On the Road of Time – Chapter 8

On the Road of Time – Chapter 8

At the border crossing Kristalopigi (Macedonian Smrdesh), one of the most beautiful villages in Kostur Region, the border guard was leafing through our passports. (Kristalopigi, as stated in chapter 6, means “crystal spring” the new Greek name given to the village Smrdesh because of the natural spring of water that runs near the village church, Sveti Giorgi.) He stamped my wife’s visa without hesitation but was not happy with my passport so he went through it, leafing through the pages again. He stared at me for a while, then he stared at my passport photo, giving me the impression that he was suspicious of something. Perhaps he was suspicious of me or perhaps there was something suspicious with my passport? “FYROM?” he asked while tapping his finger on the cover of the passport. “That’s what it says on the top. In two languages,” I replied. “Ah, that’s in your language…” he said. “Yes sir!.” In my language, understandably, in my language,” I replied. “And your visa? Where is your visa?” he asked and looked at me with stern eyes as if I had been caught stealing something. “There is no need. It is written in two languages further down…” I replied. “Diplomat? You are a diplomat?” he asked in amazement with a surprising tone of voice and with doubt in his eyes. “That’s what it says,” I replied. He leafed through the passport again and went and checked in his computer. He looked at me suspiciously again and asked: “From which border point did you enter Greece?” “From Niki…” I answered. (For those who don’t know, the Macedonian name for Niki is Negochani) “There is no evidence here that you crossed the border…” he said while suspiciously looking into my eyes and nervously tapping his pen on my passport. “There is,” I said. “You dropped it when you were leafing through my passport.” “Yes, here it is,” he said in an unhappy tone of voice. “So you entered five days ago and today you are leaving?...” he asked and then stamped the piece of paper with a hard bang, as if taking his anger out on the paper and then asked: “What will you be doing in Albania?” “We are going to look for a bride…” I said mockingly. He handed me the passports with a frowning look on his face, without saying a word. The hard bang of the stamp reminded me of my last year’s visit to Greece when I crossed the border at the Niki border crossing. The border police officer was a young man. After leafing through my passport and checking its validity on his computer, he pulled a printout out of an envelope and began to ask me all sorts of questions like my first name, my surname, the name of my father and mother, place… and immediately after that he gave me an advanced warning: “I want to know, not how you call yourself now, but how you were called…” I didn’t let him finish before I interrupted and asked: “Are you thinking of the name that I was registered in the church register?” “Exactly that…” he said. “Exactly, but for that I don’t have confirmation. At the municipality they told me that I do exist by the first and last name you asked me to tell you but they also told me that they are prohibited from issuing me a certificate to prove it…” I replied. The officer did not know what to say. He thought about it for a while as we looked at each other. Then I smiled and said: “Sir, open the drawer and there you will find all the information you are looking for. I’ve crossed this border check point several times before and always with the same papers. So you are wasting your time and paper for nothing...” The young officer looked at me for a moment, dropped his pen and said: “This is what we were ordered to do and I am carrying out my orders.” “Okay then, do your job…” I replied. “But those here who ordered us to do this don’t see that the whole world is moving forward and we Greeks are moving backwards. People have gone to the moon but we Greeks are still standing in the same spot. You understand?!” he said. “No, I don’t understand…” I said and as I tried to ask for clarification as to what was I to understand, I heard the “boom” of the stamp on my piece of paper, with which, if necessary, I needed to prove that I had crossed the border legally.

“Welcome!” he said and handed me the passports through the half open window on the counter and asked: “Where are you going?” There was a civilian standing a little ways from us, probably listening to our conversation. He spoke up and said in Greek: “Stin parida tus pigenun… Sto patriko tus homa. Etsi den ine?” (They are going to their homeland… To the land of their ancestors! Isn’t that right?) I turned towards the man and, as confirmation of his statement and question, I winked and said to myself, “It appears that sick Greece is now beginning to slowly recover...” Unfortunately my diagnosis was premature. After moving my car into position to pass through customs, a small man, I am referring to him as a small man because he was very thin, short, narrow in the shoulders, bold and had a pale face, seeming like he was sick with tuberculosis, but he had a strong voice and with a sharp tone demanded: “Open!!!” he said in Macedonian in a loud voice. I came out of the car and in Macedonian, asked: “All the doors and the trunk?” “What!? Are you speaking to me in that…” he cleared his throat and spit, “in that gypsy language? Why don’t you speak Greek? You know Greek! You were speaking Greek to the policeman, eh? Or have you forgotten that this is Greece and everyone who sets foot on Greek soil must speak Greek? Move away from the car!” he ordered. I did as he asked and moved away. The little customs man was now in control. I then whispered to my wife: “Switch over to the other side and keep an eye on his hands, make sure he doesn’t toss anything into the car that will land us in jail…” The little customs man angrily ran out of the inspection station to the parking lot and, from the van, brought back a dog; a German shepherd. Now the two of them, the little customs man and his dog were in charge. The German shepherd sniffed under the seats, jumped into the trunk, got out, sniffed the tires and then the exhaust pipe. The dog then sat down and raised its muzzle, looking at the little man, seemingly saying all this work was done for nothing. The man then ordered the dog to go back to the van and motioned for me to leave. Without saying a word I pointed to the two suitcases that were taken out of my trunk and motioned that they should be put back. We angrily looked at each other for a few seconds until he realized that it was his duty to put them back and one by one he obediently put the bags back in the trunk and checked to make sure that they were correctly placed. “Bravo!” I said, keeping my anger and frustration to myself. The drive over the curvy and dangerous road in Bigla seemed to calm down our nerves but still we were very unhappy about what had happened to us at the border crossing. While heading to Kostur we decided to stop in Rulia. They call the village “Kota” now, named after Kote a no good scoundrel and enemy of the Macedonian people who killed and cut off the head of the Macedonian revolutionary leader Lazo Poptraikov. There was a paved road leading to the village and at the entrance was a “welcoming” marble bust of Kote. We parked our car at the village square beside a Lada with licence plates from Skopje. Several people came out of their yards and approached us. Among them was also a man in a policeman’s uniform. “Hi, how are you?” one of the men asked in Macedonian. “Welcome. Are you from Rulia?” “We are fine, thank you,” I answered “We are not from Rulia, we are just visiting…” We conversed for about fifteen minutes before a wrinkled old lady, holding a cane, interrupted us. “How are you? Where are you from my children? Welcome. Are you from Rulia? I don’t recognize you,” she said in a shaky voice. “We are from over that mountain,” I said, pointing to the north. “Oh, good, good…” she said, coughed and walked away. And as if she had forgotten something she returned and, while hitting the asphalt with her cane, in broken Greek she said: “Edo ine Elada… Avto to glosa na mi to milate. Na milate ta Elinika…” (This is Greece.

Don’t speak that language here. Speak Greek…) The people broke into laughter. The policeman took the old lady to the side and in Greek, told her: “Grandma go home and leave the people to speak as they wish.” When the policeman returned I said: “Don’t discourage the old lady maybe she is one of Kote’s cousins…” After three days of visiting our homeland, as the man at the border crossing correctly pointed out, we returned to the Republic of Macedonia, again over the Niki (Negochani) border crossing. After we had passed through customs I asked to see the Police Chief and briefed him regarding the customs officer’s behaviour at Kristalopigi. He advised me that this was not a matter for the police and that I should speak to the Chief of Customs. But at that time the Chief of Customs was on vacation so I made contact with his deputy. After showing him my diplomatic passport, I told him what had happened and at the end I said: “At the border crossing there is a huge sign with the writing ‘ΕΛΛΑΣ’ and ‘GREECE’. There is something missing on the sign.” He looked at me with a stunned look on his face. “You need to also write that everyone who enters Greece must speak only Greek. Sir,” I continued, “in my job I have passed through many borders all throughout Europe and around the world and everyone asked me how I was doing, how was my trip and they wished me a nice visit in their country and no one has ever said to me that I needed to speak only in their language because it was their country I was visiting. This kind of behaviour reminded me of the Metaxas days when my mother and father and my grandmother and grandfather were punished for speaking their native language, the only language they spoke…” “But sir, please, sir, leave history alone. It is the past... I apologize to you. You are right. Sorry. It is truly a shame if that’s what the customs officer said to you... You know he is ‘Ντοπιος’...” (Ντοπιος – endopios is what the Greeks call the Macedonians in Northern Greece.) I walked away and said to myself: “if he is Ντοπιος then he must be one of Kote’s cousins…”