Ulcinj, a story of pirates

During 16th century the Turks were quickly advancing across North Africa and Europe, they had already subdued most of the Balkans and in 1525 they even reached the gates of Vienna. A few decades later started to struggle for Mediterranean supremacy and in 1570 besieged Nicosia and attacked Cyprus with 300 galleys. Spain, the Pope and Venice, together with some minor allies, congregated a big Armada to confront the Turkish and to avoid Ottoman domination of the Mediterranean Sea. They succeeded in one of the biggest naval battles in history, Lepanto, in 1571.

Chronicles say that Turkish fleet suffered a terrible defeat, but some galleys managed to escape from the massacre. Among them was the group of Admiral Uluz Ali Pasha, a former Algerian pirate who was able to sail northwards and shelter in the small cove of Valdanos, close to Ulcinj.

There, Uluz Ali and his 400 Algerian survivors took up their old occupation and started pirating all along the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas. Ulcinj became a sort of Tortuga Island, being not island nor Caribbean, but a fortified Mediterranean city that for 200 years hosted generations of buccaneers and hordes of unfortunate slaves. Several features remain from this awesome past, such as a pirate dance in the local folklore, or a black community that at the beginning of 20th century reached more than 100 free individuals, whose mixed descendants still walk through the streets of Ulcinj and speak Albanian language.

In Ulcinj’s Old Town there is a square with several vaulted cells locked with wrought-iron gates where slaves were exposed and sold out. It is said, asserted indeed, that one of this cells hosted for more than five years Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. History books are wrong and the author of Don Quixote was not imprisoned in Alger, but in Ulcinj, known by that time by its Italian name Città D’Ulcino. Legend says that from his cell Cervantes was able to observe one Montenegrin girl on which he completely felt in love, just as his character Don Quixote lost his mind for Dulcinea. Whether the name “Dulcinea” pays homage to this girl and Cervantes’ imprisonment in Città D’Ulcino is open to speculation, but confirms that Montenegrin legends are rather brilliant.

Ulcinj fortress cell

Of the Chinese

Tiny Montenegro goes on war against China, and Communist Party Central Committee in Beijing decides to deploy 100.000 soldiers to subjugate the 700.000 Montenegrins. In Podgorica the Army Joint Chiefs of Staff asks about the size of the enemy. “1.1 billion, sire”. Chief of Staff says “Wow, and where are we going to bury so many people?”.

This is a typical Montenegrin macho-type joke, but towards year 2000 there were already about 100,000 Chinese in Serbia, resulting from the visit that Slobodan Milošević paid to China in 1996, when he encouraged Chinese people to come to his country. It looks that by the end of his mandate Milošević wanted to grant Serbian citizenship to 40,000 of them, allegedly to provide them with voting rights to stop liberal opposition growth in Belgrade.

Since then many other Chinese have come and got installed in the neighbor countries as well, as shown by the numerous “Chinese shops” or kineski shop which spread along the outskirts of every city and where you can buy cheap clothes, shoes and all kind of hardware for your house, vehicle or garden. Actually, only interesting thing in the kineski shop is the surrealism of talking Serbo-Croatian with a Chinese guy.

Some friends commented that in Belgrade they went to one of these shops where the cleaning lady was a Serb woman, all the clerks were Serbs as well, and the only Chinese was at the cash desk. It is a meaningful anecdote, but I don’t know yet if it shows the business skills of that Chinese guy, the low salaries got by Serbs, or both things at once.

Some Chinese clearly have come to succeed. Chin Chin is the artistic name of this girl who has been living for five and a half years in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia, and among other things she has been interpreter and singer. Maybe we are just discovering a new star. Show starts in min. 2.