Serbia 06. Faculty of Orthodox Theology

After taking the wrong bus and walking for miles, I end up in front of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology. I confidently walk into the building, although I had no appointment and knew no one there. Let alone I speak no Serbian. I show the doorman the name of the dean, carefully written in my small notebook. He could not agree more, that is the dean. However, the doorman speaks no English. He tries to get some students to help. No one cares to stop. At some point, a professor passes by. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" he kindly asks. Last time I did speak some German was many years ago. Still, I try my best and it seems that despite the severe mutilation of German grammar and vocabulary, I can get my point across.

I wait in front of the dean's office. It's Friday afternoon and he is out for lunch. While waiting, a young student asks me a few quick questions in Serbian, before I have the time to defend myself with the phrase I've come to master: "ja ne govorim srbski". His name is Mladen, we switch to English and exchange a few words. I try to explain what I'm doing in Serbia. He listens, nods politely, then leaves.

The dean's secretary tells me to come back on Monday if the dean is not back by 3pm. An hour passes and it's 3:15. I get out of the school and head for the closest bus stop. On the sidewalk, I run into Mladen. "Hey, where you're going? You have something to do now?" I obviously did not.

Mladen took me to the church in which he chants, then we headed back to school for the evening prayer, a very interesting, somewhat intimate and mysterious ceremony. Which he invited me to photograph. We returned to the evening prayer yesterday, to photograph it one more time. Thanks, Mladen!

Rural Life in Northern Romania

On assignment for the World Bank about two weeks ago, I've had the privilege to spend some time with Gheorghe Giurgiu, a very hardworking man who raises water buffaloes in the village of Libotin, in Northern Romania. The images below were taken when Mr. Giurgiu went to a forest near his village to get some firewood for the shepherds who keep his sheep.

Serbia 05. Djunis Pilgrimage

The legend says that on 24th of July, 1898, a thirteen-year old girl named Jocic Milojka, from Djunis, met the Virgin Mary while going to get water. Mary threw a stone and demanded that a church be built around it, to serve the sick and troubled. A small chapel was built and, as the number of visitors began to grow, a church was built next to it.

It is supposed to be one of the most popular places of pilgrimage for the Orthodox in Serbia. On the night of October 13th, before the feast of the Veil of Our Lady, people gather there and pray until sunrise. Many believe that those with a clean soul can spot the profile of the Virgin Mary in the horizon in the early hours of the morning (photo 3).

Serbia 04. Anti-Gay Pride Riots

Approximately 5000 policemen were deployed in the center of Belgrade to protect the gay parade, in what the media described as an attempt by the Serbian government to prove their ability to protect citizen's rights. Hundreds of protesters tried to break through the police blockades. Chaos followed.

Belgrade Off-Topic

Serbia 03. Peć: Patriarch's Enthronement

From the back of the bus I could see the line of cars behind, driving close to one another, all heading to Peć in the early hours of the morning. Just like the guy sleeping next to me, many of them had come directly from Belgrade.

It was impressive to see thousands of people who had travelled hundreds of kilometeres to be part of the enthronement ceremony, to respect their tradition. Ever since Joanikije II was elevated from Archbishop to Patriarch of Peć on Palm Sunday, April 6th, 1346, The Peć Patriarchy was to be the historical seat of Serbian Patriarchs.

Peć is now in Kosovo and NATO officials made sure the level of security for this event was high. The number of Italian KFOR peacekeepers was reinforced. Although people were calm and respectful, there was this constant feeling of tension and enmity throughout the courtyard, which carried through untill the end of the ceremony.

As I had no credentials, I couldn't enter the monastery and was therefore confined to the courtyard. Which I didn't mind at all, since it is the believers that I am mostly interested in for this project anyways. The high priests pictured below were guests in the ceremony.

Serbia 02. Who Do You Work For?

It pays off to wake up at 4:30 in the morning. While I had absolutely no idea which way to turn after stepping out of the hotel, I remembered what a Russian friend once told me: "Where there's a will, there's a way."

The streets were filled with policemen, some of which directed me to the bridge in Mitrovica that separates the Serbians from their southern neighbours. It was 5am by the time I reached the bridge. Dozens of buses and cars were lined up, waiting for KFOR soldiers to give them the go-ahead to cross the bridge.

Some of the vehicles had their doors opened and I popped my head inside here and there, asking if they had any seats left. I realize that I might look slightly suspicious, when, after a few refusals, I ask the passengers of a minibus for room and half of them say "yes", while the other half yells "no" at the same time, as if to shut the first half up. Ok. I must agree. A six-foot four, darkly clad guy, asking Serbians to take him to Kosovo, in English, with an American accent, must look dubious. Odds were against me.

I realize that I need to somehow neutralize this image I'm conveying so I change my phrasing. "Hello, I am from Romania and …" Finally, it works. One priest who seemed in charge of a large convoy of buses from Belgrade, along with a dressed-up gentleman give me the benefit of the doubt. After checking my passport and press pass, they make a couple of phone calls, most likely to several drivers, then place me on one of the buses.

People around me are young and most speak some English. This is when I get the question I was going to get throughout the day and I would most likely get until the end of this project: "Who do you work for?" Again, suspicion arises when I say I'm a freelancer and try to explain the concept behind the masterclass. Even journalists have a hard time understanding why someone would come to their country to document something unless there's money at the end. They look at each other, smile, then assume there must be some dark force behind this: "James Bond, right?".

Before I left Romania, I spoke to a wise friend who has spent some time in this part of the world. "How do you cast away the suspicions?", I asked. "You can't. You just go about your business and let people believe whatever they want." Comforting.

Serbia 01. Strong Start: Improvization

When I wrote the proposal, I had no idea that the point of departure was about to change, as during my documentation I found out that the new Patriarch, His Holiness Irinej, was soon to be enthroned in Pećka Patrijaršija - or the Patriarchate of Peć - a beautiful monastery now in Kosovo. A few days later I was on the night train to Belgrade.

Marko (another participant in the masterclass) waited for me in Belgrade, armed with contacts' phone numbers, possible fixers and a large, confident smile. That helped a bit, considering I had little control over what was going to happen next, which is always somewhat disheartening.

He put me on a bus to Mitrovica. The plan was to spend the night there, where I had already reserved a room, and head over to Pec in the morning. For some reason, no one, including Marko, had any idea of how to get from Pec to Mitrovica.

Mitrovica must be a lovely city. I wouldn't know. By the time the bus got there, after an eight-hour ride, I didn't even know where to get off. The main power generator in the area was down and everything looked like Easter night in my hometown: candles left and right.

I finally got to my hotel, where I had cautiously reserved a room. "Andrej?" asks the guy at the front desk and points to my name, mispelled at the top of a page somewhere towards the back of a math notebook. "Yes, sir, that's me!" I answer, vaguely pointing my chin up, as if to show I knew they were waiting for my arrival. "Sorry, your reservation is October 10". It's October 2nd, the enthronement was the following day and something told me they were not going to wait for me. You can imagine how fast the chin dropped, back to where it should have prudently stayed.

We got into a slight argument about the reservation phonecall, but, while I totally trust my girlfiend's English skills - she was the one who called - I realized there was no point and moved on. On to another hotel, that is. The guy who took the reservation was really nice and walked me through the dark to this fancy hotel where I was lucky enough to get a room and, once the power came back - in a couple of hours - a really great meal.

No one in this hotel knew how I could get to Pec from Mitrovica (keep in mind this in Northern Mitrovica, where most inhabitants are Serbian), but they all agreed on one thing. I needed to get up at five in the morning.

Serbs and Orthodoxy

"As you reach the end of an exciting one-hour drive through the hills southwest of Kraljevo in central Serbia, at some point the windy road makes one last curve and the trees give way to a clearing. One can then admire, profiled against the sunset, the harmonius blend of the Romanesque and the Byzantine architectural styles, under the roof of the Studenica monastery. While for the regular tourist this may be just another check mark on the list of the World Heritage Sites, locals know this particular monastery stands for much more.

Built by Stefan Nemanjic, the founder of the medieval Serbian state, in 1190, the Studenica monastery represents the symbol of Serbian Orthodoxism, the mother of all Serbian churches, a stronghold of Eastern Orthodoxy in the region. It is also the point of departure in my intention to pursue of a project that explores the current relationship between the Serbs and the Orthodox Church."

This was the beginning of the last draft of my story proposal for World Press Photo's See Masterclass. It is a vast and complicated theme. This project will be nothing more than a visual exploration of this theme, as I am sure that by late November - our deadline for the masterclass - I will only be able to catch a glimpse of such an intricate topic.

I will try to keep a brief journal of my project here, consisting of photos, random thoughts and casual descriptions of my Serbian experience. Comments are always welcome!

Kicked Out

Recent waves of expulsions of Roma from France have drawn severe criticism from the EU to President Sarkozy. However, the police has kept on dismantling Gipsy camps all over France and sending Roma people back to their countries of origin. Most of these people come from Romania and Bulgaria.

Through Agence France Presse, I got this assignment for the Guardian to tag along with reporter Lizzie Davies and fixer Rupert Wolfe-Murray on a trip to Barbulesti, a village in Romania where most inhabitants are Roma. According to the local police officer, about 90 percent of the people in that village have been abroad (mostly Spain, Italy or France) at some point in recent years.

We met several people, most of which were relatively reticent to talk to us. Understandably so, as they have been interviewed so much lately. The Roma are pretty pragmatic, so it came as no surprise to me when some asked for money in exchange for access. We did not pay anything, but it was a hard thing to do last week, just a few days after a German newspaper had paid a guy somewhere around 200 Euros (about $260) for an interview.

We got lucky and met a school teacher in the nearby city of Urziceni, who knew the community in Barbulesti pretty well and could smooth things for us.

My plan was to photograph unobtrusively, but I soon realized that was impossible when I could only spend a few minutes at a time with each family. Plus, everyone stares directly into the camera and asks to have their picture taken. That lead nowhere, so I changed the approach and asked people to pose for me, so I could take their portraits. This worked a little better.

The biggest problem we encountered was that almost none of the people we met had recently come back from France. Even though almost everyone had a family member who had been there at some point and had sent money back, there was no direct connection with the recent wave of expulsions.

This changed when we met the vice-mayor, who had brought along a guy who had come back voluntarily from Montpellier the week before, for fear he would get kicked out by the police. The guy, obviously aware of our presence in the village, showed up wearing a France t-shirt. His name was Romica Raducanu. He was kind enough to take us to his home, where I could not only make portraits, but also shot around a little bit while he was talking to Lizzie and Rupert.

Here is how the story that Lizzie worked on appeared in the Guardian. Below are pictures from the Raducanu household and also a few portraits of people who were willing to have their picture taken in our short encounter with this community.