be found in several countries in Europe and as far away as in Melbourne and in the US.

As a self proclaimed “surgeon of the sidewalk”,  his work has to be understood as that of a Banksy working on horizontal and on three dimensional surfaces, who tends to perform his magic during the cover of night and who prefers to remain anonymous. His art reminded me of some colourful mosaics I had seen in Morocco, possibly paired with the playfulness of a Hundertwasser construction.

I also found out that Mostar was the home of not three, but four of his installations, with the final one a bit more difficult to find, but proving to be equally charming.

For this crack, a blue and turquoise colour scheme had been chosen, resembling – with a bit of imagination – a crooked version of an island in the North Atlantic…

Only when my washings were done, and I started to return to my temporary home just South of the Old Bridge, being satisfied that I had been successful in finding all four pavement  installations of this city, did my eyes begin to focus on the vertical surfaces around me…..

Creativity had been feeding off creativity !

Just now did I notice the colourful mural works of art that could be found everywhere on buildings, garages, perimeter walls and even on half finished building structures.

Plain multi-storey house walls had become the canvas for giant portraits, for tropical market scenes, for Pop-Art statements or for colourful cartoon characters.

Where walls still featured unrepaired bullet holes, these had been integrated and in fact appreciated as helpful assets to give a painting a third dimension.

And then it struck me – not for the first time – that art and colour might be the best form of response to transform and to heal deprived and dilapidated houses, streets or even whole cities.

It probably is also the best remedy for the scars of war, both on the buildings as well as on the people who have to live in these places, once the fighting has stopped. A force which only finds its equal in music, in nature and in the human-animal bond.