Serbia

SERBIA : A Balkan Story

Upon arriving to Serbia, one soon realizes that this is a really special place of very distinct people. Particularly the Greek visitor gets a firsthand feeling of familiarity, credited not only to common historical and religious experiences between the two nations but to common traditions, manners, culture, sounds, music and scenery as well.

Serbia is a country which acrobatically manages to balance  its socialist past with orthodox tradition, a country which, while nationalism revives every so often, still shares in the contemporary globalized world, a country which desires to be a part of Europe but still cannot renounce its Balkan identity and soul, one of authenticity and genuineness. This country with war memories still vivid and visible, searches out for its day-to-day life, a life simple yet often surrealistic as one of Kusturica’s films.

This mosaic of intense contrasts can only enchant the photographer who attempts to record and immortalize moments, faces, expressions, gestures, chance encounters and unexpected happenings, fragments of life charged with a new meaning. Few are the moments when one’s eye, mind and heart align and then remarkable photos ensue. But even in cases when results are poor, it is this journey, this human contact, this process of creation that gives the greatest joy and constitutes the greatest and most substantial affirmation of life.