The former Yugoslavia

Right then,

I've been down there five times now over the years and I think the region is one of my favourite places in Europe.

Nowhere else do you get such a mishmash of the great ideas which have influenced our century, from politics to religion.

Every bay in Croatia has its ugly concrete communist hotel. Staying in one is quite an experience, with wonderful plastic chairs and awful food yet served by really friendly staff in spite of their surroundings. Yet therein lies a contradiction as I have read that though Yug was communist Tito fell out with Stalin very early on and went for a more Western friendly model of communism.

You have this mishmash of religion, with Croatia Christian like us, to Islam in Bosnia (the sight of 300 year old mosques in Mostar is quite amazing) and the Eastern Orthodox Church with its picture of well, some bloke with a crown on his head.

Here's my take on the various regions:

Croatia: Italian influenced, very European friendly. The best at making pizzas therefore. Fabulous islands and very relaxed.
Montenegro: my favourite region, fascinating as you start to feel the old Cyrillic script on the road signs. In the north you run out of Western roads igns and dodge potholes.
Slovenia: wonderful mountains and was the least affected by the war.
Bosnia: still a bit tense. Mostar still has a UN presence.

the lands I havent yet been to are Kosovo, Serbia and Albania. Neyt year we plan to make a short trip across the border into Albania. I have the impression it is Greek influenced is that correct?

Now then I love the whole region and find it fascinating to travel in, not just its beaches but as to why what happened did happen. Can anyone enlighten me here?

They let Mickey D's in and it all went to hell. Poor Tito is rolling around in his grave.

The Croats blame the Serbs for the suffering during the war. Both of them blame the Muslims for taking over their land.

Now you can change any one of the names in those sentances for each other and just pick a war any war.

Why they all hate each other depends on who you ask. Each side blames the other and it goes back centuries.

[pedant mode on] Albania was never part of the former Yugoslavia. [off]

I've never been to Albania but I'm told that it's a lot like southern Serbia and (the Former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia [trying not to upset our Greek friends]. AFAIK there's no Greek influence as such there.

given that Albania was never part of Yugoslavia, I'm not sure what the relevance to this thread is but to answer your question, though I've never been there, I'd hazard a guess that it is more Turkish influenced than Greek, given that it was ruled by the Ottoman empire until the Balkan War in 1912. Most Albanians are officially atheist, so there doesn't appear to be a large influence from the Greek orthodox church either. There is also only a small minority of ethnic Greeks living in Albania so that wouldn't appear to be an influence either.

And unofficially muslim.

yeah that too. was going to write that but wasn't sure.

on a related note, i was reading today that the domain suffix .yu (for Yugloslavia) will cease to exist from tomorrow. Apparently this will affect 4,000 website that still haven't changed their domain to either .rs or .me

This helps to explain it:
The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War

OG: Yep I saw that too and it prompted my thread.

A little side story I bought my tickets to go to Belgrad but then the NATO air bombings sttarted so I cashed in my ticket to go to Spain, where I worked for a Bavarian who made hate germans and Bavaria. Which also led me to say I would never go to Germany and never to Bavaria which of course tempted faith and here I am five years later.

Oh as for the balkan war absolute tragedy. Welcome to Sarjavo and the book Sebrinicia left a compounding impression on me in the late 90s. Still want to go though.

If anyone does go then try and get room in the Terme hotel ilidza complex.

The third floor directly above the portico at the front door is where I spent 9 "interesting" months in 1996.

I spent seven months down there in the Army. I never could shake the impression that the whole area was a kind of slow-witted, backwards, remote cousin of Western Europe and Russia. Sometimes found decent food but mostly it was dreadful. Of course they never let us visit the nice bits so my opinion is skewed.

and presumably also the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRM)

dan even in the tourist areas - although I reallly like the people and the landscape - the food is shit.

Whilst in Montenegro I kept marvelling at the unbelievable bodies of the bikini girls and how with such awful food they stayed so slim.

TO answer the OP, from what I can see, the years of Yugoslavian unity under Tito were the exception rather than the rule.
Internal inter-Balkan strife seems to be the norm going over the last 1000 or so years.