Front Matter - Part 04

At this point I must also mention two other brothers who lived in our immediate neighbourhood who contributed to the culture of our community. One was a doctor, a top specialist, the other a famous pathologist. Both had acquired their education in Belgrade. Their father was also a doctor. The people of Ohrid remembered him as one of the most humane people in the city... and even though he belonged to a different nationality the old doctor had no problem making friends with everyone. He belonged to a humane profession dedicated to helping all people. The new house was built on the same plot as the old house where the two brothers and their families had previously lived. The house was located next to the old Music School. It extended to the other corner, all the way down the street, which began from the lakeshore and led to a large intersection towards the cenre of the city. This new building, appropriately named "villa", was beautiful in appearance and had windows overlooking the lake. Many tourists vacationed there. The owners were gentle and friendly people who always smiled and greeted me every time we met.

Two or three weeks after the so-called President of the Ohrid Court came into my yard to stop me from doing further work on my house, I received a blue envelope in my mailbox at my address in Skopje. It was stamped with a court seal from the Court of Ohrid. Inside it was a document outlining the lawsuit that my next door neighbour had launched against me. It was a basic request to establish that the back wall of my house was his property and he wanted it back. This particular wall, according to my next door neighbour, had been erected parallel to his wall on his property about twenty years ago.

As I went inside my house with the piece of paper in my hand I laughed. "So now according to my next door neighbour my house had no fourth wall and my roof was held up by only three walls..." I thought to myself.

Towards the end of the summer I received a court summons to attend a hearing. It was in Ohrid.

When I went inside the court I immediately recognized the judge.

He was the same person who had come into my yard with the Court President that Sunday morning to chase my workers away and stop them from making repairs on my house.

When the trial started I addressed the judge as follows: "Your Honour, the claim my esteemed next door neighbour is making is absurd and should never have made it to trial. It should have been dismissed even before the trial was scheduled. How can the fourth wall of my house not belong to my house? Was my roof built on three walls?" Unfortunately the judge didn't react; he pretended not to hear me.

Once again, at that point I realized that this trial was rigged. My next door neighbour and the judge were friends or the judge owed him something. The trial was a sham... a tragic comedy. At one point my next door neighbour claimed that the fourth wall of my house was not mine. That wall, according to him, was a dividing wall since Ottoman times, erected on his property. It was the wall that divided his yard from that of Milena's husband's father. And now he wanted it back. That would certainly mean that my house was extending onto his property and had to be taken down! What nonsense!

After the first hearing was postponed, in order for my next door neighbour to summon his witnesses, another forty-seven hearings followed, which I had no choice but to attend. All those times I had to leave my job in Skopje to be in Ohrid. But when I arrived, I would find that the hearing was postponed for some reason or another, either a witness didn't show up or my next door neighbour failed to attend because he was working in another city. Even though the trails were scheduled in advance, most of them were postponed but I was rarely notified.

At one of the trials, my next door neighbour summoned a fake expert from the land registry. He walked into the court with a big book and a huge scroll and made a claim that the disputed wall belonged to my next door neighbour and not to me, the new owner who'd just bought the house.

As was expected, the judge ruled in favour of my next door neighbour, beyond reason.

I wasn't going to stand for that, of course, and so I appealed the ridiculous verdict. Unfortunately, due to some irregularities in how the trial was conducted, the upper court sent the case back to be tried again in the lower court.

Before the second trial started I asked the court to remove the judge who presided over my case during the first trial. To my surprise, not only did the court remove the judge and appoint another, but the first judge himself was happy to be taken off this ridiculous case.

After the new judge scheduled the first court hearing, my next door neighbour realized that his frivolous claim would be dismissed so he requested that the court appoint a new judge. The court again appointed a new judge, this time a woman.

"My torment will continue..." I thought to myself when I walked into the courtroom. But then I saw the new judge, a young, beautiful, modern woman, who at first glance made a good impression on me. I was happy to see her presiding over my case.

And for the first time I secured two witnesses. One was present but the second one excused himself with a written statement, claiming that he couldn't attend the hearing due to illness.

But to my surprise, the judge wouldn't allow me or my witness to testify. But she did allow my next door neighbour and his witnesses to testify.

When I tried to object the judge threatened to remove me from the courtroom. After that it became risky for me to say anything.

At the end of the hearing, the judge scheduled a new hearing. In fact, the court decided to conduct an on-site inspection and hold the hearing there.

I was convinced that this hearing too would be a travesty but it had to be endured.

On the day of this hearing, held in the field, a new expert was summoned at the invitation of the court. This was a young man who could hardly instil any confidence in anyone. The judge came to the trial wearing thin high heeled shoes, a tastefully selected outfit and a gorgeous, expensive necklace.

Everyone was informed in writing that the trial was going to be held in the large yard of my next door neighbour's house. This was the first time I had entered his yard. He and his wife were already there waiting.

The hearing began after the judge and the court stenographer arrived. The first thing the judge did was call the expert to the stand to provide his opinion. To my surprise he, quite convincingly, said that the disputed wall couldn't have been a wall separating the two yards because it had a chimney on it, which obviously was as old as the wall, made of the same material and was the only chimney on the house. He also stated for the record, that the wooden beams on which the bricks rested were the same kind of beams as the ones on the wall, which the plaintiff (my next door neighbour) claimed to be his. On top of that, the expert said that the connecting wall facing the street was built at the same time and with the same kind of material. In fact, the expert was certain that both walls were made of the same material and built at the same time.

At first my next door neighbour and his wife didn't seem to understand what all that meant and what it had to do with their claim. So the expert also explained that the ceramic roof tiles, which of course rested on the four walls, were Turkish and very old. They were lined up next to one other and hadn't been moved for a hundred years.

After the expert finished giving his testimony the court announced that this was the last hearing before a verdict would be delivered.

At this point I didn't have much hope that a verdict would be delivered in my favour. But I figured let it be whatever it was going to be.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the verdict which had arrived in my mailbox at my permanent residence in Skopje. It wasn't only in my favour, but it also prohibited my next door neighbour from appealing it or from taking further action against me. But he launched an appeal anyway which the upper court shut down, finally freeing me from this deceitfully designed torture...

But not for long...

A new lawsuit arrived. This time my next door neighbour claimed that, while repairing the roof we had extended its rear part seventy-five centimetres into his property. The court was asked to rule on whether that part of the roof should be shortened or not. In other words, my next door neighbour was asking the court to make a decision to cut that part of my roof off.

The court document that was sent to me, presumably written by a lawyer, was very poorly written, like it was written by someone who didn't even have a high school education, let alone a law degree. My name was written in lower case, house in upper case and there wasn't a single period or comma... Not to mention the poorly written content...

I soon found myself in the courtroom attending a scheduled hearing.

A new judge was presiding.

I was asked to make a statement in my defence so I said, "Your Honour it's not clear to me what the plaintiff is asking of me. Can you please read the document for me?" "Why?" asked the judge. "Can't you read? You're an educated woman."

"Please indulge me, Your Honour. I am asking you to please read it precisely because I am educated. I have read hundreds of documents, some written by half-literate people but I haven't seen a document written like this." The judge looked at the document and tried to read it. But since it was so poorly written he couldn't make out where sentences started and where they ended. After looking at it for a moment he couldn't refrain from bursting into laughter. I also started laughing. After that the judge addressed the plaintiff with the following words:

"Well, my dear colleague, you've really overdone it this time..." It seemed to me that the judge hadn't previously read the document, but regardless of the comical situation, he continued with the hearing.

I said, "Your Honour this lawsuit has no basis because our two houses at the roof level are ten centimetres apart from each other.

How could my roof encroach onto his property seventy-five centimetres? If that were the case my roof would be protruding inside his bedroom. This is an irrational claim." Disregarding what I'd said, the judge quickly ended the hearing and didn't schedule a new one.

He ruled in favour of my next door neighbour.

I decided to appeal the ruling but the appeals court sent the case back to the trial court.

At that point I decided to call on a commission with authorized experts from Skopje, to determine the actual situation, to show that there wasn't even ten centimetres between my house and my next door neighbour's house and to prove that there was no possibility that my house was protruding into his house seventy-five centimetres, as he claimed. After the commission conducted an on-site investigation and submitted its report it revealed that my next door neighbour's claim was absurd at best. This time the Ohrid Court judge didn't dare rule in his favour.

After going through this frivolous but agonizing legal process, I found out that in some countries in the world there were penalties against people who initiated frivolous lawsuits. If such a law existed in our country, many judges, court presidents, experts, witnesses, etc., would be punished. Not to mention people like my next door neighbour.

I always went to the lake, even when I had very little free time. I usually sat on the big stone on the quay, walked along the shore or went to the city centre, which wasn't far from my house. I mostly went there at sunset to admire the huge artistic landscapes under the setting sun that lay between the sky, the mountains and the lake water, painted by nature's magic. Being engrossed in the natural beauty of the landscape I hadn't noticed a friend coming my way. I only became aware of his presence when he said my name aloud.

"Good to see you again," he said. "I wanted to ask you if you're up to date with the work being done on the new urban plan, in this part of the city where your house is located. If your house is left as it is out of the plan, it will remain that way until the Municipality decides to demolish it. If it's not included in the plan the renovations you made won't be recognized. What's even worse is if the house is not included in the plan, one day you may be without a house..." This bit of news wasn't good for my situation given the problems I'd had with my next door neighbour in the past. I was pretty sure he was up to no good again. I had made far too many sacrifices for that house and I wasn't prepared to lose it because of some bureaucratic detail. It was my dream house and I wasn't going to let some administrator delete it, cross it off the plan! I almost had a nervous breakdown. I couldn't believe what was happening... Again! My head began to spin as I tried to think of what to do. What conditions did I have to meet for my house to be included in the plan? Who decided if my house was put in the plan or left out?! Who would definitely decide the fate of my house and mine with it?! I thanked my friend for the advice and quickly left for home.

The first thing I did was find out which team of experts was working on the proposed plan and in which institution, so that I could act preemptively.

Two days later I found myself walking down a long corridor in the building where I was told that whatever went into the plan or was left out of it would be decided there. A secretary was sitting in a small room. She was petite. She smiled at me the moment she saw me. From the first words she spoke I could tell by her dialect that she was from my hometown. "What luck?!" I thought. I then proceeded to tell her the troubles that had brought me there.

"Don't worry," she said. "The chief architect working on the plan is one of us." She then picked up the telephone and told the man on the other side who I was and why I had come to see him. She then directed me to his office, after which I immediately went inside... But from the very moment he greeted me he avoided looking at me. He avoided meeting my gaze. So I asked him if it was possible for me to find out what the status of my house was in the pending plan and if it was already included.

The man, the one the secretary referred to as "one of us", took the project plan out, placed it on his desk, pointed to my house and said, "Your house is left status quo, that is, it is included in the plan but as is." After I asked him what that meant, he said, "its permanent survival is unforeseen." I immediately reacted and said that that was unacceptable and that he had to do something to change it. I begged him to do whatever he could to put it in the plan permanently. But from how he reacted I was sure my next door neighbour had already gotten to him, and it became clear to me that he had already been bribed.

I was almost in tears when I returned to the secretary's office. She knew right way the kind of answer I had received from the man who was "one of us". She said:

"I will arrange for you to see the director, he's the one who will make the final decision. He is away for a few days but you can call him when he returns, here is his telephone number. Call him on Monday."

"I will," I said and thanked her.

The next Monday, I called the same secretary to ask if she had made an appointment for me to see the director. Another female voice answered and told me that the secretary I was looking for was on sick leave and that she was going to be away for several days.

Several days later I called again and got the same answer. This seemed kind of suspicious to me so the next day I went to see for myself.

I went into the secretary's office but there was no one there. I then went out into the hallway looking for someone in the other offices.

Just as I was about to enter an office I ran into a man much younger than me, with short hair, wearing a short black leather jacket.

"Are you looking for someone?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm looking for the secretary who works here..." I answered.

"Do you need to see her personally, or...?" he asked.

But before he finished asking I interrupted him and said, "No, she was supposed to arrange a meeting for me with the director." "Do you know the director?" he asked.

"No, I don't know him," I answered looking a bit confused.

"I'm the director," he said, smiled, opened his office door and invited me in. I became even more confused as I followed him inside. I then sat down on the stool next to his long desk.

"I see you have many books written by Macedonian writers," I said looking at the big bookshelf standing behind him "Had I known you were an avid reader I would have brought you two of my latest novels... " Then I introduced myself.

He didn't say that he didn't know me or that he hadn't heard of me as an author but the next couple of hours we spent talking about Macedonian literature composed by Macedonian writers, some of whom were his personal friends. After I told him that I was also a journalist, he started telling me stories of historical importance, which I hadn't heard before.

Finally he asked me why I wanted to see him.

After talking to this man for a while I felt like I had known him for a long time. I told him that I had come to see him because I very much liked the little house on the lake and I wanted it to be placed in the proposed plan. I told him that it was my life's desire, as a writer, a poet, and a journalist to own a house by the lake, even if it was the smallest house. And when that wish finally came true I wanted to preserve the house.

I then jokingly said, "I wanted this house so much that maybe a greater power granted it to me... That and because my family and I, without exception, spent every summer vacationing in Ohrid.

"So, what's the problem?" he asked sounding interested.

"Well, one of your engineers showed me the plan and I found out my house wasn't on it," I said.

"Are you sure? Who did you speak to?" he asked.

"Victor Nikoloski," I replied.

The man then picked up the telephone and asked Victor to bring him the plan. When Victor came into the office and saw me, he looked guilty like he had been caught doing something dishonest. The director opened the plan and, with a little help from me and Victor, found my house.

"Why would you erase the house of a poetess? Don't you know that she will compose poems and write songs about the beauty of the lake and the city?! I don't see your objective reason for doing that," he said.

The director then took a felt tipped pen and marked the house so that it would fit into the new plan like the other houses, with the possibility of being upgraded.

Victor opened his mouth to say something but the director cut him off and told him to leave. He collected his papers and left the office.

I was so happy I wanted to jump up and hug the director, a man whom I didn't know until a little while ago. I thanked him and promised him that I would come back soon and bring him copies of some of my books. And I did. It was a real pleasure to talk with him, a man who was knowledgeable in many things, past and present, about which he spoke sensibly and very clearly.

The plan went through many drafts and dragged on for quite a long time. As the plan was nearing the final version I found out that my house had again been removed during one of those many drafts. And it wasn't only my house... According to the rumour mill the same was done to the houses whose owners hadn't put money into the pockets of the engineers hired to draw up the plan.

The very next day I went to see Naum Filipovski, head of urban planning in the City Assembly, to find out what had happened.

Naum and I knew each other. As soon as I walked into his office he kindly told me that he had to go to the Urban Planning Office in a hurry to attend a meeting.

"Why don't you come with me and we'll inquire together," he suggested. "But first please wait for me in the secretary's office until I make a few phone calls and then we will go." When we arrived at the meeting we were served coffee. And since I knew the director of the Urban Planning Office, I told him why I was there. He immediately said "unfortunately your house doesn't fit into the plan..." He said that like he'd known beforehand what I was going to ask him. It seemed like someone had tipped him off only minutes before I arrived.

"It's not true," I said. "I saw the plan with my own eyes and my house was included in it." "That may have been in an old version," he added and tried to pull away from me in order to go to his meeting. But I persisted.

"I want to see the final plan," I demanded.

At that point he sent someone to get Svetlana Naumoska, one of his engineers, and to ask her to bring the final version of the plan, which supposedly was ready to be sent to the Ministry in Skopje for approval. But at the same time I saw him make a phone call. I figured he was talking to someone about which version of the plan she should bring.

Not long after Svetlana arrived. I didn't know who she was and I didn't think she knew me. After she opened up the plan the director, with a categorical tone of voice, asked her to confirm that my house wasn't included in the final plan and told her my full name.

I don't know why but as I looked into her eyes I thought to myself, "This woman has difficulty lying." I don't know whether it was the innocent expression on her face, or the look in her eyes but I figured she was uncomfortable delivering the message. I was convinced that my intuition was correct. She was a fragile young woman. As the director pressed her we waited for her to reply, like waiting for a verdict to be delivered...

"Here is Violeta's house, Director, she should be happy because her house is included in the plan," she said. "It is included in the plan," she repeated.

"My dear colleague, you've made a mistake," replied the director looking nervous.

"No, Director, there is no mistake; you must have confused it with another, an earlier version of the plan. And yes, I do remember that.

There was an earlier version in which someone tried to erase Violeta's house, even though it was included in the plan that was sent by the authorization institution that had drafted it.

The director looked angrily at Svetlana. He thought that she would bring the other version of the plan as he had instructed someone over the telephone. Those who sent her here probably hadn't understood him correctly.

The director and the head of urban planning looked at each other. It would appear that their deal hadn't worked out and neither one had looked at the actual plan. They knew it was exactly as the engineer said. So, the inevitable question was... Had they been bribed?! What had they gotten in return?!

"Well, that's good," one of them muttered.

"Thank you," I said to both of them then turned to the engineer, thanked her, said goodbye and left. "Today was my lucky day..." I thought to myself as I walked away.

I would never forget the courage Svetlana, the woman engineer, showed in front of her superiors. She showed herself to be a great person and for me she has remained this way to this day. I never asked her to do this for me; she did it on her own.

When I returned to Skopje, I found out the plan had already been sent there so I went to see it for myself to confirm that my house was still in it. Apparently the plan was sent days earlier and had been adopted by the Ministry. I was suspicious that someone might have deleted my house before it was approved. There I was introduced to a very serious and hardworking woman, a top expert in the field of construction. After I talked to her and told her the trials and tribulations I had to go through and about all the behind-the-scenes games that were played regarding my house in Ohrid, she went, got the plan and started looking at it.

"Don't worry," she said, "everything is fine. Your house is in the plan with provisions to add another story in the future like all the surrounding houses. Even that next door neighbour of yours, you are talking about, right behind you, has been given the right to build a two-story house.

I thanked the woman and immediately I knew that we would become friends in the future.

Then an unbelievable thing happened. The urban planners decided that all the houses in my immediate neighbourhood, including mine, would be allowed to have a ground floor, two floors above that and an attic...

My next door neighbour was the first to raise a floor above ground level. But because the existing houses were built in a patchwork pattern, the approved plan wouldn't allow him to add windows to his newly built floor facing my house. Considering that I had also received permission to add another floor, my floor would block his windows, if he decided to build them outside of the approved plan.

I started applying for permits to upgrade my house according to the new urban plan. I figured that since my house was already in the plan things would be easier, since the hardest part had already been done. In fact, I also needed documents to register the ownership of my house in my name with the city registry institutions.

The first place I went to was the land registry. I went to see the land registry's director because I was told that everything passed through his hands. The moment I saw him I recognized him. He was the same person who had brought the expert to falsely testify at my trial during the dispute with my next door neighbour about the wall. He didn't even wait for me to explain why I'd come to see him. He told me, categorically, that my house wasn't a separate construction unit and didn't appear as a separate house in the land registry.

"That's not true!" I said angrily. "Tell me then, on what basis was my house included in the urban plan, if it wasn't a separate construction unit?!"

"That doesn't interest me," he replied coldly and went to talk to another person who had just come into his office.

"That's not right... Get someone from your office to look into it," I said.

"I just told you what the situation is, there is no reason to involve others," he replied.

I knew the director was the law here because there was no one higher to see, but I wasn't going to give up. After I left his office I stepped inside the office next door and approached one of the clerks working there. Just as I was about to ask him a question, hoping to get him to look in the huge land registry, I recognized him. He was the expert who had given false testimony at my trial. At the same time the director came running He must have anticipated that I was going to go directly to his employees. I left without saying a word. It became clear to me with whom I was dealing.

After I returned to Skopje, someone I knew who had gone through the same troubles as me in Ohrid suggested that I go and see the director of the national land registry.

I took his advice and went. I was well received by the director's office, which immediately put me in touch with the director. After I told him why I'd come to see him, he called one of his clerks who moments later brought a huge book into his office. With a little effort, the clerk, with some help from me, found my house. And indeed it was registered as a separate building unit. I was very happy; it felt like someone had given my house to me as a gift. After I thanked the two men the director sent me away with the following words:

"Please pass on my greetings to the Ohrid land registry director from the national land registry director and tell him to take another look at the land registry catalogue, in which your house has both a place and a number." The national land registry director didn't believe that there was a need for him to send an official from his office to investigate the Ohrid land registry. But if the Ohrid land registry director didn't act professionally towards me, he said, to tell him to call the national land registry director personally on the telephone.

I again went to the Ohrid land registry office to see the director. He was in his office with two other people and a half-empty bottle resting on a small table in front of them. Then the comical situation began.

"You again 7 Can't you see I have people here!?" he said rudely.

"Forgive me," I replied. "I just dropped by to bring you greetings from the national land registry director in Skopje." And after that I told him everything that the director had told me... word for word.

Even though he'd had a few drinks he immediately sobered up and invited me to sit down. He apologized to his guests for the interruption, which meant that they had to leave. He then began to speak to me politely, addressing me with the royal "you" and sometimes by my full name.

"Well, you shouldn't have gone to see him, you shouldn't have disturbed him. We would have solved the issue here. We would have looked a little more carefully. Wait here," he said.

"Now he speaks humbly," I thought to myself as I watched him rub his hands together. "Only God knows how many people he has screwed wasting days and days of their time running them around, robbing them of their rights and making it impossible for them to get their jobs done. I couldn't prove that he'd taken bribes nor how much he'd taken, but I knew that almost every person, at least once, had the need to knock on his door and stand before him." As he left the office, he asked me to wait. He even offered me coffee.

"No, thank you," I said.

Ten minutes later he came back muttering something quietly and then said:

"Well, this is what you get when you work with incompetent people... They will put you in situations where you can make mistakes... sometimes big ones! And then, who is to blame? The director, of course! Imagine, the house was registered as a detached house in the land registry and that was dozens of years ago, and those blind people of mine gave me completely wrong information.

But here," he continued with divine pleasure, raising his voice, "thank God the mistake will be corrected!" He paused for a moment, looked at me while squinting, and said:

"Now immediately, the document will be drawn up by the officer in charge, to whom I have already told that he will be punished for the mistake he made earlier. And know that he will really be punished.

You see, he and those like him lead us superiors astray, and then we bear the consequences..." Soon after that one of his employees came into the office and brought a document. He then placed it on the director's desk for a signature. Before the man left, the director continued the farce, pointed a threatening finger at the man while saying, "The next time keep your eyes open if you want to keep your job." The poor man kept his head bowed down as he left the office. I thought to myself, "I'm sure the poor man has a lot to say about his boss and might even spit on him. Only God knows how much abuse he has taken." After signing the document the director handed it to me, gave me a forced smile, shook my hand and, once again, humbly apologized.

Now I had one less hurdle to jump. This document was the key to the land registry data for my house and to regulating further matters in connection with the judicial certification of the purchase agreement.

Before I became involved with the land registry and the problems I encountered, I had submitted a request to the public revenue office to determine how much real estate tax I had to pay.

When I went for a follow up to the public revenue office, the clerk told me that I would need the sales contract and the minutes from the commission for assessing the value of the house, as well as a document from the land registry. Since I already had all that and some other documents that might be required, I requested an invoice for how much I had to pay. I wasn't sure how it was going to go given that the web of the black spider spun by my next door neighbour might have reached even here. The same clerk told me that the typist was sick and there was no one to type the invoice. I came back a few days later and got the same answer. When I came back a third time the clerk explained that the invoice was now typed but that the director was away and hadn't yet signed it. Another day passed. This time I was told that the director was in a meeting and wouldn't be able to sign the invoice. After this meeting the director was scheduled to go to another meeting and so on. And so this went on for days.

One day I stormed into the office and angrily said to the clerk, "So, it seems to me like you don't want my money!" and I stormed out.

Many times I begged the clerk to let me speak with the director but she repeatedly made excuses for not allowing me to see him.

One day I decided to storm into the director's office without permission. I strolled by his office and waited until his secretary went to wash the coffee cups. When she left I walked in unannounced. From the very first words he spoke I suspected that he too might be part of the spider's web. He cut me off the moment I started explaining why I was there. He said the document he was expected to sign hadn't yet reached his desk. He said he would check to see if the document was completed and his staff would notify me in writing when I could come and pick it up. "Even better," he said, "leave an address where they can send it to you..." "Sorry, I don't live here all the time. I live in Skopje and I also work there," I said.

"Leave the address of your permanent residence then...!" he answered coldly sounding like he was impatient with me.

I realized that my communication with this corrupt official, in the true sense of the word, was over so I left. As I walked away I heard him reprimand his secretary in a loud voice for letting me into his office, which of course she hadn't. This convinced me even more that my assumptions about him were correct...

Days and weeks passed by and no trace of my invoice. Every time I telephoned his office a female voice answered and tersely said:

"When it's ready, you'll get it." I didn't know what to do. I was preoccupied by thinking of how I was going to get out of this impasse.

I kept asking people around the city if they knew anyone, a friend, a relative, a boss... who could influence the director to act on my case. I was practically left with no other choice but to do that. After some time, I got the name of a woman who was not only influential in Ohrid but also in the entire country. She couldn't easily be ignored. By some coincidence, this woman was a famous and prominent scientist who was also close to the professorial team at an institution where I had close friends... One day I was invited to a gathering where I got to meet her. During our discussions I familiarized her with the absurd situation I was in regarding my house. She was surprised to hear that, especially the part about how the director behaved towards me, stalling the entire process.

Annoyed by the whole thing she picked up the telephone and called him directly. I noticed that she knew his phone by heart. She said the following to him

"I'm here visiting with a friend from Skopje. She complained to me that she has been waiting for months for a document that your office should have issued her, in order for her to pay her tax for the transfer of ownership of the house she bought. Tomorrow she'll be coming over to your office to pick up the document for which she has been waiting for weeks. This is a legal obligation she has been waiting to fulfill. She wants to pay her taxes in order to certify the purchase agreement for her house. What time should she be there?" There was silence on the other side of the telephone.

"You heard me didn't you?! I will tell her to come at eleven o'clock in the morning. Goodbye," she added and hung up the receiver.

All that time I kept quiet and listened to this woman speak with such confidence. I was amazed. I liked the way she had addressed him' She then said, "People have changed so much in recent years that even our closest friends and relatives aren't the same. They have become obsessed with money, are unscrupulous and will do anything to get it. It has become an integral part of our lives. I don't know why, perhaps because we lived in poverty for a long time.

Obviously the West has hugely influenced us in this regard. We opened our doors wide for them, and in order for us to take faster steps towards their way of life, their strategists have worked out an unprecedented system for us. Everything that comes from the West is well thought out propaganda. Not to mention many of the movies they give us for very little money, which shun our literature. We have been sailing in a ship without a compass for a long time. And let's not forget that it wasn't too long ago that we endured terrible bloodshed in the name of other people's ideals, which should have improved our lives, along with gaining us our freedom." Despite how little I knew this woman I came to admire her in a short time. She had the courage to say out loud exactly how I felt and what I thought. After being with her for a while I thought of her as a dear friend. And it was like that for the rest of my life. I looked forward to seeing her at every opportunity and every time I met with her I felt energized and spiritually enriched.

I found myself at the counter at exactly 11 o'clock in the morning the next day. I was greeted by a hostile looking clerk from behind the glass. As soon as I told her my name she said:

"The director already signed your invoice but before I can give it to you it also needs to be signed by one of the arbiters. Come back tomorrow, otherwise you will have to wait a long time. The arbiters are out in the field and I don't know when they will be back.

"I will wait," I replied.

I went over to a nearby newspaper stand, bought myself a newspaper and came back and sat on one of the chairs in the lobby. I sat there for almost two hours. I read the newspaper end to end, things that interested me and things that didn't. I watched people come in and out. I had no idea who was supposed to sign my invoice and if they'd come back from the field or had left and gone home.

Around two o'clock in the afternoon I went back to the counter, leaned towards the small opening, behind which stood the face of the frowning clerk, and categorically said:

"I want to go and see the director!" "The director can't do anything for you!" she replied rudely.

"Then get someone to sign my invoice and get it back to me!" I said and took a step in the direction of the director's office.

At that point she called one of the arbiters who apparently had been there all this time, and told him what it was all about, but he said that the director hadn't ordered him to do anything, and therefore he wouldn't sign the invoice. Ijust got angry and ran for the director's office door. His secretary ran after me but I was in his office before she could stop me.

The moment the director saw me he looked away and said:

"Your invoice has been signed. Go to the counter and get it from the clerk."

"Yes, I know that!" I said, "But she won't give it to me because it's not signed by an arbiter and none of your arbiters are willing to sign it." After he heard what I'd said the director started looking awkward.

Had he told the arbiters not to sign my invoice? I wasn't sure. His face looked thin, full of worry and almost expressionless. He picked up the telephone and called someone. Moments later the same arbiter who had refused to sign my invoice earlier, walked in.

The moment he put his foot inside the door the director ordered him to sign the invoice and do it here in front of him. The arbiter then quietly asked:

"Why me?!" It was quit clear to me that there was something odd about his question...

"Now go and get the invoice, bring it here and sign it!" ordered the director.

The arbiter went outside, got the invoice, signed it and angrily left.

The director handed me the invoice and said:

"Now go to the counter, have it certified, pay it and make sure you get a receipt to show that you have paid it." I took my invoice, said goodbye and left. I went back to the clerk. I gave her my invoice and she asked me to sign a piece of paper indicating that I had received it. I then paid her and she gave me a receipt and a copy of the paid invoice. I took them and left. And thus I painstakingly closed one more door.

I took my entire folder of completed documents to the Court where I had to certify the purchase agreement of my house. I went directly to the clerk to give her my documents.

"Come on in," she said. She was a young, well-dressed woman with an accent in her speech, which revealed that she wasn't from Ohrid.

I informed her that I'd come to the Court to certify the contract for a house I'd recently purchased, and that both the former owner who sold me the house and I didn't live in Ohrid. I asked her to prepare an affidavit as soon as possible, so that it could be entered in the court records. She said no problem. But after she looked at the contract her colour and facial expression changed, and after a short pause she said:

"It's not that easy. All documents need to first be thoroughly reviewed and approved." "And who is in charge of reviewing them?" I asked.

"The Court's Vice President... Come back in ten to fifteen days..." she replied.

"Isn't that kind of long?" I asked.

"That's not long. You should be happy if the job gets done in that time," she replied.

I left my documents with her and she gave me a receipt verifying that I had submitted them. I also asked her to write down the date when they would be ready for pick up. I insisted she do that. After she did I left. I couldn't believe that here too I was running into roadblocks.

Two weeks passed, and a third, and a fourth and still my documents weren't processed. I inquired about them several times, both on the telephone and in person, but the answer was the same - the vice president is busy, there are many other items he needs to review. I was beginning to doubt if she had even submitted them to him at all.

I started thinking about going to see him personally.

I then remembered a comical situation from a few years ago. My daughter had bought an apartment in Skopje, in a building that was still under construction. We had to make a down payment but we were short of money, so in order to get a loan we had to get a certificate from the public revenue authority indicating that we had paid all our taxes in full. We were warned by the construction company, from which we bought the apartment that, if we didn't bring confirmation that we had made a down payment by the next day, the apartment would be sold to someone else. We had to get this apartment because it would have been very difficult for us to get another one in a new building. Plus we couldn't miss out on the favourable long-term loan they were offering.

Just as we found this out, I rushed to the public revenue administration building and found the place where receipts were issued. Sitting behind the glass of the only counter that issued receipts was a fat clerk eating, all greasy with mayonnaise and ketchup. She was probably eating a hamburger. Then it was time for something sweet. Well, then for coffee. Even though there was a sign on the counter indicating that the clerk was on break, and even if you didn't want to be, you were witness to everything that was going on.