**The Balkans: Where History, Drama, and Internet Culture Collide** Alright, folks, buckle up! We’re diving into the Balkans, a region that’s been serving up drama since before Netflix was a glint in Reed Hastings’ eye. But why, you ask, is this historic hotspot trending globally now? Let’s break it down, add a dash of wit,…
PRISTINA—The capital of Europe’s youngest country is the sort of place where NATO still keeps a small museum of its own spent shell-casings and locals treat the phrase “geopolitical stability” the way Londoners treat sunshine: theoretically possible, statistically improbable. Walk the city’s main boulevard—named, with the modesty typical of post-conflict capitals, after Bill Clinton—and you’ll…
Red Star Belgrade: How a Serbian Football Club Became the Last Soviet-Era Dictator Still Allowed to Travel By the time the final whistle blew in Salzburg last August, Red Star Belgrade had done something no Balkan politician has managed in three decades: crossed multiple borders without a single customs officer asking awkward questions about where…
**Kosovo: Europe’s Favorite Unfinished Symphony Plays On** Pristina—Somewhere between the Balkans’ endless coffee culture and the continent’s most creative interpretation of “sovereignty,” Kosovo continues its 25-year quest to convince the world it exists. The young republic—older than TikTok but younger than the iPod—has become something of a geopolitical Schrödinger’s cat: simultaneously independent and not, depending…
Podgorica—population roughly the same as a mid-tier Premier League stadium on derby day—has quietly become the black-box recorder of 21st-century geopolitics. From the café terraces along the Ribnica, you can watch Chinese cranes assemble a belt-road bridge, sip Italian espresso roasted in Hamburg, and eavesdrop on German tax consultants explaining Montenegrin citizenship-by-investment to Russian crypto-millionaires…
Kerkez: The Balkan Everyman Who Became a Global Metaphor By our man in the departure lounge, still waiting for a delayed moral compass BELGRADE, 03:14 a.m.—If you’ve ever flown low-cost into Nikola Tesla Airport at an hour when even the tumbleweeds are billing overtime, you’ve met him. He’s the guy in the fluorescent vest hustling…
PARIS — The name Ercan Osmani has started popping up on encrypted Telegram channels, in the margins of EU parliament briefings, and, most improbably, on the laminated “Person of Interest” cards carried by bored bodyguards at Davos. Who, you ask, is this man now orbiting the same stratosphere as sanctioned oligarchs and TikTok prophets? Allow…
**Balkans Roulette: Why the World Still Keeps One Nervous Eye on Serbia** BELGRADE—Walk the length of Knez Mihailova on any given afternoon and you’ll witness the full, glorious contradiction that is modern Serbia: teenagers in Supreme hoodies filming TikToks against 19th-century facades, pensioners feeding pigeons next to a Nike store, and—if you linger long enough—some…
North Macedonia has spent the last thirty years being politely asked to re-introduce itself at every diplomatic cocktail party on the planet. The country—formerly “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (try fitting that on a lapel pin)—finally settled on the name “North Macedonia” in 2019 after Greece threatened to veto its NATO dreams. Athens insisted…
The World’s Smallest Great Power: Montenegro as a Geopolitical Punchline By Our Correspondent, still hung-over from a rakija-soaked night in Kotor The Adriatic has always been Europe’s liquid catwalk: Venice glides by in designer decay, Croatia flaunts newly-acquired EU pins, and then—barely visible unless you squint—Montenegro struts in borrowed shoes two sizes too big. At…
Turkey vs Serbia: When Two Middle Powers Decide to Throw Elbows in the Balkan Playground By the time you read this, the latest diplomatic “flare-up” between Ankara and Belgrade may have already been memory-holed by the next algorithmic outrage. Still, for those keeping score on how small, proud nations weaponize history, the Turkey–Serbia spat is…
