Trebinje

February 12–13, 2015

You can live in Montenegro for a very long time with a Russian passport, but you have to go across the border in any direction once a month. The fastest and easiest way to do this is to drive over to Bosnia, where you can have a nice lunch, enjoy the sights, spend the night if you wish and then drive back.

A Bosnian parking garage. It’s always interesting to see how architecture evolves in the absence of strict building codes. And how intelligence evolves. Car fell off the edge? Well, look where you’re going next time.

Trebinje is a clean and quiet city.

I was most surprised by the fact that building entrances aren’t tagged up and papered with flyers.

And there are no keypad locks or intercoms. It’s like being back in 1950.

A view of the old town.

The monument in front of the entrance to the old part looks like a gargantuan stake hammered into a butt. By the way, it’s not my lens that’s warped—the stake is actually curved.

Practically the only parking meter in town.

At first it seems like the sign will be impossible to understand, but if you speak Russian, you can recognize something similar to “chemical cleaning” when you read it. And the meaning immediately becomes clear—this is a dry cleaner.

The old town is microscopic but pleasant.

It’s possible that tourists turn up here occasionally, but mostly it’s just locals. At least that’s definitely the case in February.

Archways.

A bracket for wires.

A trash can was here.

Traces of Art Nouveau.

Traces of war.

Traces of nationalism.