Melting The Hearts Of Humanity – Kotor: The Cost Of Living (A Balkan Affair: #10)
Kotor, I could hardly wait. Everything that I had heard and read before my visit to this bayside town made it sound as much fantasy as actual place. The beauty, the history and architecture were said to be in such harmony with its natural setting that mere mortals were brought to their knees before its enchanting delights. I wasn’t quite ready to believe the hype, but I eagerly anticipated the dream that was soon to come. My hopes came crashing down into reality when I arrived on the bus from Cetinje just before noon on a Saturday.
Kotor’s bus station, like most bus stations in the Balkans, looked like it had been built in the 1960’s and nothing had been done since that time to update it. For some reason I believed that because Kotor was such a fashionable tourist spot, that its bus station would be appealing since it was the main point of arrival for tens of thousands of visitors each summer. It was not and why would it be? Kotor’s reputation makes it a magnetic draw. The town is like a woman so beautiful that she does not need to wear makeup. Her looks are enough to melt the hearts of humanity. Going to Kotor, is like getting the opportunity to date a Venetian inspired super model. The only problem is that thousands of others are going on the same date.
The Usual Pleasantries – Beyond Normal
While Kotor’s bus station was a functionalist paean to mediocrity, the abandoned shell of a derelict industrial enterprise across the road from it was unsightly in the extreme. I will never understand why these eyesores, which can be found throughout every former communist country, are not torn down. Perhaps they are left behind as reminders of what should never happen again. A single look at the rusting hulk could give someone tetanus. It had all the humanity of a five-year plan put together in the bowels of a bureaucratic nightmare. The overall effect was to make the chilly wind wafting down the street seem that much colder. Fortunately, it was only a short walk between the bus station to Kotor’s Old Town and onward to my accommodation on the other side of the old city walls. Immediately, my eyes were drawn away from the scene stealing, blue water bay and upward to the rocky heights towering over the Old Town where fortifications rose along the precipices.
I had read about Kotor’s fortifications and the fortress which stood far above prior to my arrival. The towering stone sentinel perched high atop these impregnable rocks, known as Fort St. John* had a powerful allure. Getting up there would soon become the goal for my first afternoon in Kotor, but my immediate concern was finding the accommodation I had booked. It stood just to the north of Kotor’s Old Town. The proprietor was a young man who could not have been older than thirty. He spoke excellent English which allowed us to converse beyond the usual pleasantries. When I asked him if he and his family were originally from Kotor, I learned that his roots were Russian, as his great grandfather had been in the Tsarist Army and escaped the Bolshevik Revolution by fleeing to Montenegro. Russians and Montenegrins had a long history of two-way interaction around this area. Many excellent seamen in the Russian naval forces came from towns and villages that were scattered around the Bay of Kotor.
Jumping Off Point - Kotor Bus Station
Murder One Morning – The Dark Underbelly Of Montenegro
The young man standing before me may have had Russian ancestral roots, but he was Montenegrin through and through. He had been engaging in Montenegrins’ two favorite pastimes when I arrived, smoking and drinking coffee. As our talk went on, he offered me coffee which I gladly accepted. Since the proprietor had lived his whole life in Kotor, I raised the subject of an infamous incident that occurred in the Old Town back in 2010. One which horrified tourists and shed light on the dark underbelly of Montenegrin society. The story begins and ends with Dragan Dudic. To his friends and acquaintances Dudic was simply known as Fric. He owned the Maximus discotheque, uniquely positioned within the fortifications of Kotor’s Old Town. It is not every day that you find a nightclub co-opting a prime position at a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Fric had the kind of connections that could make the impossible happen, some of these connections proved deadly.
While Fric was enjoying a morning cup of coffee at the Café Mako in the Old Town, a man by the name of Ivan Vracar approached him. Vracar pulled out a gun and shot Fric dead. He then took off running, quite literally for his life. Fric’s bodyguards caught up to Vracar, then proceeded to nearly beat him to death in front of horrified tourists. The murder of Fric cast a shadow over Kotor, exposing it as part of Montenegro’s murky underworld. During the Yugoslav Wars, Kotor Bay had become a hub for smuggling, including huge quantities of drugs. This continued long after the wars ended. Fric may well have been involved with such smuggling. It probably cost him his life. Many think Fric was targeted for murder by a rival drug gang. Fric was also connected with Darko Saric, who had fled the authorities due to his own involvement in drug smuggling. The Maximus nightclub was likely financed with drug money.
The murder produced a blight on Kotor’s usually sunny reputation. It also made me wonder if the young man I was talking with knew about Fric. It turned out that he had known Fric. As I sipped my coffee, the proprietor began to talk. “He (Fric) was friends with some of my father’s friends. I remember one time when I was a young boy. My father was having coffee with his friends and Fric was there. They had guns laying about. I did not know any better and asked if they would shoot a gun for me. One of the men obliged, firing a shot into the air. Before long the police arrived. They soon sat down and had coffee with us. They talked for a while, shook everyone’s hands, then went on their way. No one got into any trouble.”
Into The Old Town - An Entrance to Kotor
Sunny Side Up – Beauty & Malevolence
Darkness and light danced around each other in Montenegro’s underworld. It was more important who you knew, than what you did. Fric knew the right people, until one day they turned out to be the wrong people. It ended up costing him his life. The hotel proprietor told me this story with barely disguised indifference. Kotor had a side to it that was both easily ignored and incomprehensible to tourists. The brilliant blue water bay, soaring mountains and ultra-cute Old Town were the sunny side up of a place that had been touched by beauty and malevolence in unequal measure.
* Also known as Fort St. Ivan in Serbian and the Castle of San Giovanni in Italian
Bay of Kotor, Kotor Montenegro, Yugoslav Wars Montenegro, Smuggling Montenegro, Smuggling Bay of Kotor, Kotor Bus Station, Kotor Fortifications