Nachricht Nummer : 283 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 39 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.zer.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 21 October, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 30.10.1993 15:55:00 W+1 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 21 October, 1993 Dobar dan, In a few weeks old Dutch weekly I found an intro of the head editor about the fight around the white house in Moscow, the battle between Jeltsin and Roetsjkoj. He described the reaction of his reporter in Moscow. Nothing was going on according to him, 99% of the Russians just lived on as on every normal Russian day. It look like that all that news about troubles in Russia only was made for the export. Sometimes I have the same feeling when I talk by telephone with people abroad or when I meet people who came for the first time to this area. They are full stories and small back ground facts from which we mostly don't know a thing, or they are not seen as something special within the normal news we get every day. Life goes on and it change only a little bit from day to day, or rather the changings from day to day are so radical that you learn to life with them without getting in panic each time. One of those things is f.e. the radical changings in the money in Croatia, a few days ago the Croatian government seems to have made an agreement with some German banks and the effect on the black market is fantastic, it simply stopped to exists. Where normal a few hundred people would have stand offering to change your DEM's into HDR's is now nobody interested in the strong currency. Every body wants suddenly to have HDR's for their foreign currency and suddenly we see the price of the HDR going up. Today the government even announced that some of the prices in the shops will go down. That wouldn't help much in the Nama on Kvaternikov Trg, since that one is nearly empty, if have the feeling that for weeks nothing new has arrived in that shop, The other shops however, especially the private ones, are fuller than before, especially you see more and more western European products. At the moment you are only allowed the change 100 DEM at the time in the bank, since some time you can also buy foreign currencies on the Croatian banks. So if you need to change more you have to run from bank to bank and stand hours in line to get your HDR's together. And you really have to look in the papers not to take the wrong bank, since the exchange rate are different for bank to bank. You see something happening on all the streets, and still nothing real is said about it in the papers or they other media. It is a kind of rolling stone effect, like you always had in front of shops in Poland and the USSR in the "old days", when ever there was standing a line of people in front of a shop other people joined it since although they didn't know what it was something inside was for sale and who know, maybe you need it, and if not maybe you would need it in the future and couldn't buy it than. The most fantastic thing is that banks have the habit like shops to run out of products. So when you at last worked your whole way through the waiting line the nice lady at the take tells you nicely "nema dinera (no dinars)" and you have the leave the bank without having done anything else as standing in line. Not something most of the people are really happy with. In former Yugoslavia you didn't had so many line standing as in most of the former socialist countries so the people are not so use to it. In the afternoon David from Colorado arrived, he is going to stay in this region for the coming three months and should have arrived yesterday but was got in the air field strike in Paris. On the way to the bus station to pick him up I saw Ivana from Suncokret, it must have been months ago that I have told with her. Her work on the Suncokret office in Pula is over now, she is back in main office in Zagreb. Since I have started in Pakrac I lost Suncokret a little out of side, but the organisation went on like before, it kept on growing and works in over 30 camps by now and get's more professional and accepted by the big organisations. David was still standing in the front of the bus station with his heavy boxes, he is rather active, but look very tired after having had no sleep since nearly two whole days, he wants to start immediately with filming and interviewing, since therefor he came over to this continent. But after a cup tea in Vesna's room he can't stay awake anymore and lays sleeping in front of the heather. He is so fast asleep that he don't notice that Jojo and Vesna are coming home for dinner. A few hours later another pioneer from Suncokret comes by and that is the moment that David wakes up, it takes a while before he realises that he is in Zagreb and not somewhere at the other side of the ocean. The girl from Suncokret (her name I will tell some days later) came to say more or less good-bye. After living in Croatia for some time her parents which is an ethnical mixed mariage have decided that the whole family will move to the other side of the globe. She rather would stay her in Croatia, but don't want to fight with her parents about this one. Her plan is to go to the university in that country and learn something which can be useful for the future of her home land. She is sure that she will come back as soon as her study is over and still is planning to play an active role in the rebuilding of her country as soon as it is safe to return. When she leaves I had the slidiest hope that I gave her an idea how the stay here, without having to fight her parents, let's hope that our little plan will work, but I am not so sure. Bok I Mir from Zagreb, Wam ------------------------------------------------------ Zagreb Diary can be found on a lot of different electronic networks, it is copyright free and can be ported to any network or other means of communication you like, but please drop my a line, you can reach by sending a message to wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de or wam@zamir-zg.comlink.apc.org. Zagreb Diary is dedicated to Tyche, Pjort and Rik, so that they found out what there father have been doing all that time in Zagreb. Financial support for Grassroot relief work in Croatia or BiH can be send to Kollektief Rampenplan (atn. Lylette, Postbox 780, 6130 AN Sittard, Netherlands, tel:. +31-46-524803 and fax: +31-46-516460 or to Zagrebacka Banka, Zagreb, accountnr.: 2440291594, to Kat, Pieter Jan Herman Fredrik, Brace Domany 6 6fl nr3, 41000 Zagreb. Please notify me if you send or have send any donations. ## CrossPoint v2.1 ##