Chasing the Dragans

The first rule of Project Virpazar is that you do not talk about (what is going wrong with) Project Virpazar. The second rule of Project Virpazar is that persons by the name of Bolimir will shortly be barred from Project Virpazar. The third rule of Project Virpazar is…well, you stand a much better chance of employment with us if your name is Dragan.

It sounds pretty hard, the name Dragan. Men answering to this name sound like fierce warriors. You can imagine them with either a sword or an assault rifle in hand, ready to decapitate their enemies, or at the very least to give them a bloody stern talking to. What those not so familiar with the ex-Yu countries might not realise, however, is that Dragan mean “beloved”. Just as in Africa you meet people called Heaven, Precious, Happy and Gift, in the ex-Yu countries you might come across people called Dušan (“friendly”), Slobodan (“free”), Dragica (“beloved” – again) or Sunčana (“Sunshine”). Our particular favourite is the slightly more brutal name of Nenad, which literally means “no hope” and is seemingly the second most popular men’s name after Dragan, which is basically like being called John. And that means that a lot of people with whom we’ve come into contact go by this name (we also know three Nenads). Mix in the fact that we often forget people’s surnames and you can see how this might get confusing! The last two weeks have, therefore, consisted largely of us over-using the “d” button on our mobiles as we try and organise our various “majstors” in an attempt to get our house watertight.

Dragan Plumber – An affable chap, this Dragan has been absent for a while as we’ve had other jobs to finish before we recall him to add second fix items – and to sort out a screw-up perpetrated by Bolimir’s half-wit Christmas building brigade (roll of honour thus far reading one window in the wrong wall, two windows the wrong size, one doorway in the wrong place, one doorway the wrong size and a toilet pipe that they didn’t bother to extend into one of the bathrooms).

Dragan Doors – we’d told our softly-spoken carpenter that we’d be ready for his nicely finished doors and windows mid-March and would thus be able to free up space in his workshop. We hadn’t much been looking forward to telling him that despite his work being ready on time Bolimir had ensured we were still weeks away from the installation date. Fortunately for us (although less so for Dragan Doors), after bumping into him on an errand in Podgorica we found out he’d sliced the end off of one of his fingers and was off work for two weeks anyway. This might enable us to get to work varnishing the doors (as we have the windows) as, unaccountably for a carpenter, Dragan Doors seems to think varnish unnecessary…

Majstor Dragan – Bolimir had given his previous building crew the boot, telling us in “confidence” that they hadn’t been any good. We were a) inclined to agree and b) inclined to tell him that neither was he, especially as he had had them working on our house under his watch for the best part of four months. After three lovely days where no workers of any description were on site, it was a relief therefore to find a new crew working on our new beams and boards, headed by the eponymous and knowledgeable Majstor Dragan. The week he’d been the new foreman heralded an event so incredible I can barely repeat it, even at the keyboard – for seven days in a row we had three/four workers on site putting in 10 hour daily shifts.

Like me, you may need a moment to process so momentous a piece of information. Breathe deeply now before moving on to the next Dragan.

Electric Dragan – this might sound like a new make of scooter built somewhere in China or Korea, but Electric Dragan – who replaced the phone-phobic Vlado a few weeks ago – has been the very epitome of professionalism, suffering our painful S/C/CG/MJ explanations patiently and then taking us through every installation recommendation step-by-step. He then got further into our good books by giving Bolimir a piece of his mind when they clashed over the way the site had been prepared for an electrician. His quotation seems reasonable enough, but we know now to double check it every day anyway just in case. Electric Dragan put in a 12 hour shift yesterday, working on well into the night, so, so far so good.

American Dragan – American Dragan is not, in fact, American at all, but his wife is. We’d got in touch with Podgorica resident Christine through this very blog, and it turned out that her husband was also in the building trade, so we arranged a meeting with them in Pod for a very pleasant coffee and a chat. If it was a relief to speak English again, it was of even greater relief to be introduced to the American Resource Library (new books to read!), let alone to finally meet a tradesman with as sound a command of the language as “American” Dragan. The prospect of actually working with someone we don’t have to mime to has its appeal, so we’ve asked him to pop over to Virpazar and have a look at the outstanding jobs that we’re not willing to let Bolimir have a crack at.

And Bolimir himself? Well, his moods continue to swing wildly from bizarre bonhomie to dark mutterings and back again. In the space of a week, we’ve had him ask us if we wanted 2 years interest free credit again (no way), if we could import a Massey Ferguson tractor for him from England (!) and had him pop round our flat unannounced and drunk at eight in the evening to ask us to lend him two grand (very definitely no way).

House apart, the highlight of the last couple weeks or so was being invited to a St. Patrick’s day party over in Kotor. We’d been asked over by a lovely Dutch girl called Laura we had met in November whilst watching the rugby in the little Irish pub in Budva, and it turned out that she was part of an extensive Kotor-based ex-pat network. As the Lake Skadar ex-pat network basically consists of – well - us, this was a welcome treat. We’d already been in touch with a few of them via email and had met others briefly in that same Irish bar; it was, all in all, a great evening thanks to the efforts of host Peter Flynn. Beer was sunk, a few too many fags smoked and a good deal of excellent Irish stew greedily wolfed down. We also took the opportunity to get to know two other like-minded couples trying to set up a new life in Montenegro, both of whom might in fact have been us in certain parallel dimensions (in that they’re both attempting something adventurous and interesting here in Monte without having to head home for a stretch).

Katie and Tim’s adventures on board the Monty B and Den and Steve’s eco-resort project made us aware that not only can such ambitious things be done, but that perhaps our biggest miscalculation was leaving ourselves only seven months to rebuild a stone house form near scratch…apart from hiring Bolimir, of course.

The real frustration is that now that real progress is finally being made on the house and the unseasonably bad weather is finally lifting, we are once again being reminded of why we chose to come here in the first place at the same time as knowing that soon we will have to leave – however temporarily. We’ve managed to hike from Zabes (our house) to nearby Godinje, finding another amazing view we hadn’t seen before, and also made a visit to the gorgeous Poseljani, with its collection of über-cute disused mill-houses running down alongside a succession of rocky waterfalls.

The one thing that has not changed is our conviction that Lake Skadar is one of the great undiscovered natural wonders of Europe. In our next post (coming very soon), we’ll be able to show you why.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the photo at the top of the page is the moon rising over the lake from near our house. It had been a really trying day, and yet the second we glimpsed this scene all building problems melted away in favour of a lingering gawp. Just beautiful.