Oct 16th, 2016
BANJA LUKA — Bosnian Serbs voted on Sunday in a referendum that could be the boldest challenge to date to the constitutional order, created by the Dayton Accords which ended the war in 1995. Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska has been threatening since 2006, when he came to power, to hold referenda on questions ranging from territorial separation of the Serb entity to the authority of Bosnian state judiciary, which many Serbs see as biased, and the national holiday. His party’s platform includes an explicit threat to hold a referendum on independence in 2018.
Oct 16th, 2016
Gaze across the pristine green hills of Trnovo and you’d be hard pressed to find a single sign of civilisation. And that’s precisely the point. A Dubai-based property developer sees this clearing on Mt. Bjelasnica – home to part of the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics – as a prime location to realise Bosnia’s biggest ever foreign investment: Buroj Ozone City.
Oct 16th, 2016
A Bulgarian trader in spare parts for buses has become a national celebrity after starting to patrol the Turkish border “hunting” for migrants. Many Bulgarians applaud his vigilante initiative, though others are deeply troubled. “Bulgaria needs people like me, dignified Bulgarians, willing to defend their homeland,” says Dinko Valev, sipping a fresh-squeezed orange juice in a flashy cafe in his hometown, Yambol, 50km (30 miles) from Bulgaria’s border with Turkey.
Oct 15th, 2016
Skinned, squishy, and raw, sloshing around in a metal pan. Bull testicles are ugly. Buttery, brain-looking slime balls the size of papayas. I find myself questioning my resolve, but they’re the reason I’m here in Lipovica, a farming village in eastern Serbia — I’m at the 13th Annual World Testicle Cooking Championship, commonly known as the Mudijada. Serbs have many options from which they could construct their national myth and global brand identity: international sporting success; rich and spicy home-distilled brandy usually made from plums, called rakija; tall, high-cheekboned women with severe and husky voices. So why testicles?