Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomca32 | Hacker News Reader

Funny to see those are referred to in English as "Spomeniks". After living in the US for a decade, looking at this definitely brings an incredible feeling of nostalgia.

Damn it. I want to go back in time, and back to Sarajevo.

View on HN

Although it's a very unpopular sentiment these days, I also want to go back in time to Old Yugoslavia. I still remember reading "Moj Mikro" and "Svet Kompjutera", attending JUDEF in Šibenik and making friends with kids from all over Yugoslavia. My generation, at least, believed in brotherhood and unity.

I'm not so sure how unpopular it is.

I have a friend who steadfastly still calls himself Yugoslavian, rather than Macedonian.

Haven't really talked to him about why, and that's a sample size of 1, but there's others out there who at least look back fondly on Yugoslavia.

Unless i know you, you can add another to your sample. I’m exactly like your friend. I grew up in Yugoslavia and likewise, i find it hard to identify as (north) Macedonian. It was, at least for some of us a really great society to grow up in. I miss it many aspects of that life.

Croatian here, although I was a child when Yugoslavia fell apart (born in 1982.), I remember many details about life back then - and in certain aspects, it was better.

I had no notion of Croatians, Serbians, Slovenians, Macedonians.. we were all Yugoslavian, with slightly different accents. To this day, I've friends in all ex-yugoslavian countries and the feeling I get about them is that of brotherhood, not friendship.

We could go to seaside at any point for free or enjoy national parks.

Nowadays, it's cheaper if I fly to Thailand for 2 weeks. It costs me less than a week at my own country's seaside. National parks are overcrowded and deteriorating, and rightist-nationalism ruins the interaction for people like us - who don't hate and just want to get along and enjoy life together.

There was plenty of food and I particularly remember comics, especially characters called Raja, Gaja and Vlaja :)

The only thing I feel sorry for is the animosity that was stirred up because of selfish reasons, the feeling of brotherhood and ability to enjoy the land's natural beauties was something special. I hope that one day we can have all the good back without the negatives.

Stay safe brothers and take care!

Oh yes. My father had a massive collection of those magazines. He was a hobbyist programmer at that time and I think in one of Svet Kompjutera, he got a review of his software: https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0008074

Australian here - I too want to go back to old Yugoslavia and see what it was like. I recently had some time in Serbia and Kosovo, and it was eye-opening to say the least - the differences and the similarities between the cultures don't make a lot of sense to the milquetoast mentality inculcated into me by my Aussie upbringing. It is a very fascinating region of the world and I can only say that having spent time in both Belgrade and Pristina, there is a little bit of hope that the new generation will rise from the turmoil of their parents past. Slowly, bit by bit, the prejudice and distrust is eroding.

Hate those border crossings, though. The drive from Vienna to Pristina was something I'll never forget.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com