Balkans

  • Serbia: The Slow Pace of Change

    Serbia: The Slow Pace of Change

    BELGRADE, Serbia | During the 1990s, Srbijanka Turajlic was one of the Serbia’s fiercest opponents of Slobodan Milosevic and an organizer of numerous student protests. After the ultranationalist president was […]

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  • Moldova: Misleading First Impressions

    Moldova: Misleading First Impressions

    This past spring, Mariana Diaconu from Yaloveni, a town around 15 kilometers south of Chisinau, passed her final exams with flying colors. Those results at her lyceum carried new importance […]

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  • Romania: Change for Change’s Sake?

    Romania: Change for Change’s Sake?

    Bucharest, ROMANIA | Thirteen-year-old Ionut Sim may well be one of the first generation of Romanian students to finish middle school after grade nine instead of grade eight. He would […]

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  • Macedonia: Learn to Forget

    Macedonia: Learn to Forget

    SKOPJE, Macedonia | Ivana’s homework has a familiar refrain: she memorizes lessons from physics, chemistry, math, and history classes. She does this until her head aches, she complains, “and that’s […]

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  • Romania: One More Chance

    Romania: One More Chance

    CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania | It is 11:10 on a Thursday morning when a slightly unusual science class, the last of the day, begins at Nicolae Iorga School in the Iris industrial […]

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  • The plot of last year’s Macedonian Film “Shadows” involves the trade in human bones. Photo: Bavaria Film International.

    Macedonia: Macabre Market

    SKOPJE | Like a character in a crime movie, Olga walked through the dark alleys of the city’s Taftalidje district late one February night. Waiting in the shadows was a […]

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  • Montenegro: Getting its Story Straight

    Montenegro: Getting its Story Straight

    PODGORICA | Predrag Raznatovic quickly reads aloud through the part of the history book that states thousands of Montenegrins were killed by Serbs in 1918. He doesn’t believe what he […]

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  • Bulgarian teachers staged demonstrations in front of the Parliament in Sofia.  Photo by Kozzmen.  Creative Commons licensed.

    Bulgaria: Classsroom Blues (and Grays)

    SOFIA, Bulgaria | At the German Language High School, the teachers’ lounge is a gloomy room with faded sofas, drab chairs, and dust-covered computers that no longer work. Time stopped […]

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  • Bosnia and Herzegovina: New Law, Old Chaos

    Bosnia and Herzegovina: New Law, Old Chaos

    SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina | The question of where the buck stops in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s education system isn’t easy to answer. The country has 14 ministries of education. There […]

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  • Romania: Going for Gold

    Romania: Going for Gold

    CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania | As the little white table-tennis ball rolls on the floor, Dacian Mackszin leans on the side of his wheelchair to drag the ball closer to him with […]

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