Skiers/Tour Operators Return to War-Torn Balkans

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Skiers/Tour Operators Return to War-Torn Balkans

By Craig Altschul
May 29, 2006

Long before the name Slobodan Milosevec rolled so easily off our CNN savvy tongues, the Brits were embracing the ski slopes of Serbia and Belgrade. They are returning and spending plenty of pounds (though they are converting them to Euros first these days).

It's not just the mountains either. One news report out of Sofia (that's the capital of Bulgaria if you dreamt about skiing in geography class like I did) notes there is so much unchecked resort construction going on along Bulgaria's Black Sea beaches that the government is worried that supply already exceeds demand and is creating "dead zones" where there are no tourists. It recalls Spain's overdeveloped Costa del Sol.

The same trend in the mountains - should it arrive and it probably will - may bring the Brits and other Europeans back in big numbers. Crystal Holidays, a UK tour operator, has been touting trips to Kopaonik in Serbia this past season.

Okay, so the first thing that pops into your fertile mind is that you better watch what you ski over. After all, these snowy white, pristine ski slopes were perhaps too recently home to more cluster bombs than fresh powder.

Journalist Mark Townsend, writing for The Observer put it quite colorfully when writing about the Serbian ski experience. He wrote that the thought of his "legs being removed courtesy of a rogue NATO device" was never far from his skiing experience at Kopaonik.

But the resort has been deemed "officially safe." Crystal Holidays' Web site notes that the company is "very pleased to introduce Serbia and the resort of Kapaonik," noting that it had been a popular destination in the past.

The tour company says Kapaonik is again becoming popular, largely because of its "great value for the money, family appeal, and affordable skiing." Cuisine isn't a great deal different from the rest of Europe and you can get booze 24 hours a day.

The beautiful people of the ski world have not yet dubbed Kapaonik their latest snowy Nirvana. But, sit tight. Surely that time will come. Hopefully, it will happen before the need to clear the slopes of more cluster bombs becomes necessary again. After all, history is history in this part of the world.

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