Serbian Arts and Crafts

I didn't anticipate the craftsman aspect of Serbian life. Maybe that is to be expected--Yugoslavia was one country for much of my life, and certainly all of my youth, and there was a real dearth of information in popular media about Slavs. And we certainly were not celebrating their talents. I did not see much in the way of handicrafts while we were in Belgrade--it was all sleek clothing stores, small mini-marts, and shoes shoes shoes. All that changed when we got to Zlatibor, a Serbian resort in the mountains about three hours southwest of Belgrade.

Zlatibor is a Serbian vacation spot for Serbians of all walks of life. We saw hundreds of school children there, on some sort of overnight school trip each and every day. This place is popular. And there are the usual stores that we saw in Belgrade--but once you get out of the ski resort village, there is a series of stalls that sell handmade crafts, and they are both nicely done and inexpensive. I bought hand knit thick wool socks for about $4 that were spectacular and the knitted wool coats with embroidery on top of the thick knitted and slightly felted wool are really nicely done from Sirogojno, Serbia. With a small amount of adjustment they could sell well on the European market--but much like the problem with agriculture, there just isn't that kind of help being offered to Serbia.

I wish I could have brought home some of the ceramics that I saw, all under $10 and all handmade--I did manage a sweater vest, but that took up all of the discretionary room I had in my suitcase. But most of all, I wish I had had more time to visit art galleries, because every hotel lobby we were in had interesting and original art. I have really enjoyed bringing home paintings from other places and decorating my walls with them--they remind of the place that they came from, and the art that we saw there, so they are memory placeholders as well as something to enjoy for the sake of the art. Something to do on the next trip.