Part Two
Marijana Toma: You mentioned Panda, then you mentioned your friend Dragan who died and Vlada who was injured.
Nikola Jovanović: Who was injured, yes.
Marijana Toma: You were 18 when it happened. Do you remember anything else?
Nikola Jovanović: I was 17, it could be that I turned 18 at that time. We are talking about December 1998, I had just turned 18. I remember, how can I not remember it. I mean, Panda was our favorite coffee shop, since the first year of gymnasium because the coffee shop is near it. We all went there, that was the place, the place to be [English]. And for New Year’s Eve we would go to a party, but first we would go to Panda for coffee and then there. In the morning, we would go as early as possible in order to have coffee before the first class. We would open it because we knew where the key was. Its owner, Suki, gave us the key and we would go there and adjust the place. We would light the stove and prepare everything so that when he came, he would just start working. We went there almost, almost everyday. This was our place, the place where we spent our afternoons. We would spend our afternoons and evenings there even when we had no classes, because that is where we watched the matches, played cards, lorum, firz and everything else. We made jokes there, I mean, we lived there, it was our place.
And then, I didn’t go there that day. It was sociology that I always hated from the bottom of my heart that saved my life, because I had a one grade, which I had to improve before the end of the term and I had…Let’s say, I hated my professor, not sociology, she didn’t lecture on it well. I liked sociology later through my work, but that day I stayed home to study. And I remember it as if it was yesterday that we played Sony PlayStation and I don’t know whether we talked about going or not going there. Almir, Jašarović, the one who said, “You have been under us for 500 years.” Almir, Dragan who was there for a short time, Trbo and I and I don’t know whether there was anyone else there or not. No, Trbo wasn’t there, Trbo was at his own house. Then we talked about going there, I don’t know, “I have to study, it might be that I will join you later.” I remember that I was home and I talked to Trbo, “Are we going or not?” But he had to study too, “Let’s talk later.” That was all.
Then, I mean, somebody called those at my home and asked them whether I was there. My mother was like, “Yes, he is studying.” “Please check whether he is in his room.” She said, “Yes.” And then he told her, “There was a massacre in Panda, we don’t know what happened. We know that there were shootings and most of them are injured.” And no, I was about to shed my skin open. At that moment and the following months I felt like a traitor, literally. Because we were together every day, we did the same thing every day together, and suddenly, I wasn’t there. And this is…this kept haunting me. From this perspective, I know that I would immediately go and talk to a professional, a psychologist, psychiatrist, but back then this wasn’t a common practice. After some time, those in my family sent me to Čačak at Lekica, to clear my head for some days. But I remember that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I would go because I didn’t know who was there. We didn’t have mobile telephones, I don’t know. I wanted to run to Dragan’s house but I didn’t have the courage, because I had no idea. I had no information, I didn’t know anything.
And then we started getting news one after another about how many people were dead and injured. News about how a car was driving so fast, how a car went with Sveta, then he died on the operation table or in the car, that Vlado Longar was injured, that he was shot by so many bullets, that they didn’t give any chance to him but he survived nevertheless. I guess he was shot with 15 or more bullets, a part of his bone missing {explains with hands}, so he carried the fixers for a long time, I don’t know.
I mean, later we found out everything and it was shocking. I remember that I was sitting and staring at one point, nothing, I had no emotions, only emptiness. And I think that I only cried for the first time after the funeral. Yes, yes, I only let myself go after that, because then I realized because until then it was somehow…I mean, everything was organized. We were, yes…I didn’t tell you, the funerals were very well taken care of and very well organized, because in summer ’98, somebody would die every day and there were funerals every day and everything, and help was needed at the cemetery every day. We went there, whoever had time, to serve, to help, and we were all very well coordinated. Then when the funerals of my parents took place or those of my relatives, I didn’t go because I couldn’t see the cemetery or the customs of it.
Now all this organizing, I remember we were all trying to be useful and it could be that this helped us to handle it somehow. I believe so, everybody was telling us to be quiet, to help and deal with this or that, there is no time for bad thoughts, you should not get revenge now, I don’t know because I didn’t have such ideas. But somehow, we got the news that those from our side are looking for everything, these persecutions I don’t know. And it was, I remember this funeral with many people who had come from all sides, all this funeral, I mean, there were a lot of people, but when everything is over, the next day you are left alone and I don’t know.
I am sorry, it is difficult, I can’t get very deep into this topic. I haven’t thought or talked about it for a long time. Of course I think about them each time I look at photographs and each December 14, even though it’s been a long time since I didn’t go to the church, I go on December 14 and light a candle for them, think about them and everything, but….But I mean, the idea is that all of a sudden you…I mean, my childhood ended at that time. That is the moment when my childhood was over because you cannot think about it, there is no way out from there, where were we supposed to go, to school? What school? Who cares about school!
I remember everything, this was the second semester, this didn’t exist. In the end, I admired history and I wrote my matura paper on history with my favorite professor. He loved basketball just like me and was a great grobarčin, and that is why I loved him and previously I had written something about Napoleon and so I already had…But we didn’t have to. At the end, they gave us the certificates and like, “Congratulations!” But I remember how sad it was when we went to school to receive them. We had to pretend that we were happy about finishing school.
In the end we didn’t even have a matura evening. We only organized it later when one from our generation, Raja, Nikola Rajovic who was also in Panda at the time when it happened, even though he was happy, he wasn’t injured. He only had something stuck in his fingers. Since he had the opportunities, he organized a matura evening on the 18th anniversary. We had the matura 18 years later. And he organized everything, now he organizes it every second year, he pays for everything. In the first time we were at his hotel in Velika Plana, then some years ago we were in Thessaloniki. He organizes everything, the bus and the accommodation, he pays for everything, we just have to gather. And that is the time when we get together as much as we can. This is really beautiful and at least he makes it possible for us to be together, if nothing else. Every generation had an end of school somewhere, each time, they had something. We were the cursed generation who had nothing.
Marijana Toma: And after Panda, I won’t ask you anymore about it, but…
Nikola Jovanović: Feel free to ask me, the moment is a little…but alright, I think we should talk about this.
Marijana Toma: This is one of the events that little is known about, and there are many stories and somehow it keeps being unclear and untold, this is one of the first crimes that happened in Kosovo. What were the first reactions? You talked about it a little, of course…
Nikola Jovanović: Yes, there was no doubt from us that this was done by Albanians. They were simply masked people, soon the information came out that the weapons and Kalashnikovs were Chinese, because they were jammed, those who survived told us that the weapons were jammed, that is why they didn’t manage to shoot all of them. We simply knew that they were Albanians and that’s all. There is nothing else, nobody knows who or what they were. It was supposed that this had happened because of the events in Košare, and we all thought that it was because of that. And the police immediately left for the big action in Kapešnica, I don’t know, there was information about people being arrested, but simply, nobody had any idea who it could be.
And then, I remember some years later I went to Sutomore, since the family, the parents and the family of the late Dragan live there and I went there to visit them. Then his mother told me about when they were being expelled from their house, they stopped and saw who they were and told them, “Get out, but you will be surprised when you find out who killed your son.” And now she had that information, she had offended them, “How can you…” this is spying….But when later on you hear something like that, that there can be a chance that it could be UDB,now when I look at it, I cannot believe it. And I cannot believe that even the worst people existing, are among us… people who were organized by the Serbian state “down” in Kosovo, to do many things, I still cannot imagine that they attacked in order to kill children. I mean, alright, OK, they could throw a bomb in the city center, I don’t know, shoot with bullets and I don’t know what, but children? I don’t know, everything is possible, of course.
I would really like, in fact, what irritates me most is that the prime minister who is currently the president, says that there can be a chance but he doesn’t know, it is not known and it would be something very big if it was published. I think that it should be published. I believe that neither he nor anyone else can understand the troubles it caused our setting. When I say that I was troubled by it, I can imagine the parents of the victims, how troubled they were, because I am saying, at the end of the day, they killed children and this should sound relevant, but it isn’t. Understanding that your state killed your child, I don’t know, this is the end of the world. I don’t know what to do with myself.
So, I can say everything was horrific, everything that followed was horrific for me and my friends, we didn’t get through it with anger. I mean, we were already feeling anger, we were just looking like that alright, now suddenly they are separated in two sides, Serbs against šiptara and this is it. Now we were pretending to defend what was ours, they were pretending to attack it. I mean, I don’t understand this divide between what’s theirs and ours. It would make sense if an American attacked us and we said that this is ours, we live here. When we all live here, mine, NATO, ours, I don’t know. But OK, I still feel sorry for back then, that we didn’t collect our forces, Albanians and Serbs against Belgrade, to demand that Kosovo take what belonged to it, the economic autonomy and everything, investments, I don’t know, because this is the only suitable solution for the people.
But of course they were, I remember on the way to Pristina, to Mitrovica, the villages on the side. They look like villages in Asteriks, Obeliks, with high walls and everything. There are many stories about them, that people don’t go out for years, that only one of them goes out to buy necessities and returns, I mean, these are crazy stories, but there were such opinions, where I believe there was very low education and it is easy to give rifles to those people and say, “Eh, let’s go and occupy them because they are oppressing us,” I don’t know. When I think about it as oppression, because nothing Serbian entered the village for fifty years? Local customs, we don’t talk about Kosovo or Serbia or Yugoslavia customs, there is no such thing.
But now I say that a kind of anger existed because of the Panda case, but I think it didn’t exist. I believe that we were shocked for a long time. Nobody could do nothing to me anymore…and there was fear, there was a lot of fear, I remember this, because I felt it too. My father, I don’t know, he will find out if he ever watches this interview, I hope not, that I carried his gun in my bag. Because when I went out in the evening, not during the day, only in the evening, I know I carried it with me because I don’t know…. Simply, I felt more secure, I kept it here, it had no bullets, I don’t know. When I think about it now, I don’t know how I would take it out, I don’t know, they could kill me three times, but I don’t know, I felt more secure.
Now when I think back, you are a child, 17-18 years old, who carries a gun in his bag and goes around the city. The idea itself that I was in such a setting and that I had to do such things terrified me. I mean, the only thing that I can maybe say is that I blame my parents, even though OK, they couldn’t or they didn’t know better. I would never put my child in my position. I would pack everything and leave, not to Belgrade, but somewhere abroad, forever. I simply don’t want to be in such a setting. Looking at it from this perspective, all of this made me stronger, yes, it made me more independent, of course. I don’t know, when someone expresses their prejudice against this to me… prejudices, what kind of prejudices do you have? You are from, I don’t know, from the village near Kragujevac and you have never seen a foreign person in your life, you have prejudices against Germans, Turks, Albanians, Americans. What kind of prejudices are you talking about man, you haven’t seen anything, you have been by the seaside somewhere and that is all.
Now I am really hurt by this, but I would never do something similar to my child and if I saw something going really bad, that there are chances for something like that, I would buy the plane tickets and Ciao! A luggage and I wouldn’t care about anything else, at least I think so, I don’t know. I would never allow my children to grow up like that, it would be better for them to be spoiled Americans or Germans or whatever, than experiencing what I had to experience.
Marijana Toma: You told me earlier about the bombings and what that all looked like, the rifles and everything. Do you remember anything else from the past, something before that? You told us that your father built walls around the house and lived with the belief that it wouldn’t happen. I…
Nikola Jovanović: Yes, he built the walls during the bombings. He constantly worked on the walls during that time. We laughed at him, crazy person! Because he was like, “This will pass, they won’t attack Peja.” One time we heard the sirens, in the beginning and at the end of the bombings, because the planes were flying over Peja all the time, so we didn’t have any reason to escape to the basement, I don’t know, this is all. I remember that the only thing we lacked at that time was tobacco. Eh, yes, you hear that there is tobacco just near the Brženik. And then you go there by bike, and I remember that I went. There is the big cantonment of Peja just across the Brženik street, which was bombed, I don’t know how many times I passed by that street, I went to the house of my friend when it was attacked. Everything moved, literally. And this was like, “OK, maybe I should’ve been more careful.” But there was nothing serious after that.
There were different stories before the bombings, because international supervisors were in Kosovo, I don’t know what they were called, UN or something like that, I don’t know, but I remember they were there, and I also remember that it was the first time I drove a car, those were among my first times driving. I always had…I told them that I am unlucky because the bombings began just when I started driving, the second time when I started getting my driving lessons in Belgrade, the school was closed and I didn’t want to do it for a long time because I was unlucky. I remember that when I started, my instructor said, “May God make it possible for this to finish soon.” Meaning that a lot can happen. One who lived in the same house with him, I mean, he had rented the house to him, told him that something would happen and they had to leave, meaning that something would begin.
I said, “Alright, OK, what can we do?” And we didn’t have that…there were stories that nothing would happen, and even if so, what could possibly happen? Is it bombs, invasions, is it a kind of war? We had no idea what kind of intervention that would be, but we knew that there would be something. Not even now, I mean, now that I have experienced the bombings, I can know and I can say whether they were big or not, but back then we had no idea what they were, what kind of bombs, I don’t know. I remember that we stayed there after the dinner, of course, we all know the moment when they started, where we were, what we were doing, and I remember that my mother and my father watched a stupid TV series, I don’t know whether it was Turkish or Spanish, I don’t know, one of those television drama. And I remember that my friend Vlado Vicinić knocked with a belt as if he was going to the war, “The bombings are about to take place, let’s go to the basement,” I said, “What?” And then they started. I think not much happened in Peja that night, nothing really. My father said, “If you want to go behind the building, do so. They won’t attack the buildings.” And then there was a kind of excitement, it was something, something happening, and then when they took place, there was everything.
On the first day, it was a bit of an unpleasant situation because they attacked the Karagač radar in the center of the city, they also attacked the cantonment but there was nothing special beyond this. Yes, they attacked the hills around Peja, since the bunkers from the First and Second War were there, and they thought there could be something else, that is why they attacked them, I don’t know. And that was it. Besides that, it was mainly quiet in my city. For us, of course the deserters were a serious problem. There were various deserters who would come and hide here, yes they were hiding. They weren’t deserters, I don’t know, good children of their mothers and fathers, but they were deserters who had stolen money and now they came here to open shops. Those were the ones who caused us more problems because we didn’t know what could happen and who we would get to deal with.
And somehow the city changed, people had left the city. This is where I started to understand that there were so many Montenegrins in Peja. Until then, it was simply just us. Most of them had gone to Montenegro to visit their relatives. Those of us who stayed there, to be honest, it was very boring. We didn’t know what to do, often there was no electricity nor water for days in a row, the telephones didn’t work at all. We communicated with each other only when we met, we had some meeting points, we gathered at houses, I don’t know, friends who lived in the skyscrapers, Albanians who had escaped had left the keys to them and we would gather there. And yes, they had a big television and we took the cassettes and watched movies and I don’t know.
Our life was mostly about whether we could find tobacco to buy and that was it. It was very boring and horrific. It was super boring, we didn’t know when it would take place, but of course there were stories about where they had attacked, it happened time after time. Since there were the paramilitary measures, The Peja’s Munja and those of Legije, I don’t know. They would come to the city time after time and leave, that was it, we would look at them and had no idea who they were. Sometimes an army would pass by, sometimes not, I mean, it was boring. We would sleep for most of the day time because during the night we had to do crazy monitoring. This was something really…the Peja brewery was still working for some reason. I don’t know whether it worked in full capacity, but I remember that the cistern would pass by at 6AM and it would stop to fill the big bottles with unsterilized beer, and then we would carry them home. That is the best beer that can exist, the one from the cisterns, all frozen. These are some of the details.
The other part of the story, the sadness. I remember when it started, I remember the car queues. It left its marks on me and I think about it but I don’t like recalling it because it is very emotional. I remember our friends from the neighborhood whom you would see in the queue but you don’t dare and run after them and hug them, and you don’t dare greet them because “ours” who were controlling the queue could beat and even shoot you, I don’t know. I mean, they wouldn’t shoot a child, but what do I know. And now you stand and stare how someone whom you grew up with is walking in the queue, man! I mean, it is terrifying, what now? You get some information that a part of them is leaving, that a bus was organized, that they were going, I don’t know, then we got the information that they decided to go themselves, I don’t know. I don’t know, if you think about it now, those who saw the queue it was obvious that it wasn’t their wish to go, let’s not lie to ourselves. Yes, some didn’t want to stay because they knew what could happen to them, but I mean, let’s not lie to ourselves, they didn’t go because of their own wish.
There were stories, I don’t know, near us, near the Banana which was a big market, the whole company was called the Banana, a grandfather went near the Banana and said, “I cannot go!” And they killed him immediately and left his corpse there. I didn’t see this, but these are stories that I remember and they are horrific. It was here and the reason why we didn’t dare to get closer to them was because there were stories that those from our side who got closer to them to give them bottles of water were beaten with batons and so on, “We have organized everything for them, why do you have to get closer?”
These are horrific things I wouldn’t want to happen to anyone, because I am saying, I absolutely don’t care who started it, I absolutely don’t care about which is the cruel side here, I absolutely don’t care about who is right or not, or whether Kosovo has to be independent or not, it is absolutely irrelevant. They destroyed my childhood and that of my friends, family and everyone from my setting, I mean, they have destroyed a beautiful part of my life.
So, as for me, especially in Peja, I really don’t know anyone from Peja, anyone from the Albanians in Peja who would like to have war or something else because the whole economy was on their side. The whole market was maintained by Albanians. Who cares that they [politicians] change something here? What do they have to change? They all build houses, I mean, stupidity. And then you have to expect yourself to allow… to express an opinion on whether Kosovo is independent or not. I think that this is a very irrelevant issue, so irrelevant. What I care about is that now when my father goes to Peja, he started to go there several years ago, he goes a couple of times a week to a Peja Residents Association. I care about him being safe “down” there, I want him to be able to go to Buçuku to eat kebab. I want him to be able to go to the bazaar and meet the guy from whom we had bought cheese for all our life, and the Rugova kajmak [cream] and I don’t know, I want him to be able to walk to the Patriarchate and back on his own.
But I don’t care, I really don’t care, I am totally open, to me it is crazy that somebody wants to create a nation in the 21st century. I mean, the nation as a concept, borders as a concept. To me it is a crazy thing, I can understand that you want more rights and a better life and I know that an amount of uneducated people from both sides can benefit from all this story, but having people from both sides who nowadays think in terms of who was the first who came here? Or who does all this belong to? I don’t know, or three hundred years ago, was this a mosque or a church, or was it first a church then a mosque? Or, life being directed towards the nationality and belief that you have and ideally are connected to both. I cannot understand this, I really cannot. It bothers me so much that sometimes I don’t find the meaning of life in this region where the discussion whether you are safe to go to Pristina or they are safe to come to Belgrade is still so important and talked about.
Our friends often visit us in Belgrade, when they come here for visas or something, they come to visit my parents, some are Albanians, some are Turkish, it doesn’t matter, the thing that matters is that they live in Peja. And now, this whole concept will take time. Even if Vucic shows up tomorrow saying that Kosovo is independent, the conflict will still last because there is no willingness for reconciliation, just like we still have stories about whether Srebrenica was genocide or massacre, whether there are eight thousands or three thousands of people. I am really disturbed by these crazy discussions in this region, it is not that I want us to get together because we are Yugoslavs, no. I don’t want to destroy the nation concept, absolutely not. Let’s ask the belief, religion to get away from public life, for it to be an individual matter that has no influence on anyone. And when I say, those who follow me on the internet know that I am a critic of SPC and everything, but by this I mean that I am a critic of all beliefs, religions and everything.
These concepts in the 21st century are unbelievable to me, I get angry when I talk about it. Maybe because these concepts are the reason why I don’t have a house in Peja, where my father built everything he had since forever. This is the reason why I didn’t stay “down” there for a long time and why in the end I don’t have all the friends I grew up with. I mean, now we follow each other on Facebook, that’s how we find each other and try to compensate, but there is silence for months. We compensate, we like each other’s photographs, but we don’t talk. Now I look at it from my corner, I don’t know how to address them, what language to talk to them in, one doesn’t know whether they still speak Serbian because twenty years have passed. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know, soon we might gather and slowly meet and find out how to talk to each other.
What bothers me mostly is when I think that I didn’t choose this, somebody else decided to estimate that we have to fight “down” there and that… that Albanians are cruel, or Serbs among Albanians are cruel, not Slobodan Milošević, but they themselves should expel them. That is why I was very aggressive in communication about this topic, expressing such opinions and a number of Peja residents have stopped talking to me, and nowadays this is not done through politics, but they unfriend [English] you on Facebook, most of them think that I am too liberal, a traitor to the Serbian nation and so on. But these are mainly people who connect their belief to the nation, as if it was their identity, an important part of their identity which is something I generally am not against. OK, I am against the nation and religion, but I am not against the idea that it is part of somebody’s identity. But this being part of me is crazy. Look how many worlds you have, man, you only have one life and you are spending it dealing with who came to Kosovo first, who cares? Go research a bit in Thailand.
Marijana Toma: I will go back again, you mentioned the identity now. An important event in one’s life connected to the identity, you mentioned when you left Kosovo, when your parents sent you to Belgrade, but you returned. This is June, ‘99.
Nikola Jovanović: Yes.
Marijana Toma: What did Belgrade look like for you? What do you represent at that moment in Belgrade?
Nikola Jovanović: Eh, what am I? Still a tourist. I came here to enroll in the faculty and return.
Marijana Toma: Sorry, in what faculty did you enroll?
Nikola Jovanović: In the end, I ended up enrolling in Trading and Banks at BK, because first I wanted to enroll at FON, I wanted to study Political Science. I wanted to study journalism and this at the same time, at FON, and during FON, I also wanted to study IT. On one side they told me to enroll in Pristina, and the order from a higher level came that they cannot accept me. I was consulting for student services, “I want to study…” “No, no, no, we have an order from the higher level that nobody from Kosovo can be accepted.”
And I stayed for some time then I enrolled in the Faculty of Trading and Banks, simply because it was the Faculty of Karićs, the faculty that was literally conceived at my home because it was supposed to be in Peja, then everything started in Kosovo and they moved it to Belgrade together with the Faculty of Management. And then the dean, who in a friendly way, I mean she was at our apartment in Peja many times, everyone in student service was from Peja, and I decided to enroll there. It is not that I wasn’t interested in banks, but I never finished that faculty, I just enrolled in it. That faculty gave me something better. It gave me the opportunity to become part of AIESEC, the student organization that opened my horizons and brought the prejudices that I thought I didn’t have to an end, it gave me the chance to create some of the best friends I have today, and I also met my wife there. I am so happy with my choice, because if I was at FON, it would be a question whether I would be able to become a member or not. They had more people from these student organizations and I don’t believe I would be able to become a member like I did by being here.
To me it was confusing, you know. I was here for one week and I spent the whole time with Vlado Lončarević, the one who was injured, we went to the bath everyday to do electrotherapy, to revitalize his hand nerves because he was using the fixers and everything else. So, I spent time with him and we were neighbors, we stayed close in New Belgrade, I was living near the municipality and he was living here, near the fountain, I was living near the municipality. Then we went using the bus number 78, I remember this, “Let’s go to the bath and get baked in electricity,” we joked about it. Then we would return and this is how I experienced this with him until the time came for him to have the surgery in order to take out the bullet, I don’t know, everything, it was horrific.
I remember that I got lost once before that. Now the Youth Brigade 2, the building near the round-up, I was looking through the window where to go, I go in the direction of the McDonald’s and get out of the building and go in the opposite direction, and this was very difficult for me and I needed time to get used to it. I had to start working immediately. I enrolled in the faculty, simply because I had no particular wishes for my lifestyle, simply because I needed the money because my parents couldn’t afford it financially.
My father came, he didn’t want to impose himself. I mean, back then, Karićs helped a lot of people who worked for them as well as some who didn’t work with them, friends, they tried to employ them wherever they could just so they could help them. My father didn’t want to impose himself, even though he was one of the most important people “down” there. At some point, he found a job, it wasn’t a high position, but it was a job he was happy with, he had a good salary and so on. Of course, my mother didn’t work, she stayed home, she also had offers to work in laboratories but she really wasn’t ready for anything after the kidnapping and everything else, so she stayed home and I had to work. And this was also at Karićs in the design studio, which for me was a dream job [English] at the time, because I dreamt about becoming a designer. I was more an obstacle there, let’s be honest, I did some PowerPoint presentations, this was all for some time.
Then I quit the job and I also worked in the government of Đinđić, in the Agency for State Security, in a lower position than the one who deals with blankets, I carried paper, but back then the director Sonjica Bruno noticed something in me, and she somehow mentored and directed me on how to develop, this and that, and I am still thankful for that. And here I was at the same time working, studying and part of AIESEC, it was an overkill. Fortunately, I decided to choose AIESEC and work, and I was actively engaged in both, full time [English]. I quit my work at the agency when we were working in the big international congress in Serbia, to me it was very difficult because I was never recruited, because that is how I lost…
And I remember how it happened in Peja, they would come to school and those who were not recruited, had to go and show up themselves, “Tomorrow you have to go to the cantonment!” And I went in the meantime, it was Saturday, and if I found today the soldier who told me, “Eh, today it is Saturday, there is nobody here. But, listen to me because you will thank me in the future. Don’t come here anymore! Are you crazy? Escape the military service!” And I never showed up, I am so sorry that I didn’t take his name so that I could find him and treat him.
For me it was a big problem because I couldn’t be issued a passport, back then a document from the military was needed in order to get a passport, and I couldn’t travel. The good thing about AIESEC is that with it you can travel around the world with little money. You have accommodations in every country, travel expenses are covered and everything else. At some point, I managed to go to Canada, it is important, and then we organized the big congress in Belgrade which for me was a full time job. I worked even without money, but we were promised a kind of salary because the budget was very big.
And then I was at various conferences of cities and municipalities, I started from “down” there, I took papers out of the printer, I maintained the IT network, then I also founded their department. The working groups for the IT directorate in various municipalities and cities, and so my career became relevant but I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do and so I through AIESEC I went to do an internship which was actually a full time job, in Istanbul in the Middle East office of Microsoft and Africa, where I dealt with socially responsible employment, with CSR [Corporate-Social Responsibility], of course with the region from Pakistan to the Southern Africa, a fantastic position.
And then, I was so stupid that I returned home, I even insisted to return and my director didn’t allow me, so I even made something up and I have to explain this to her some time, to tell her the truth, I made up an explanation that I had to get leg surgery in order to return to Serbia, because she wouldn’t allow me. She even wanted to pay me even though she knew I had not finished my faculty and I needed one year of experience in order to be employed as a manager, so that she could pay for my executive master’s at the London School of Economics in London for CSR. I knew that was a good opportunity, but I thought there would be other opportunities. I returned to Belgrade to open an NGO dealing with socially responsible employment and here I faced our wall in the NGO sector. I didn’t know that you have to know people in order to get some money, no matter the project.
Then I acted stupid once again by turning down another position in California at Hewlett-Packard and then I ended up dealing with human resources which is what I still do. I was part of ERSTE local bank, then ERSTE Group, at their corporate university and I have been working as an adviser for five years now, I deal with digital media, human resources, organizational development, cultural organizing and such things. But I have to say again, the real thing is, if I didn’t come here the way I did, and if I didn’t enroll in the faculty the way I did, if I didn’t join AIESEC the way I did, would my career which I am very happy about, be the same? I wouldn’t like to repeat myself with the childhood details.
Marijana Toma: I would also like to know about your parents, when did they come to Belgrade?
Nikola Jovanović: They came three days after the signing of the peace agreement. They stayed there, the first, the second day we sent them the car “down” there. We sent one of the cars through a friend, we filled it and one of our friends drove it. This was fitting for them because they had one free seat in the car so that they could pack more things. They packed photographs, some luggage with clothes, they stayed there wishing to remain. My mother was very convinced by the idea, “Let’s go!” While my father was more like, “Where are we supposed to go? This is ours, mine, I was born here. My father was born here, my grandfather. How am I supposed to leave?” As if he was eighty years old and not…. My father was a little blind, he looked at everything through rose-tinted glasses and then what happened happened and they came after three days. I mean, they were imprisoned, I don’t know how to call it, five, six days, I am not exactly sure about it. And they simply sat in the pick-up and came to Belgrade.
Marijana Toma: What happened to the property?
Nikola Jovanović: With the property? Yes, my father managed to sell everything in the end. Now this is… one of our previous neighbors with whom I grew up took the apartment. But there are some interesting stories. Not to go into details, but the father [the older guy of the other family] was arrested and they found a list. This is how they were organized back then before the KLA showed up publicly, that’s how they functioned even in prisons and everything. They found the list at his place, he was arrested and my father went there to take him out of the prison because it didn’t make sense to him, “Do not arrest my neighbor, are you crazy?” My father used all of his connections and they told my father, “Alright, we will release him but he has to disappear from the city.” They found him which we were also part of, it was a list of people to be executed in case the war breaks out. Literally, he was supposed to kill us. I know he didn’t have that kind of mindset, we grew up together. But he had the list, and he disappeared after that, he simply left, wherever he… but it was him.
His son Ramiz who I admire, who was a role model for me during my childhood. He was tall, strong, big, smart, he organized us, I don’t know, a great character. He was a high commander in KLA, I don’t know. After the war they went to our house and stayed there for a long time. We didn’t communicate with them at that time, we only found out later when the organization of UNMIK or I don’t know who, dealt with our property and they told us that he was in our apartment and we said, “OK, at least we know who he is,” and nothing else.
We had that apartment, a shop that was in the garage after the building and my father turned it into a shop just like everybody at that time did.In the end they destroyed it, he couldn’t sell it because they destroyed it and build a pavement there, what else, we had that house which my father unfortunately had built for all those years. And in the end we sold the apartment, simply some man wanted to buy it and we solved it through attorneys, we sold it for very little money, but it helped us return the loans because we were already in Belgrade.
We were in one of the apartments that was owned by Karićs, so we were only using it and at some point we had to… it was small, but it was good and I am very thankful to them for this, but we had to get out of it. And now, my father did… my father had many connections and did well by many people for many years… and some of them were coming back to him to help him. So, he bought some land for very little money, or for free, I am not sure. He started building the object, downstairs from which there is a shop and there are two apartments fifty square meters upstairs. Then we had to adjust it very quickly in order to get out of that apartment. He borrowed some money in order to adjust the apartment, and then the money from the apartment in Peja was helpful because we returned the loans and we deposited some of it in the bank as savings.
They built the house again, how to say, the house was almost finished. Literally, there was only one week work left to do, the heat was to be installed and we were supposed to move. They rebuilt everything, because the heat system was stolen, they had taken everything. In the end, my father sold it all, the house and the land, for little money. He resisted it for a long time because it was his, this was something that connected him with the life “down” there, but at that moment he realized that there was no turning back. There is no turning back, let’s not lie to ourselves. Maybe he hoped that some time before the end, before his death, he can go “down” there. I don’t know what, but we live in Belgrade now, and if we go somewhere else, we will go somewhere far away, there is no turning back “down” there.
Marijana Toma: You told me that… I guess your life is divided between Peja and Belgrade, with AIESEC, travels and everything. In fact, I wanted to ask you, how did you meet your current wife?
Nikola Jovanović: To be honest that is how it is. I am not sure if it has to do with all that I have experienced in Kosovo, or would it simply be the same if I came here to study. I don’t know because I believe that in a way, this has to do with my interest. It is not that now I, I think, OK, I don’t go to gather the Peja residents because I don’t care about that. I like to meet my friends, but I can meet them even beyond this topic, but I can meet and hear, hundreds of people ask me, “Hey, did you sell anything ‘down’ there?” I cannot… but this is something I cannot avoid.
It is true that I meet and am in touch with many people, especially with those from my generation, from school. Since the time Nikola Rajević started gathering us, we have become much closer to each other and we get along, even though our children are different ages, some of the children are studying. So, I believe our worlds are not separate, but simply my closest friends from the time of my studies and AIESEC, and generally from different workplaces. I have been working since 2000, so I have many colleagues and so on.
I met my wife through AIESEC. She used to lead the office in Nis, I was in the Belgrade office and we met through the organization, I was engaged as a mentor to help..and I spent a lot of time “down” there, but back then we were really friends. Only later did we… in fact, when I went to Istanbul for the first time, that is when we started seeing each other. She came to Istanbul for a conference, and we started there. And the following years, this was my sorrow, because I was in Istanbul for one year and a half then I came to Belgrade, then she went to Paris for one year and something, and I traveled constantly.
At that time, I was working for the ERSTE Group and I used this. I always joke about the fact that I haven’t paid the loans for all those flights, but every cent was worth it. And when she returned from Paris, we moved in together. If it wasn’t for AIESEC and my studies, I am sure we would never know each other or meet, she was in Nis, I was in Belgrade.
But there is an anecdote here. Her father, I mean even when we were not together, long before that, I was in Nis because of AIESEC and I had slept at their place because usually whenever we travel, we sleep at someone’s. And back then her father joked a little, “Now, there are no jokes, you have slept at our place and you have to marry her.” And I took it seriously, so… there is another anecdote as well, her father had told her and her sister, “Do whatever you want, don’t bring a Kosovar nor a Montenegrin to my house.” Because there are many Kosovars and Montenegrins studying in Nis and they are perceived as very wild. And look, one of them is married to a Montenegrin and the other is married to a Kosovar.
Marijana Toma: Now you have FIlip, who is…?
Nikola Jovanović: He is two years and a half old.
Marijana Toma: Two and a half. You told me earlier that there are chances that if you go to Kosovo one day, you will take him too. And I would like to return there once again. What is the first thing that you would teach your child about Kosovo, Peja?
Nikola Jovanović: Yes, I will tell him that it is the best place with the best beer. That’s it. To me, and I say it, we always joked while we were “down” there, we had nicknames for those coming from other cities and we always made fun of them, this kept us together, we were more progressive than them, we were the West for all of them, and we were de facto the West of Kosovo. And there was a kind of culture which I see even today when I meet such groups, you often see how people get along with each other simply because they come from Kosovo. And simply people who just like them, have been through the same things, get along much easier. While for Peja residents, they only get along with other Peja residents. They don’t get along with anyone else from Kosovo, only with Peja residents. Such is our culture.
And I believe that if I ever take Filip with me, I want him to notice this first, that Peja is a really beautiful city, with a view from Rugova, the Peja Patriarchate, which is a special place. I remember that when I was a child, it seemed strange when they told us that people from different world countries come here, from different religions and pray, not because they were baptized there because to be honest, it doesn’t matter to me, but simply because it is a special place of culture and history, if nothing else.
I am not even thinking about a particular history, but history is created there. It is a phenomenal example of how things should work, at least in what way you should try to integrate in the local community. The Republic of Kosovo is irrelevant just as well as the Metohija or Serbia Republic. When I take Filip, it will be this part, Peja, Deçan, Prizren, which is the most beautiful city, but for me of course it is the second most beautiful city, and that’s all.
Marijana Toma: Is there anything that you would like to add?
Nikola Jovanović: I don’t know, generally I say, I mean I would like to… when I think about it that I had to come here and do this, I didn’t know what to expect from this, I didn’t even want to prepare for this, wait, I should talk about this or that… but I realized that no. I wanted to let you take the lead, and I think it is better for these to be my memories. Everything that I said is very subjective, seen from my angle. Maybe some things that were important for me and I… that is how I remember them.
I think that it is important to talk about it, I think that it is important for us to listen to each other’s stories. I mean, to see that we all went through similar things… because I still have friends from Peja who come here, I told you about it. And you listen to their stories. It is not that “down” there it is milk and honey, they still experience terrible things. The threats, that’s how it is when you have your own business, our friends are all businessmen and you have to pay a kind of ransom. These are some KLA Veterans Associations and you have to pay. Otherwise, they can criticize you just for being so, and they can throw rocks at your shop and everything else, the pressure is very big.
And I find this very interesting, that you see a kind of nostalgia on their side. Let me say it again that these are people from Peja, these are our people. They weren’t the people that thought about whether Kosovo had to be independent or a state and that it is worth going to war for that. These are people with whom we lived together. Now they miss us just as we miss them. These are friendly connections. I want them to be given opportunities, just as I was given the opportunity to tell my story, people should have the chance to tell their stories because we don’t have many chances to talk to each other.
It is usually the governments or organizations that talk about it, the Serbian organizations are considered traitors in Serbia and same, such organizations from Kosovo are considered traitors in Kosovo. And this is not good, I mean, it is not healthy and this should not… these organizations are important, right, because they collect data about those who went missing and so on, but I believe that many other ordinary people should be given the opportunity… I don’t know in what form, not to turn to that topic now, but I believe that this is not the only way through which we can understand that we are actually the same, that our governments mistreat us in the same way, that we go through every election process, there is nationalism here and there and this has brought nothing good to anyone. They block us because of this, especially those in Kosovo with the passports, visas and so on. We are not very limited in the sense of visas, but there are many prejudices about us because of everything, that is why I think as much communication as possible is needed and this is the only way to move forward.
Marijana Toma: Thank you very much, Nikola.
Nikola Jovanović: Thank you!