Travels with David: Asia, Africa and The Balkans

Nov 09 2024 26 ep. 6 mins

Travels with David: Asia, Africa and The Balkans Podcast artwork

Over the past 25 years, I’ve visited more than 30 countries, working as a researcher, teacher, trainer and consultant for international and government agencies. It’s given me a rare chance to experience a country as few tourists can, through the perspectives of my local colleagues. My essays on travel, history and culture have been published in newspapers, magazines and online media, and collected in three books: Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia, Monsoon Postcards: Indian Ocean Journeys, and Postcards from the Borderlands. Available from Amazon and online booksellers.

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Bosnia's short coastline

Nov 09 2024 6 mins

Even for the Balkans, a region with more than its fair share of crazy national borders, it’s an oddity—a twelve-mile stretch of Bosnia on the Adriatic coast separating Croatia’s top tourist destination, Dubrovnik, from the rest of the country. As with most territorial issues in the Balkans, Bosnia’s short coastline is a quirk of history, the outcome of conflicts between the

Bosnia: A work in progress

Nov 09 2024 7 mins

After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnia was torn apart by ethnic conflict, a three-way war between Serbs (mostly Eastern Orthodox), Croats (Roman Catholic) and Muslim Bosniaks. It was not until the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men at Srebrenica and TV coverage of the siege of Sarajevo horrified the world that NATO stepped in, bombed Bosnian Serb positions, and forced their leadership t

Croatia: Cheese hunting on Pag Island

Nov 09 2024 5 mins

The long, skinny island of Pag on Croatia’s Adriatic coast, historically a center of the salt industry, is famous for its sheep’s milk cheese. Salt has been produced in the region for more than one thousand years, but the industry could be even older, dating from Roman times. The basic process of salt extraction has not changed much. Sea water is channeled into shallow pools wh

Albania's bunker mentality

Oct 24 2024 3 mins

One of the legacies of Albania’s communist era are concrete bunkers. Around 175,000 were constructed all over the country. They range in size from small, shallow bunkers for a couple of soldiers to massive underground complexes with rooms, corridors and heating, electrical and water systems. Although the regime sometimes put out the line that the Americans or NATO were planning t

Albania: No hippies, please

Oct 24 2024 6 mins

For half a century after World War II, Albania was ruled by a communist regime so paranoid that its leaders believed that even the Soviet Union and China had sold out to capitalism. Albania zealously guarded its borders to stop anyone from leaving the socialist paradise, and to closely control anyone crazy enough to want to visit. Among those who were not welcome were, to quote Alb

Upscale beef language

Sep 12 2024 5 mins

After Turkish investors backed out, the first international hotel in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek officially became a “Joint Kyrgyz-Malaysian Venture.” Because English is widely spoken in Malaysia, you’d expect the new foreign partner to have tidied up the English grammar and spelling on the hotel’s printed materials. No way. The room service menu featured stewen rice, hu

This is how Russians live?

Sep 12 2024 3 mins

As the train pulled out of Kazakhstan’s capital Astana, Valery opened the first bottle of cognac and was figuring out how much alcohol our compartment would need for the 15-hour overnight trip. It was only 4:30 p.m. and, with several hours of daylight left, I wanted to look out of the window, not drink. But to be sociable, I agreed to a couple of shots. As the evening wore on and

Soviet gerrymandering

Sep 12 2024 7 mins

Before the Soviet era, there were no national borders between the peoples of Centra Asia, and identity was defined by religion, family, clan and place. The Soviets attempted to counter pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic tendencies by constructing nationalities, giving each a defined territory with national borders, along with a ready-made history, language, culture and ethnic profile. Your

Lost in Stanland

Sep 12 2024 8 mins

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 gave us fourteen new countries (plus Russia) including the five “stans” of Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. We can be grateful the Soviet Union did not break up any further, or we would have to deal with Bashkortostan, Dagestan, and Tatarstan, all now Russian republics. From the mid-1990s,

From southern Kyrgyzstan to suburban Maryland

Sep 12 2024 6 mins

On Christmas Eve 1995, my wife, Stephanie, picked me up at Washington’s Dulles airport. After almost a month in Central Asia, I looked forward to returning to the United States. Instead, I experienced, for the first time in my life, reverse culture shock. One of the blessings—but also one of the curses—of international air travel is that in the space of a few hours (or, in my