SERBO🇷🇸CROATIAN🇭🇷 + 🇧🇦

I’m sick and tired of foreigners and even natives debating on whether Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are the same language and how different they are; that there are fewer differences between them than between American, Australian, British and whatever English.

In short: they are different, but very similar lingoes; definitely more different than different varieties of English. Anyone who says differently (considering English and Serbocroatian comparison, that is), either doesn’t speak English or Serbocroatian; take your pick 🙂
You can look at Serbocroatian as a macrolanguage with three standards (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian) and a bunch of dialects.

Now, a bit of further elaboration 🙂

First, you must distinguish a dialect from a standard language. I’m saying this because I’m sick of people – especially natives who think Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are one and the same – saying the three are dialects of the same lingo when they are most certainly referring to standards. I mean, people who don’t know even such a basic distinction actually presume to tell anybody what certain languages are and aren’t! How self-absorbed can you get?! Dialects of a certain lingo can very so much that there is virtually no mutual ineligibility between a speaker of a certain dialect and a speaker of another even though the language in question is the same. That would be why (most) lingoes have a standard language or, in cases like Serbocroation, more than one. I would call the various standards of English just variations because, accents aside, standard English in the US, UK, Straya etc. doesn’t differ that much (spelling differences are minimal and neither are reflected to pronunciation nor to accent). The point is that a Yank would read a text the same regardless of the standard or spelling employed and it would take you a rather long time to identify where the text came from; eventually you might realize, but only if vocabulary and/or phrases of a certain region were frequently used. Same goes for Aussies and Brits. For example, how would you, as a native speaker, say color? How would you say colour? When I read a Serbian text, on the other hand, the person listening to me realizes I’m reading Serbian rather quickly.
Serbocroatian is a shining example of standard languages and dialects. So, there are three standards – Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian – which are very similar and totally mutually intelligible, and loads of dialects which often ain’t that similar; they can differ so much that there can be barely any – if any at all – mutual intelligibility even in the same country (namely in Croatia). The most important matter to point out here is that dialects do not follow (political) borders and when people identify their lingo, they usually identify it with their ethnicity. That’s why a Bosniak in Sarajevo‘s going to say he speaks Bosnian, a Croatian that he speaks Croatian and a Serb that he speaks Serbian even though everybody in Sarajevo speaks the same (although people might use Croatisms or Serbisms more often in their speech to emphasize they’re either Croatian or Serbian). Basically, spoken language takes structure and vocabulary from an area where people (that is, speakers) live despite how they call the language they speak. That’s why, people in areas such as the aforementioned Sarajevo (Bosnian capital), usually just call their lingo “our language”.
Moreover, a Croatian from northern Croatia and a Croatian from Dalmatia, don’t understand a word of their spoken lingo despite they both claim to be speaking Croatian (as I said, this is why standardized languages exist 😉). A little extension: a Croatian and a Slovene around the border speak the same yet the Croatian says he speaks Croatian (and turns to standard Croatian when he needs to) and the Slovene says he speaks Slovenian (and turns to standard Slovenian when he needs to). Standard Croatian and Standard Slovenian ain’t mutually intelligible, so the two guys wouldn’t understand each other if they were speaking standard lingoes (without additional language learning that is 😉). But while the mentioned Northener and Dalmatian don’t understand each other’s dialects, they use the same standard lingo to communicate.
In terms of English, the UK has a lot of dialects. As I’m but a humble foreign speaker and, therefore, not a Brit, I can’t really say how big those differences are and ask British readers to confirm the claim 🙂 I know, though, that I understand shit when a Londoner speaks his slang and when a Glasgower speaks his, and I’m pretty sure the two would understand shit of what each is saying (mkay, probably more than me since they are English speakers, but still…)
All in all, dialects and standard languages are a different matter. Savvy? 🏴‍☠️

So while standard Bosnian, standard Croatian and standard Serbian are mutually intelligible (because all Serbocroatian standards are based on the East Hercegovian dialect, but were developed in two main cultural centres which were separated by a country border at the time), dialects can differ a lot and mutual intelligibility is not the only criterion to distinguish lingoes. Would you say that Hindi and Urdu are the same? Bulgarian and Macedonian? Indonesian and Malaysian? Danish, Norwegian and Swedish? Those are just examples I can think of.
Moreover, although we – Bosniaks, Croatians and Serbs (and Montenegriners) – all understand each other perfectly, the structure of Standard Croatian and Standard Serbian can differ a lot; aye more than American 🇺🇸 Australian 🇦🇺 British 🇬🇧 Also note that the differences between various English standards can mostly be attributed to the lingo being spoken natively around the globe, (Tell me again. What’s the distance between the US and the UK? UK and Straya? US and Straya?) Serbocroatian, on the other hand, is spoken in a rather small compact area (namely Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro). Just check out the map below: 😉

Before Montenegriners 🇲🇪 start jumping at me for not mentioning them earlier, I didn’t do it because Montenegrin is undergoing standardization process and because most ethnic Montenegriners say they speak Serbian anyway. I guess it can be compared to how many Scots speakers say they speak English 🤷🏻

Finally, the term Serbocroatian. As I said, you can look at Serbocroatian as a macrolanguage with three standards and a bunch of dialects. Therefore, it’s logical to use the term when you’re referring to something relevant for every standard or when you simply can’t distinguish which one you’re talking about (just keep in mind there is a difference 😉) which is not at all unusual for foreigners. Now, the term had been stigmatized in Yugoslavia because it was used for the name of an official language of the Federation (and many republics within as well). Furthermore, Yugoslav authorities tried to eliminate the uniquenesses of each standard as much as possible so that we would indeed end with one standard language. Of course, it’s not language’s fault people are assholes, so I have nothing against the term and use it frequently when referring to the aforementioned (but I must warn you that you might wanna avoid the term in front of natives because people are assholes and someone actually might take offence 🤔). Well, I use the term in English at least. Like I said before, natives – including me – usually say “our language” to refer to Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian collectively, which is deemed “politically correct”… 😕 Well, I could hardly say that to someone who doesn’t know what bloody language is “mine”, right?
Since the end of the war, an abbreviation BCS (for Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian) (the one I used in the address of this 👆🏻 post 👆🏻 😉) has been used more and more and since it’s short, why not?

Hmm… 🤔 maybe I should finish the post by saying that I speak Croatian and understand Bosnian and Serbian 😉 I mean, if I were to take a Serbian grammar test, I know I would flunk; mkay, maybe I would pass in the end, but I’d score poorly 😀 Savvy? 🏴‍☠️

That’s it. Hope I shed some light on the matter 🙂

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Posted on 18^th August, 2020 at 17:37 GMT
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Belot

Belot (colloquially called Bela) is a very popular card game. Various versions of the game are played around the world (see Jack-Nine games) and indeed a version of the game is often a “national card game” of a country (e.g. France, the Netherlands, Croatia, Bulgaria, Québec etc.).

Since Belot in its form is the most popular card game in Croatia, pretty much the same version is very popular throughout modern yogusolav states – especially in Vojvodina (Serbia) and Bosnia – and I haven’t noticed any English descriptions of Croatian version on the web, I thought I might blog a bit about the game. To distinguish the game from other versions of Belot, I’m going to refer to the game as Bela. Although I’m going to use certain terms from Wikipedia’s Belote article, the Croatian version is not described in the article.

Bela requires skill {although luck plays a very important role in the game [(see Declarations (cf04)]}, meaning you need a lot of experience and you need to play the game a lot to gain it.

The game can be played by 2, 3 and 4 players, but the 4 player game is the most common and others are just crippled versions of the 4 player game. Anyway, I’m going write general rules first and then crap unique to 4, 3 and 2 player games, but I’ll probably use 4 player examples in the description of the general rules.

CONTENTS

Use Ctrl+F codes for easier and quicker navigation.

DECK (cf01)
CARD RANK (cf02)
SCORING (cf03)
Declarations (cf04)
Sequences (cf05)
Squares (cf06)
Bela (cf07)
Declaration confirmation (cf08)
All tricks (cf09)
WINNING TRICKS AND GAMEPLAY (cf10)
OBJECTIVE (cf11)
SHUFFLING, DEALING AND CHOOSING THE TRUMP SUIT (cf12)
REACHING THE THRESHOLD (cf13)
FOUR PLAYER GAME (cf14)
Dealing and choosing the trump suit (cf15)
Declarations (cf16)
Passing/falling (cf17)
All tricks (cf18)
Threshold (cf19)
Play a four player game of Bela (cf20)
THREE PLAYER GAME (cf21)
Dealing and choosing the trump suit (cf22)
Passing/falling (cf23)
Declarations (cf24)
All tricks (cf25)
Threshold (cf26)
TWO PLAYER GAME (cf27)
Cutting the deck, dealing and choosing the trump suit (cf28)
Passing/Falling (cf29)
Declarations (cf30)
All tricks (cf31)
Threshold (cf32)
OPEN BELOT (cf33)
Dealing and choosing the trump suit (cf34)
Declarations (cf35)
Passing/falling (cf36)
Über (cf37)
Threshold (cf38)

DECK (cf01)

Bela is played with Hungarian cards (aka Wilhelm Tell cards and Doppeldeutsches Blatt). However, I’ll talk here in the terms of the standard French deck because it is the most common deck and there is no point in confusing people. Besides, Bela is played with Hungarian cards here because they are a common local deck in Croatia not because the deck was made for Bela nor because Bela was made for Hungarian cards. I doubt the French play Belote with Hungarian cards… Anyway, this way, you can just apply French suits and card values to a local deck common where you live. Besides, I recommend you just play the local version of the game. If you already play your local version of the game and just want to see differences between your version and Croatian; well… you’ll spot them easier if I go on about the game with cards that are familiar to you 🙂

So the game is played with a deck of 32 cards (A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7 of four suits).

CARD RANK (cf02)

There are 3 card ranks.

One is in the trump suit and square declarations [see Declarations – Squares (cf06)]. It goes as follows J–>9–>A–>10–>K–>Q–>8–>7.
Another one is in every suit, but trump. It goes as follows: A–>10–>K–>Q–>J–>9–>8–>7. Note that the value of jack and nine is different in the trump suit and other suits.
Finally, there are sequence declarations [see Declarations – Sequences (cf05)]. This rank is like in Poker and most other card games: A–>K–>Q–>J–>10–>9–>8–>7.

SCORING (cf03)

Scoring is done in two ways: through won tricks and through declarations.

Most cards are worth a certain number of points. The card values are different in the trump suit and in all the other suits. Anyway, the values of cards go as follows:

Note that an 8 still beats a 7 like stated in Card Rank (cf02); they just aren’t worth any points when tricks are counted after the end of a round.

The player/team that won the last trick is awarded additional 10 points.

Total sum of points, including the last trick in a “clean game” (a round with no declarations), is 162.

One more thing before I proceed to declarations. Zero is never written when writing down the score of Bela. Hyphen is written in its place. Whether just in place of zero or for falling [see Objectives (cf11)].

Declarations (cf04)

Declarations are declared at the beginning of a round and can severely impact the game. They are made by certain combinations of cards held in players’ hands.

Note that rank of the declarations is important because only the declarations of the player/team having a declaration of the highest rank are scored, while the declaration of the other player(s)/team are not acknowledged. This can be confusing because the total amount of declarations doesn’t count. The rank is important. In order to clarify what I mean, I should write about the declaration rank down:

Sequences (cf05)

First, look at card rank in sequence declarations (A–>Q–>K–>J–>10–>9–>8–>7). The sequences must be in the same suit go like this:
Tierce* [a sequence of three card (e.g. J-10-9)] is awarded with 20 points;
Quarte [a sequence of four cards (e.g. Q- J-10-9)] is awarded 50 points;
Quint [a sequence of five cards (e.g. K-Q-J-10- 9)] is awarded 100 points;
Sequences of six and seven cards are treated like a quint (100 points).
Belot (a sequence of all eight cards in the same suit**) – the player/team having Belot is awarded by winning the game in progress.
*9-8-7 Tierce is usually called 19 to indicate that it’s the lowest declaration. When there are no other declaration, “19” is still awarded 20 points.
**Note: Some players consider Belot to be only in the trump suit while some players don’t give any special treatment to having all the cards of a suit. Belot occurs so rarely (once in 50 years in average) that I think the player who gets it (in any suit) deserves to be awarded a game. If nothing else, then to enjoy the happiness of the moment 🙂

That is all good and well, but what if two players or teams have the same sequence (e.g. a Tierce). The card with the highest rank in the sequence is taken into account (e.g. Team 1 has Q-J-10 of Hearts while the other team has K-Q-J of Spades; Team 2 is awarded the declaration). What if all players/teams have exactly the same sequence (e.g. if Team 1 has Q-J-10-9 of Hearts and team 2 Q-J-10-9 of Spades)? In that case, the first thing to look at is whether one of those declarations is in the trump suit. If it is, it is immediately awarded* in favour of a nontrump declaration of the same rank. If none of the declarations are in the trump suit, the player/team to play first is awarded. So in our case if Spades are trump, Team 2 would be awarded 50 points (more if they had other declarations) no matter whether they played first. If neither Spades nor Hearts were not trump, Team 2 would be awarded their declaration(s) only if they were to play first.
*Note: Some players don’t take trumps into account and just look what player/team is first to play.

I’m going to illustrate whose declaration(s) is awarded in sequences of the same rank on three examples:
Example I: Player 1 (Team 1) is first to play. Hearts are the trump suit. Player 1 (Team 1) has 9-8-7 of Clubs, Player 2 (Team 2) has 9-8-7 of Hearts (trumps), Player 3 (Team 1) has 9-8-7 of Diamonds, Player 4 (Team 2) has 9-8-7 of Spades.  Team 2 are awarded their declarations because all players have declarations of the same rank, but Player 2 of Team 2 has his declaration in trumps.
Example II:  Player 1 (Team 1) is first to play. Hearts are the trump suit. Player 1 (Team 1) has A-Q-J of Clubs, Player 2 (Team 2) has 9-8-7 of Hearts (trumps), Player 3 (Team 1) has A-Q-J of Diamonds, Player 4 (Team 2) has A-Q-J of spades. Team 1 are awarded their declarations because 3 players had declarations of the same rank (in nontrump suits), but their declarations  (A-Q-J) outrank 9-8-7 in trumps and Player 1 of Team 1 is first to play.
Example III: Player 1 (Team 1) is first to play, followed by Player 2 (Team 2) who is followed by Player 3 (Team 2). Finally, the last player to play is Player 4 (Team 1). Hearts are trumps. Player 1 has 9-7-8 of Clubs, Player 2 has J-10-9 of Hearts (trumps), Player 3 has A-Q-J of Clubs, Player 4 has A-Q-J of Spades. Team 1 are awarded their declarations because A-Q-J (of any suit) outrank 9-8-7 (even of trumps) and Player 1 of Team 1 is first to play.

When it comes to sequences of 5 to 7 cards, the highest card is still vital* (e.g a sequence K-Q-J-10-9 beats Q-J-10-9-8-7 despite being a sequence of only 5 cards because King beats Queen).
*Note: Some players take the length into account (in that case Q-J-10-9-8-7 would beat K-Q-J-10-9).

Squares (cf06)

Squares always beat sequences. They go as follows:
Four Jacks are awarded 200 points;
Four Nines are awarded 150 points;
Four Aces are awarded 100 points;
Four Tenners* are awarded 100 points;
Four Kings are awarded 100 points;
Four Queens are awarded 100 points;
Four Eights and four sevens are worth nothing.
*Note: some players rank Kings and Queens above Tenners. This makes no sense to me because of the card ranks (i.e. if Jacks and Nines are ranked as in the trump suit, so should the other cards be – J–>9–>A–>10–>K–>Q–>8–>7) [see Card Ranks (cf02)].

The same card can be used to form both a sequence and a square*. For example, a King in a hand can form both 4 Kings and a A-K-Q-J Quarte.
*Note: Some players don’t allow the same card to be used in both a sequence and a square.

Finally to make sense of all the declarations, here’s an example: Player 1 (Team 1) has 4A; Player 2 (Team 2) has 10-9-8-7; Player 3 (Team 1) has 9-8-7 and Player 4 (Team 2) has 4Q and Q-J-10. Team 1 is awarded their declarations (in total 120 points; 4A + 9-8-7 = 100 + 20 = 120) because Player 1 of Team 1 had four Aces which is the highest ranking declaration in this case. The team is also awarded “19” of Player 3 because Player 1 and 3 are the same team. Team 2 can kiss their asses despite their declarations being worth 170 points in total.

Bela (cf07)

Pairing of the King and Queen of trumps is called Bela. It is awarded with additional 20 points. Unlike the other declarations, Bela is declared during the game by playing either King or Queen of trumps (a player must have both King and Queen in his hand and say Bela upon discarding the King/Queen in order to declare Bela). Bela is independent from other declarations, meaning it can be declared even if player’s/team’s other declarations aren’t acknowledged.
The King and Queen of Bela don’t need to be a part of declaration (e.g. no need for A-K-Q). When they are a part of deceleration, both declarations can be declared (meaning that A-K-Q worth 20 points on their own plus another 20 points if the player declares Bela).
So in the above stated case, Player 4 can declare Bela if he has the King of trumps in addition to the Queen and 20 additional points will be taken into account.

Declaring any declarations is optional. Furthermore, you can’t say Oh, I have [had] four Queens! If you hadn’t noticed your declaration at the beginning of the game, you can go screw yourself. Similarly, you can’t play the King of trumps, not declare Bela and then later play the Queen and say Hey, I had the King! or even worse say you had the King and Queen of trumps after you played both cards.

Declaration confirmation (cf08)

All declaration(s), including Bela, need to be confirmed, meaning a player/team needs to win at least one trick in order to be awarded their declaration. Players having 100 in sequence are often unable to confirm their declaration unless the sequence is in the trump suit because if the sequence is in another suit, they probably lack other suits including trumps [at least 5 of the cards in their hand are used in a sequence, meaning they have only 3 (5 in a 3P and 2P game) other cards in their hand] and it’s quite possible that other players lack the suit of his sequence.
Not confirming you declaration usually (3P game is an exception) means the other player/team won all tricks and they’re awarded the declaration(s) of the poor soul(s) who were unable to confirm their declaration(s) [see All tricks (cf09)].

All tricks (Shooting the Moon???) (cf09)

If a player/team wins all tricks in a round, they’re awarded additional 90 points. In addition, the player/team is awarded every declaration they and other players had.
If a player/team doesn’t confirm their deceleration(s) (i.e. they don’t win a trick), it usually means the other player/team won all tricks (3P game is an exception) and is awarded their declaration(s).

WINNING TRICKS AND GAMEPLAY (cf10)

The player who takes the previous trick plays the next trick first.

When a trick is played, players must play über.

Über (Ger. over) is ensuring the trick is yours while following suit. Basically über consists of three rules: The first one is to follow suit whenever you can; the second is to overpower the played card (e.g. a player discards King of Spades; you must play Ace of spades despite having the Queen), thus ensuring you take the trick; the third is to play a trump when you can’t follow suit, again to ensure you take the trick. Actually, saying “temporarily ensuring you take the trick” unless you’re the last to play would be better because the player(s) who play after you must also oblige über. Finally, when you can’t follow suit and have no trumps, you’re free to discard whatever card you feel like discarding.

I’ll try to explain über on the following examples:
Example I: Spades are not the trump suit. Player 1 discards Jack of Spades. Player 2 has Nine and Seven of Spades. He can discard either the Nine or the Seven because neither of them outranks the Jack (discarding the Seven would be the right choice because Sevens have the lowest rank; 9 at least beats 8). Player 3 has the Tenner, Queen and Eight of Spades. He must play either the Tenner or the Queen because those two cards outrank the Jack while the Eight does not. Player four can’t follow suit, but has trump(s). He must “cut” the trick with a trump.
Example II: Spades are not the trump suit. Player 1 discards Queen of Spades. Player 2 has the King and Jack of Spades, he must play the King. Player 3 has no Spades, so he cuts the trick with a trump. Player 4 has the Ace and Eight of Spades. He is no longer obliged to overpower the King because the trick has been cut (i.e. even if he played the Ace, he wouldn’t win the trick because Player 3 played a trump).
Example III: Spades are not the trump suit. Player 1 discards Nine of Spades. Player 2 has no Spades, so he cuts the trick with the King of trumps. Player 3 has no Spades too, but has the Tenner and Queen of trumps. He must play the Tenner to overpower the King. Player 4 has neither Spades nor trumps, so he discards whatever card he wants (let’s say he discards Seven of Clubs because his team mate hasn’t won the trick, so he doesn’t want to give any points to his opponents).
Example IV: Spades are not the trump suit. Player 1 discards Nine of Spades. Player 2 has no Spades, so he cuts the trick with the King of trumps. Player 3 has no spades and has the Seven and Queen of trumps. He must still play a trump, but he can chose between the Seven and the Queen since he can’t overpower the King, so he discards the Seven to give his opponents no points. Player 4 has neither spades nor trumps, so he discards whatever card he wants (let’s say that this time he discards the Tenner of Clubs because his team mate won the trick).

OBJECTIVE (cf11)

Objective of each round is for the player/team who chose the trump suit to pass. The opposing player/team try to prevent them in that. The player/team pass if they manage to win more points than their opponent(s) [that usually (2P game is an exception) means the payer/team that chose the trump suit needs to win 81 (+ possible declarations) +1 point]. If the player/team falls (i.e. doesn’t pass), all the points they managed to collect in a round are given to the opponent (3P game is an exception). The points are written down after each round and the player/team that reaches the threshold (4P 1001 pts; 3P 701 pts, 2P 501 pts) first wins.

As you can see, declarations can be a real bitch.

In theory, the maximum number of points won per round can be 802. A player has 4 Jacks (200 pts) and four Nines (150 pts) and his team mate has four Aces (100 pts) and four Tenners (100 pts). If the remaining 4 trumps were equally distributed, they’d have to be quite incompetent not to take all tricks …so 162 pts + 200 + 150 + 100 + 100 + 90… Actually, if their opponent would be extra stupid and had K and Q of trumps, he could declare Bela, thus, earning them another 20 points (822 in total). Well, this theory is quite unlikely to happen 🙂

SHUFFLING, DEALING AND CHOOSING THE TRUMP SUIT (cf12)

A round begins with dealer shuffling the deck. After he shuffled it, he gives the deck to the player on his left (or right depending whether you play cards counter clockwise or clockwise) who then cuts the deck if he wants. The dealer, then, starts dealing. The first player to be dealt his cards, and then the first to play after the cards are dealt, sits opposite of the cutter (right of left of the dealer depending again on the direction you’re playing in).

As I mentioned above, the player/team that chose the trumps must achieve more points than their opponent to pass, otherwise they fall and receive no points. Their opponent(s) receive their points instead (3P game is an exception). Each player, except the dealer, can either choose the trump suit or pass (3P game is an exception). If all the players before the dealer pass, the dealer must choose the trump suit [he is mussed (Ger. muss – “must”)]. Now, this might look to you like it applies that players (well, Team 1 in 4P game) should just pass to avoid a possibility of falling. However, choosing the trumps is preferable. The player who chooses the trumps has the control of the round in his hands. He chooses the suit that favours him. He, also, prevents the opposing payer/team to win all tricks because it is extremely unlikely (happens only if a player chose the trumps on a really bad hand, probably because he was mussed) for the player/team that didn’t choose trumps to win all tricks. And falling is better than not winning a trick since the player/team that won all tricks is awarded additional 90 points.

REACHING THE THRESHOLD (cf13)

The threshold depends on the number of players.

There are two option: enough and pass.

The first option lets player(s)/team say they’ve reached the threshold in the middle of a round even though they might fall if the round was played to the end. They just say they have enough points. Note that when the last trick is played, they do fall if they had chosen the trump suit and didn’t win more points than their opponent(s), that is after the round is over you can’t just say that you have enough points. You must win the necessary amount of points before the last trick has been played (i.e. before the end of the round).
According to the other option, you can’t say you have enough points in the middle of a round. The round must be played till the end. If the player/team that was about to reach the threshold fell; well, tough luck.

Needless to say, there are different tactics in reaching the threshold by enough and pass. When playing enough, the player near the threshold will choose the trump suit that allows him to reach the threshold in a few tricks with no regards to passing (e.g. a player/team needs 15 points to reach the threshold; they are going to choose the trumps if they have a Jack in their hand and only crap besides the Jack  because Jack of trumps will win them 20 points). When playing pass, the opposing player/team is going to muss the player/team near the threshold and do they’re best to prevent them from passing. These tactics don’t apply to 3P game where the player to play first must choose a trump anyway. Well, more about 3P game later.
I prefer playing enough, but a lot of people play pass, so I often have to adapt when I’m a guest.

If all players/teams breach the threshold, the player/team having the most points wins.

FOUR PLAYER GAME (cf14)

Four player game is played in teams. Team mates sit opposite each other.

Dealing and choosing the trump suit (cf15)

Each player is dealt three cards and then another three cards, having six cards in total. Players choose the trumps from those six cards. Each player can pass, except the dealer who is mussed to choose the trumps if other players pass. Once the trumps have been chosen, each player is dealt another two cards, making the hand of each player consist of eight cards in total at the beginning of game.
Yes, usually all 8 cards are dealt (in 3+3+2 sequence) and the last two cards simply remain untouched until trumps have been chosen.

Declarations (cf16)

After the cards had been dealt and trumps were chosen, player look at their hand to see if they have a declaration.

The team mate of a player with the highest ranking declaration – or rather his team – is automatically awarded his declaration(s) no matter their rank. I’m going to return to an example from Declarations section of General rules:
Player 1 (Team 1) has 4A; Player 2 (Team 2) has 10-9-8-7; Player 3 (Team 1) has 9-8-7 and Player 4 (Team 2) has 4Q and Q-J-10. Team 1 is awarded with their declarations (in total 120 points; 4A + 9-8-7 = 100 + 20 = 120) because Player 1 of Team 1 had four Aces which is the highest ranking declaration in this case. The team is also awarded “19” of Player 3 because Player 1 and 3 are the same team. Team 2 can kiss their asses despite their declarations being worth 170 points in total.

Passing/falling (cf17)

When the team that chose the trump suit falls, all the points they managed to win in a round are awarded to their opponents.
Since the total number of points is 162 [+ declaration(s)], determining whether the team passed is easy. The opponents count they’re tricks and if they reach 81 pts [+ declaration(s)], the other team falls and there’s no need for them to continue counting. All the points of the round are just awarded to them. If they don’t reach 81 pts [+ declaration(s)], the number of points they won is just subtracted from 162 [+ declaration(s)] and each team is awarded the amount of points they won in the round.

All tricks (cf18)

A team having no tricks means the other team has won all tricks. Basically, if you don’t manage to confirm your declaration, it is awarded to the opposing team.

Threshold (cf19)

Threshold in a four player game is 1001 points. The team to reach 1001 points first wins 🙂

Play a four player game of Bela (cf20)

Play Bela for free on your Android device. Play the game for $2.5 on your iOS device.
Play Bela online on Playtoy (Croatian; Hungarian cards).

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THREE PLAYER GAME (cf21)

Dealing and choosing the trump suit (cf22)

Players are first dealt three cards then another three. The player first to play must choose trumps. When he chooses the trumps, each player is dealt another four cards. There are two cards left. Those two cards are dealt to the player who chose trumps. The player who chose trumps has in his hand 12 cards in total while the other two players have 10 cards. Therefore, the player who chose trumps discards two cards from his hand to his tricks.

Each player now has 10 cards in his hand and the game can begin.

Passing/falling (cf23)

The player who chose trumps does all he can to pass while the other two players temporarily “team up” to prevent him. The player falls if he doesn’t win more tricks than his opponents together. Therefore, the “team mates” are going to give each other valuable cards so the sum of the points in their tricks is bigger than the number of points in the tricks of their “common enemy”. When the player falls he isn’t awarded the points he won in he round, but neither are his opponents.

Like in a four player game, all cards are used, so the total number of points in a round is 162 [+ declaration(s)]. Therefore, each player who didn’t choose trumps counts his points and is awarded them. Then their points are summed. If the sum exceeds 80 points, the player who chose trumps, fell and he isn’t awarded any points, but his points aren’t awarded to his opponents either. I’ll write a few examples:
Example I: There were no declarations. Player 1 won 60 pts, Player 2 won 71 pts, Player 3  won 22 pts. Players 2 and 3 (the “team mates”) are awarded their 71 and 22 points respectively while player 1 is awarded shit because 71 + 22 = 93 which is more than 80;
Example II: There were no declarations. Player 1 won 82 pts, Player 2 won 60 pts, Player 3 won 20 pts. All the players are awarded their points, respectively, because the sum of the points of Players 2 and 3 (the “team mates”) is exactly 80 pts (60 + 20 = 80);
Example III: There were no declarations. Player 1 won 103 pts, Player 2 won 17 pts, Player 3 won 42 pts. All the players are awarded their points respectively because the sum of the points of Players 2 and 3 (the “team mates”) is less than 80 pts (17 + 42 = 59).
In other words, in example I the player who had chosen trumps didn’t manage to win more than a half of the points in the round, so he fell; but he did manage to win more in examples II and III, so he passed.

Declarations (cf24)

After the player who chose trumps discarded his two additional cards, players declare their declarations. Yes, the player must be careful not to discard cards that would form a declaration.
If a player who didn’t choose trumps has a higher ranking declaration than the player who chose the trumps, his “team mate” is awarded his own declaration even if the rank of the declaration is lower than that of the player who chose trumps. For example: Player 1 has A-K-Q-J, Player 2 has 4 Tenners, Player 3 has 9-8-7. Player 1 isn’t awarded his declaration because Player 2 has the highest ranking declaration, but Player 3 is awarded his declaration because his “team mate” has the highest ranking declaration. Players 2 and 3 don’t share declarations. They are each awarded their declaration respectively (in our case Player 2 would be awarded 100 points and Player 3 twenty points).

Declarations still need to be confirmed. I will try to explain that by expanding the previous example:
So P1 has A-K-Q-J, P2 has 4×10 and P3 has 9-8-7. Player 1 won 100 pts in tricks. He also had the King and Queen of trumps, so he declared Bela being awarded another 20 points (120 in total). Player 3 won 82 pts including his declaration, while player 2 did not manage to win a trick and, thus, didn’t confirm his declaration. Player 1 did pass and is awarded in total 120 points, Player 3 is awarded his 82 points and Player 2 is awarded nothing because he didn’t win a trick in the round, so his square (100 pts) went to hell. The total sum of points in the round was 202 (162 pts + 20 points from the declaration of Player 3 + 20 pts from Bela) and the player who chose trumps won more than the total sum; in other words he won more points than his opponents combined (120 > 0 + 82). Therefore, he passed.

All tricks (cf25)

A player not winning a trick doesn’t necessarily mean another player won all tricks. Basically, if you’d won no tricks, it’s quite possible none of your opponents was awarded your declarations 🙂

Threshold (cf26)

Threshold in a three player game is 701 points. The player to reach 701 points first wins 🙂

TWO PLAYER GAME (cf27)

Cutting the deck, dealing and choosing the trump suit (cf28)

In this case a player cuts the deck for himself (only two players – dealer and cutter) 🙂

The dealer first deals his opponent three cards, then he deals three cards to himself, then another three to his opponent and another three to himself. Then he turns a card and puts it face-up on the table (or on whatever playing surface). Then he deals his opponent and himself final four cards, so both players have 10 cards in total. Then he puts the remaining cards face-up on top of the face-up card, signalling that the remainder of the deck isn’t used in the round (only 20 out of 32 cards are used in a two player game). Note that both the face-up card and the remaining deck are visible.
Cards after being dealt in a two player game

Players then take their first six cards. The player to play first can either accept the suit of the face-up card for the trump suit or he can pass. If he passes, his opponent gets the same right. If the opponent passes, the first player can either chose another suit to be the trump suit (he can’t choose the suit of the face-up card because he already rejected that suit) or pass. If he passes, his opponent is mussed and must choose the trumps from the remaining three suits. For example, the face-up card is King of Spades. Players first choose whether they want Spades to be trumps. Both of them can pass on Spades. If they do, they can then choose between Diamonds, Hearts and Clubs. If a player accepted the suit of the face-up card, a player who has Seven of the same suit in first six cards can replace it with the face-up card. In our case, if a player accepted Spades and one of the players has Seven of Spades in his first six cards, he can replace it with the King. If another suit was chosen and a player has the Seven of Spades, he can go screw himself.
When the trumps have been chosen (and the face-up card replaced), players take the remaining 4 cards and the game can begin.

Passing/Falling (cf29)

The player who chose trumps must win more points than his opponent to pass. If he doesn’t, he falls and all the points he won in the round are awarded to his opponent.

Since 12 cards of the deck aren’t used in a two player game and because, thanks to shuffling 🙂 different twenty cards are in use in each round, passing can’t be determined from the total sum of points in a clean game. The number simply varies from round to round.

Declarations (cf30)

Nothing special about declarations here since there are only two players. The declaration(s) of the player with the highest ranking declaration are awarded.

All tricks (cf31)

A player having no tricks means the other player has won all tricks. Basically, if you don’t manage to confirm your declaration, it is awarded to your opponent.

Threshold (cf32)

Threshold in a two player game is 501 points. The player to reach 501 points first wins 🙂

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OPEN BELOT (cf33)

Open Belot is a version of Belot only for two players. It is quite rare. I’ve played it only with one buddy and we’re not even sure we’ve been playing it right. We can’t really check because the information on Open Belot is scarce since the game is so rare. The game is quite cool and catchier than Bela for two players, so it’s definitely worth to mention.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it, but the game goes something like this:

As the name says, the game is played so both players see each other’s cards.

Dealing and choosing the trump suit (cf34)

The dealer first deals his opponent a row of four face-down cards. Then he deals a row of four face-down cards to himself. Then another row of four face-down cards to his opponent and then again to himself. Then he deals his opponent a row of four face-up cards which he places on top of the first four face-down cards. Then he deals the same to himself and then another four face-up cards to his opponent, now to cover the remaining four face-down cards. Finally, he deals himself the final four cards. Again face-up to cover his remaining face-down cards.
This is how Open Belot looks like at the beginning of a round

And this is how Open Belot looks like at the beginning of a round with a cat

After the cards were dealt like in the above pictures, the round can begin. Player 1 can choose the trumps or pass. If Player 1 passes, Player 2 (the dealer) is mussed and must choose the trumps. Before passing, Player 1 must look carefully at the cards, so his opponent doesn’t choose a suit that totally goes in his favour.

Declarations (cf35)

Declarations differ somewhat than in Bela.

First, both players are awarded their declarations respectively, no matter who had the highest declaration. They still need to confirm the declaration(s) though.

Secondly, sequences differ a bit. If a player has a sequence at the beginning of the game, he is awarded the usual value of the sequence (i.e. 20 points for a Tierce, 50 points for a Quarte and 100 points for a Quint or a bigger sequence), but if he gets a card that would continue his sequence during the gameplay, he is awarded only 20 more points. For example, a player has 10-9-8-7 at the beginning of the game. He is awarded 50 points. Then, during the gameplay, he opens the Jack of the same suit, now having J-10-9-8-7. He isn’t awarded 100 points for a Quint; just another 20 for opening the Jack and, thus, continuing his sequence, providing, of course, he didn’t brake his sequence (i.e. didn’t discard the Nine or the Eight) in the meantime in which case he’s awarded no additional points because he doesn’t even have the minimal sequence of three cards. Furthermore, players are awarded just 20 points per sequence for making them during the game, no matter how long the sequences are.

There is nothing different about the squares and players should always be careful their opponent doesn’t make a square.

I’ll illustrate what I’ve just said in the following pics:

The upper rows are the cards of Player 1 while the bottom rows are the cards of Player 2. Player 2 has A-K-Q of Clubs and is awarded 20 points for the Tierce.

Player 1 then plays the Seven of Hearts, which Player 2 takes with the Ace, opening the Jack of Clubs.

Player 2 now has A-K-Q-J-10, but is awarded just 20 more points instead of 100 for a Quint.
In theory, Player 1 should be more concerned about Player 2 having three Kings. If the opponent opens another one, he’s going to be awarded 100 pts for having 4K and that would provide him with a serious advantage over Player 1. But, when we compare the pics of the beginning of the round with these, we’re going to notice that the King of Diamonds had already been played.

Passing/falling (cf36)

Player who chose trumps must have more points than his opponent, otherwise he falls and all the points he managed to win in the round are awarded to his opponent. It’s easy to see whether players pass or fall here because the player who didn’t choose the trumps can just count his points. When he reaches 81 points [+ declaration(s)], he can stop counting because his opponent fell, otherwise his points are just subtracted from 162 points [+ declaration(s)] to see how many points his opponent won.

Über (cf37)

The little sources I managed to find about Open Belot say über is not played (suit has to be followed though). However, we always play über simply because über requires tactics. You have to think how to ensure you win more points. For example, you have a Tenner of a nontrump suit, but your opponent has the Ace of the same suit. In addition to the Tenner, you have the King while your opponent has the Seven along with the Ace. Playing über, your opponent must take the King with the Ace because Seven is lower than King and you can then take the opponent’s Seven with your Tenner. This way you win 10 pts while your opponent wins 15 points. If über weren’t played, your opponent could just give you the Seven when you play the King and take your Tenner with his Ace. In that case, you would win only 4 points that way and your opponent would win twenty one points! In short, über über alles! ×D

Threshold (cf38)

Threshold in Open Belot  is 1001 points because there are usually a lot of declarations. The player to reach 1001 points first wins 🙂

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Posted on August 14th, 2016 at 20:08 GMT
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Maribor (CEEPUS)

Content

Use Ctrl+F codes to quickly navigate through the rest of the post:
CEEPUS (cf01)
Maribor (cf02)
-Distances (cf03)
-Picture time (cf04)
-Colours of religion (cf05)
–Maribor Castle (cf06)
-Avgust Škrabar (and Karađorđe’s star) (cf07)
-Shoes are boring, wear sneakers (and a critique for my nation mates) (cf08)
-“The Romani question” (cf09)
-Vocabulary (cf10)
–University(s) (cf11)
-Vine (cf12)
-Mestni park (cf13)
-The river Drava (cf14)
-Campus Gosposvetska (cf15)
-The best tea in the galaxy (cf16)
-Final words (cf17)
Celje (cf18)
-Picture time (cf19)
-Celjski dom (cf20)
-Castle Celje (cf21)
Graz (cf22)
-Styria (cf23)
-Picture time (cf24)
-Geek time now (cf25)
A Map for the End (cf26)

CEEPUS (cf01)

Nming the post was a thoughy again.

One of my last student adventures, before HSS, was participating in the Central European Exchange Program for University Students (CEEPUS). As the name says, CEEPUS is an exchange programme for university students in Central Europe, kinda like ERASMUS, but covering just Central Europe instead of the whole continent. “Just Central Europe”, huh? Not exactly Central Europe, more like Central Europe and the neighbourhood. The programme covers as eastern parts of Europe as Bulgaria yet neither Germany nor Switzerland are part of the programme and those countries are often considered the heart of Central Europe. Anyway, the countries of CEEPUS Central Europe (i.e. the countries participating in the programme) are:  Albania, Austria (CEEPUS HQ is located in Austria), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Macedonia (FYORM), Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Kosovo, Slovakia, and Slovenia (check the map below). Although not every single university in this region is a CEEPUS member, if you attend a university in such a defined Central Europe, you can probably participate in the programme. It’s definitely worth checking out. Trust me 🙂

After the end of your CEEPUS time, you get a letter of confirmation like this one. Yeah, quite poor 😮 A simple A4 piece of paper, not even printed in colour. In addition, the letters printed are those of basic Latin alphabet (i.e. no diacritics nor accents… at least those most commonly used in Central European lingoes). That’s right, a Central European programme doesn’t print letters common in Central Europe (e.g. it should have said Lučka, not Lucka on my letter of confirmation, my name was misspelled in such a fashion too and the same keyboard layout is used in Slovenia and Croatia)… Anyway, can’t be compared with a Helsinki Summer School diploma 😀 where, in addition to better paper and colour print, my name is actually correctly spelled. So, the letters common in Central Europe are printed with no biggie on diplomas of an international summer school, but they ain’t printed on Central European Exchange Program for University Students letters of confirmation…

Now, I went to the University of Maribor in Slovenia.
I didn’t want to name the post just CEEPUS because I honestly don’t know much about the programme, only that I went to Maribor through the programme 😀
I stayed only for a month (April 2014) and, therefore, didn’t go much outside Maribor. I did go to Celje and Graz, Austria (only 70 klicks from Maribor) though.
In the end I opted for Maribor (CEEPUS) to include both Maribor and CEEPUS 😀

MARIBOR (cf02)

Maribor is the second largest city of Slovenia. Indeed, you can say that Ljubljana (capital and the largest city) and Maribor are the only two centres of Slovenia although the coastal region has seen serious development lately and you can say that it’s quickly becoming, if it hasn’t become already, the third centre of Slovenia.

Distances (cf03)

I chose Slovenia, and particularly Maribor, because I live like 20 minutes east of Slovenian border and Maribor is only 113 km away from my town. That is closer than Rijeka (157 km), the closest of the other big Croatian cities (i.e. Rijeka, Split and Osijek). Speaking of distances, my town is closer to Maribor than Ljubljana (the distance between Maribor and Ljubljana is 128 km) 😀 So I wasn’t far from home, but participated in an international student exchange programme. I have a good buddy in Maribor (me Neighbour 😀 ). Slovenian and Croatian are similar lingoes, so the language barrier was minimum. Actually, most Slovenians speak Croatian, especially older generation because Serbocroatian was lingua franca of Yugoslavia… and pretty much still is in the ex-Yugoslavia. Although the language of CEEPUS is English, I didn’t have to use English at all (except to clarify something I or the interlocutor said). To come to think of it, the only time I couldn’t communicate was in a Chinese shop in Celje where neither English nor Croatian nor Slovenian helped. Seriously, the only thing the vendor could say was Ne razumem (I don’t understand) and what I don’t understand is how she could do any business in Celje 😮 Finally, the CEEPUS co-ordinator of my home university suggested Maribor.

Saying how close Maribor is, I’d like to say now how to get to Maribor from my town. Except a car (note you have to buy a vignette if you wanna drive on Slovenian highways), you can take a train or a bus. Each has its pros and cons. One would say that train is the quickest way. Technically that is true, but the train stops in every single village, making the trip to Maribor last two hours at best. The bus, on the other hand, makes only one stop before Maribor: in Krapina, Croatia. The problem with the bus is that Slovenians still like to fuck vehicles with Croatian registration on the border despite that we are now in the EU and the bus does have Croatian registration. You can literally be stuck at the border for hours. Now, they can’t really hold a train for long without screwing up the whole schedule and that would piss the train companies off, especially because if I remember correctly, the train for Maribor only passes through Zagreb and Maribor (its destination is Frankfurt or so and its starting point Belgrade or so).
I’ll never forget the Americans teaching me Pitch in the train I was on on my return trip home. They boarded the train in Vienna, Austria. At first I was very enthusiastic to learn Pitch since it is a card game, after all. I actually Facebooked a girl who was teaching me a few times, but I have no one to play the game with and the bloody passage of time…
Anyway, Slovenians would piss German and Austrian train companies of by delaying trains and they don’t wanna do that.
Likewise, the bus ain’t a straight Zagreb-Maribor line. Its starting point is Zagreb, but its destination is Graz and Maribor is just a stop.
Actually, the bus is intended for one day trips from Zagreb to Graz (it leaves from Zagreb at 6:30 AM and then leaves from Graz at 4:00 PM).

Ironically, as I mentioned above, Maribor is closer to me than Rijeka (43 km closer to be precise), yet the return ticket to Maribor costs 119 HRK while the return ticked to Rijeka costs 38 HRK (that’s 45 km less, but the price is 3 times as high as for Rijeka). Well, Maribor is abroad after all (note, that I never feel like a foreigner in Slovenia and I doubt Slovenians in Croatia feel like foreigners) 😀

Anyway, just wanted to say that Maribor is better connected to Zagreb than vice versa. That is, you can make a one-day trip from Zagreb to Maribor by a bus or a train. You board in the morning and leave in the afternoon (bus) or evening (train). If you’re headed from Maribor to Zagreb by a train or a bus, on the other hand, you must stay somewhere over night. Two nights actually: you arrive in the afternoon/evening of one day, but you’d want to do your business in the town the next day, so you’d have to wait for another morning to leave.

Picture time (cf04) 😀

Well, let’s “illustrate” Maribor with pictures:

Another naked boy. Should I be worried for living in a world where naked boys are so “popular” 😮

This is the main square of Maribor… or is it? It is hardly the most popular square in town. Actually, it’s usually empty like this, but its name is Main Square (slo. Glavni trg) probably because Maribor City Hall is located on the square.
That’s the statue of Virgin Mary on the pillar. Now, it ain’t the original statue. The original statue began to seriously degrade over time. That’s why it was decided (in 1990 if I remember correctly) to preserve the original statue in a museum (Maribor Castle to be precise).

And that’s the city hall on the Main Square

Colours of religion (cf05)

This is the Franciscan Church in Maribor. It’s located on the Square of Freedom (slo. Trg svobode). Now that square is the true main square of Maribor.

Speaking of churches, this is Maribor Cathedral. Yeah, it ain’t nearly as popular as the Franciscan Church.

And, yeah, speaking of churches, this is the Lutheran church in Maribor. Like Croatia, Slovenia is mostly catholic. Nevertheless, some Slovenians are Lutherans. Lutherans are dispersed throughout the country, but they’re not big in number. Therefore, there are just a few Lutheran churches in Slovenia. After the one in Celje was closed, the closest church to this one was in Ljubljana. That being said, the church serves Lutherans neighbouring Maribor. Frankly, since distances here, especially in Slovenia, aren’t much of a problem, the believers outside Maribor can easily reach the church in the town. I spoke to the curator and he told me Lutherans can just a attend Catholic mass when protestant service is unavailable.
Also, I know that some protestant churches are quite liberal and have priestesses. Frankly, I don’t see why the hell a woman couldn’t be a priest(ess) (I have to say here that Old Catholic Church, the views of which suit me the best, has priestesses too). Still I was quite surprised to learn that Lutherans have priestesses. This church is headed by a priestess.

This is the inside of the church. In case you haven’t been inside a protestant church, you really must go into one to see how overdecorated catholic (and orthodox) churches are. This was the first Lutheran church I had been in. The funny thing is that upon returning home, I learnt that a church near my Uni is in fact Lutheran. Since you can’t really tell a difference between a catholic and a protestant church from the outside because it’s the inside of a catholic church that is so decorated; I didn’t take notice on that particular church 😮

And another church in Maribor

And speaking of religious buildings, this is the synagogue in Maribor. Yeah, it ain’t much 😮
The point is that this is one of the oldest synagogues in Europe. Indeed, Maribor’s had a rich Jewish history.

Klikni na sliku i obrati pažnju da na “bosansko-hrvatskoj” latinici piše …Bosne in Hercegovine… 😀
…and Bosnian consulate a few metres from the synagogue 😀

Maribor Castle (cf06)

This is the Maribor Castle

The castle is a museum today and naturally, in addition to it housing the original statue of the Virgin Mary replica on the Main Square, lots of other stuff can be seen in the castle. The museum pretty much covers the history from the ice age to the 20th century.

Here are some pics:

This is a replica of a chimneyless house, quite commonly used by the middle-class, Note that fire place was still used for cooking and heating, but there was no chimney!

You can enter a chimneyless house. I managed to take a pic of the fire place in one.
So our ancestors could choose a way to die outside battlefield – they could either suffocate or freeze to death! What a lovely choice…

A shiny coat of arms

There are many models of battles against the Turks, but this is my favourite – LEGOS 😀

Avgust Škrabar (and Karađorđe’s star) (cf07)

Click on the image to enlarge it
In short this a poster honouring the history of Maribor, Lt. Col. Avgust Škrabar in particular.

Lt. Col. Avgust Škrabar was awarded the Order of Karađorđe’s Star with Swords for his valour protecting the Slovenian (back then Yugoslav) northern borders.

Avgust Škrabar is a national hero of Slovenia and is remembered as such in Slovenia. Now, if he were in Croatia, his story would probably be interpreted differently.
The border protection would still be honoured and, indeed, many of us would still consider him as a hero. But the medal he received would probably stain him in the eyes of a lot of people.
First, note that he was awarded for protecting Yugoslav, not Slovenian borders. Back then, there were no Slovenian borders, nor Croatian, nor Serbian etc. because the division of Yugoslavia did not follow the borders of modern countries (neither in territory nor in name) back then.
Secondly, the Karađorđević dynasty, the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,  awarded him the medal. The dynasty is nefarious for its attempts to make Serbs the dominant nation in Yugoslavia. They did not name the kingdom (Greater) Serbia or something like that, so their attempt wouldn’t be so transparent. Instead they played with the countries making Yugoslavia. Remember how I said that the division of Yugoslavia back then did not follow the borders of modern countries? Yugoslavia was divided in 9 banovinas. The borders of banovinas intentionally didn’t follow the boundaries of ethnic groups, so there would be a strong Serb presence in as many banovinas as possible and there wouldn’t be any successions attempted in the future (after all, the most likely succession would be of a territory of a particular ethnic group, but if ethnic groups were dispersed through many banovinas…). In addition, the dynasty persecuted nonSerbs, including Slovenes [although not as much as other ethnicities because Slovenes were never a real threat to Serbian domination, since not many Serbs have ever lived in Slovenia (though they are still the second largest minority in Slovenia) and Slovenes are small in number].
All this can, and should, be disregarded since such were the times, and he did risk his life for his homeland.

Now, let’s look at the medal. The medal doesn’t have a single Slovenian symbol, but it does have a big Serbian cross. Even the inscription (За веру и слободу 1804 – For faith and freedom 1804) isn’t in Slovenian, but in Serbian. Actually, as you can see it wasn’t even written in Latin alphabet even though Serbs use Cyrillic and Latin alphabets equally and Slovenians use only Latin alphabet which is only slightly different than (Serbo)croatian Latin alphabet (i.e. it lacks five letters). Basically, Lt. Col. Škrabar could have refused such a medal and I doubt he’d be remembered as any less of a hero. Quite the contrary probably.

Shoes are boring, wear sneakers (and a critique for my nation mates) (cf08)

This Converse ad (the text, of course, says Shoes are boring, wear sneakers) was quite popular at the time I was in Maribor and I must say that I totally agree with the ad 😀

Now you must think So bloody what?! Why are you showing us an ad?! Has stupidity replaced all your fearlessness, Nel?! I posted this photo as a critique for my nation mates. We had tons of this ads, but they were all in English (before seeing this ad, I though they were in English around the globe). Unlike Slovenes, who respect their language, my nation mates don’t give a shit about Croatian (a quote of my friend, her exact words: I don’t give a shit about Croatian). An ad in a foreign language (especially English) is so “cool”… And, of course, most of my nation mates speak English either badly, terribly or not at all, but they are showing off with English. And by “bad” and “terrible”, I don’t mean that they speak ugly like me (i.e. ugly pronunciation) (note that my speech centre is damaged), they simply love stupidities like Rent a motors or Thanks God and often use such stupidities in every-day Croatian conversation replacing perfectly good (and correct) Croatian phrases with this bullshit.

Have you heard how Croatian representative in the European Parliament, Ingrid Antičević-Martinović, embarrassed us, her nation, speaking English? Well, she doesn’t speak English any worse than an average Croatian and the link I’ve just given you pretty much confirms that. Nevertheless, people here were very happy to make fun of her. They found her pronunciation of People must trust us (“Pipl mast trast as”) the funniest. Mkay, it was funny and I did laugh my ass off listening to her, but off all the gibberish she’d said, People must trust us was the only one that actually made sense. Now, who the fuck did make fun of her?! Most of the people who made fun of her say sheeps, can’t distinguish between their and her (as you can see in the link) and so on and the proof is People must trust us because that’s what people here remotely know the meaning of and know that it sounds differently than Ingrid said it.
Also, note how the lazyasses couldn’t stretch their fingers to Č and Ć and just wrote C (yeah, both Č and Ć are available by a single click – check out Croatian keyboard layout).

All in all, most of my nation mates think, using a foreign language, especially English, is so much cooler than using one’s own language and they mock others who speak English badly (to put it in better words, what they think is bad English), Yet most of them don’t actually speak (in) English, they speak on English

“The Romani question” (cf09)

The Roma (Gipsies) are present throughout Europe yet they only present a “question” in Central and Eastern Europe. I mean, they probably ain’t loved anywhere in Europe, but they are not a “question” in, dunno, the UK.

A big opening ceremony of a Romani restaurant. Everybody’s happy, cheering, singing, laughing, and generally enjoying themselves in the accompaniment of traditional Romani music.

…and just a dozen metres to the west, there’s this “lovely” “writing on the wall”: Gipsies, suck a dick

Vocabulary (cf10) 😉

Now, time for another little digression:

There I was, wandering Tatooine (yes, a Star Wars planet) in ToR (yes, a Star Wars game) like a good cowboy, when a few sandpeople (or were they Imps? 😮 ) attacked me. Anyway, I was in a group with Slovenians and I told to the attackers to suck my dick 😀 Which made me ask meself how Slovenians say dick. They told me that the standard word would be kurec, but that they all say kurac (I’m sure they “burrowed” the word from Croatian) 😀

And, of course, their most beutiful neighbours must be advertised in Maribor (the text says Embrace the spring in Croatia) 😀

Hmm…, I do wonder whether this manhole leads to Varaždin, Croatia 😮

University(s) (cf11)

And speaking of manholes, let it be known that Maribor is a university town (Univerzitetno mesto) 😀 although the University of Maribor was founded in 1975. Well, I did see a department of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Ljubljana, and the University of Ljubljana dates back to the 17th century I think 😀

This is the main building of the University of Maribor

This is the University Library in Maribor (slo. Univerzitetna knjižnica Maribor – UKM). Anyway, CEEPUS (probably ERASMUS too, and students of every other exchange programme) get free access to the libraries of their host institution, that includes university libraries. Actually, a librarian at the Faculty of Arts wanted me to pay for membership until the person in charge for foreign students came and asked her what the hell she was doing 😮
I did spend a lot of time at the library looking for data for my master’s. I would probably, most likely, be lost without Knoppix because Windows just wouldn’t connect to wi-fi provided by the library. Since people all around me were using Windows, I was pretty sure something was wrong with my Windows. Besides, I couldn’t connect to any wi-fi network in Maribor. On the last day I realized that my wi-fi settings were wrong 😮 Although, something was really wrong with the wi-fi at the faculty. I couldn’t connect to that wi-fi neither with Windows nor with Knoppix nor with me cell phone (i.e. Android).
One more thing, English isn’t of much use at UKM, as at the University Library in, for example, Helsinki. Neither is it at, for example, the (National and) University Library (cro. Nacionalna i sveučilišna knjižnica – NSK) in Zagreb. Mkay, to be honest, I didn’t really speak English with the staff nor did I search the database strictly for English content (most, if not all, of the results were in Slovenian and the data I used was definitely not in English), but Slovenian was all around me. I think that even Windows on library computers intended for users were in Slovenian.

Vine (cf12)

Maribor is the home to the oldest vine tree in the world. That is, the tree is more than 400 years old. Now, there were vine trees before and I’m pretty sure there are remnants of an older vine tree somewhere, but vine is still produced from this tree, it has been produced continuously for more than 400 years.
Frankly I wasn’t much impressed by what I saw (a house and vine tree branches), but still… the oldest vine tree on the planet!

Me in front of the hose. Yeah, the day was quite chilly (…and sunny).

Mestni park (cf13)

This is a pic of Mestni park (City Park). So a lot of cities have big parks: New York has Central Park, London has Hyde Park, Toronto has Allen Gardens; there’s Park Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires, Champ de Mars in Paris, Tiergarten in Berlin etc. Mestni park is such a park in Maribor.

This is aquarium-terrarium located in Mestni park. You can say that this is an equivalent of a zoo most big cities have. Actually, the zoo in my town is located in the biggest city park. Anyway, the main difference would be that instead of having all kinds of animals, the aquarium-terrarium has only lizards and fish. In addition, the whole aquarium-terrarium is indoors.

Anyway, I just had to post this pic from the aquarium-terrarium. Yep, these turtles are sleeping on a crock, and the crock was in a pretty deep sleep too. Otherwise, I doubt he’d allow the turtles to be on his back (actually one is pretty much on his head). This scenes brings me back to TMNT and childhood (hell, I still like the turtles so lemme just shout here: TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!!! 😀 ). I do wonder whether the four turtles are in fact Leo, Raph, Don and Mikey, and whether the crock is Leatherhead 😉 I guess that a rat must be hiding somewhere around here in that case 😮

The river Drava (cf14)

Maribor lies on the river Drava. Two things about the river: one, there are no dikes and houses are located very near the water, which tells us the Drava is pretty calm in Maribor; two, the river was very important for transport in the past. The transport was done on rafts. Actually, along the river coast, there are Rafter’s education tour (slo. Splavarska učna pot) signs telling about the history of sailing on rafts in Maribor. There is also a tourist raft that brings the sailing closer to tourists. Unfortunately, the raft starts operating at the end of April and I realized there was the tourist raft on the day I returned home 😦

An interesting geomorphological phenomenon on the Drava in Maribor is Maribor Island. The island is shown is this pic. Now, the island is a real island, a real deal, not just a sandbar. Suffice it to say, real islands are rare on rivers, especially small rivers like Drava. Other than the aqua-centre, which was of course closed in April, the island is pretty much pure wilderness. Actually, there are a lot of snakes there, none of which are poisonous… I think – I was lucky enough to be on the island on a cold cloudy day, so every slithery thing was hiding in its hole.

And you’ve got a nice view of the dam from the westernmost reach of the island 😀

Campus Gosposvetska (cf15)

This is the campus I stayed at.

The campus is located next to the Faculty of Arts. The Department of Geography is a department of the Faculty of Arts, so I stayed like three minutes away from my classes.

A little trivia here: In my town, the Department of Geography is a part of the Faculty of Science while the University of Belgrade has a whole faculty of geography. My point is that geography is interdisciplinary!

So this is the Faculty of Arts

Speaking of the faculty, this is the copy shop of the faculty.
Yeah, a bit “bigger” than ours 😉 Mkay, the building of the Faculty of Arts in Maribor is quite bigger than the building of Department of Geography in Zagreb. Furthermore, you might say a faculty is quite bigger than a department anyway. True, only we share the building with the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, and with Croatian Institute for Social Sciences, so…

And this is the window of my room 😀

The best tea in the galaxy (cf16)

This is the best tea in the galaxy, the best of all times.

There are many mountain teas, but no tea can beat this one.

Seriously, I don’t give a shit how tea drinking the English are, before they try this shit, they now nothing.

The problem is that it can rarely be found in Croatia despite the closeness of Slovenia and despite the packing actually stating the Croatian importer.

I’ve heard “rumours” lately that the tea has began resurfacing in Croatia, probably because a Croatian tycoon bought the biggest Slovenian food chain.
In any case, the first thing I did in Maribor was emptying a shelf of the tea in a nearby store. Then I emptied the shelves of a few other stores. The employees of the stores kept looking at me strangely, but I did supply meself for winters to come 😀 Actually, I’m beginning to run low on the shit 😦 TIME TO VISIT SLOVENIA AGAIN 😀

Anyway, remember: it’s 1001 CVET PLANINSKI ČAJ!!!

Final words (cf17)

When I got the email informing me my scholarship for the month had arrived, I checked to whom else the email was sent so I might contact the fellow exchange students. Anyway, the email was sent to three other people. I recognized one was a Montenegrin because his email address ended in Montenegrin top-level domain [.me (true, because of the word me .me domain is often used outside Montenegro and a lot of people don’t even know it’s Montenegrin, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non-Montenegrin .me email address; besides the address domain was t-com and I know T-Com is a telecommunications provider in Montenegro)]. I recognized another to be Croatian because she had a common Croatian surname. I couldn’t really place the third student. The top-level domain of her address was .com and her surname did sound Slavic, but I couldn’t be any more precise. I only concluded she was likely a Latin-writing Slav, probably Czech or Slovak, because Cyrillic letter Ч would probably be transcribed to ch in an email address. Latin equivalent of the letter Ч used by most Latin-writing Slavs is Č, which is usually written just as c in email address and the C in her address sounded like Č, not real C so… (you gotta congratulate me on my “smart” deduction now 😀 )

Anyway, my guess turned out to be pretty accurate. The girl was a Slovak 😀 And only she really replied. The Montenegrin just told me Yeah, we understand each other (I asked him if we understood each other in Croatian, as I do everyone I think might understand Croatian 😀 ) and the Croatian didn’t even reply to my email (actually I think I sent two, and she replied to neither).

I did spend some time with the Slovak girl. She studies English and German. A few years back she’d worked on the Croatian island of Pag and she had picked Croatian there. Since she was in Maribor for the whole semester, she picked some Slovenian too though she told me the problem with Slovenian was that she hadn’t had much use for it while staying in Maribor. She communicated with her professors in English or German and most of the students spoke English anyway, On the other hand, she was forced to learn Croatian while she’d been “trapped” on Pag. Her job was to guide Czech and Slovak tourists (yeah, she speaks Czech too, but all the Slovaks do, they even import Czech movie dubs… which means that the Lord of the Rings I watched in Bratislava was in fact in Czech and not Slovak 😀 ) and she could speak English, and especially German, to other tourists (the vast majority of tourists visiting Croatia are Germans), but that didn’t help her much when talking to other people on Pag.

The girl asked me to teach her Croatian names of months of the year. She told me how certain months have the same name in Czech while others have the name of another month in Croatian. For example, listopad is October in Croatian and November in Czech! Now to make a parallel:
Czech and Slovak in Czechoslovakia could be compared to Serbian and Croatian in Yugoslavia. The difference is, there is more difference between Czech and Slovak than there is between Serbian and Croatian. Anyway, Czech could be related to Serbian because Czech was spoken more in Czechoslovakia and Serbian was spoken more in Yugoslavia and Slovak to Croatian. Yet Czech and Croatian use Slavic names of the months while Serbian and Slovak use classic names of the months (January-, February-, March-like).
And now to return to dubbing again 😀 Movies and stuff are rarely dubbed in Croatia and Serbia. We use subtitles. The only things we usually do dub are cartoons. Now, Serbs often import these dubs from us. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Serbian dub in Croatia (Bobo, Bil i raja se ne računaju 😉 ). Seems that dubs are connected to the names of the months on some level 😮

My birthday is on April 22nd, so I treated me Neighbour with a movie. Anyway, we went to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The movie was quite amazing although I don’t acknowledge Spider-Man without MJ. It was interesting that the movie started the second the room went dark. No ads, no trailers, no nothing! Just the movie 😀 I’m used to at least 15 minutes of gibberish before the movie, in other words I’m used to being 15 minutes late to a movie, but that ain’t working in Maribor and that’s just great 😀 I don’t really mind the trailers, they let you see what’s on, but I just hate the ads. I mean, I pay a ticked to be spammed with buy this, buy that, shop here, shop there 😡
Sony must have been a sponsor of the movie or whatever because every single laptop in the movie was Sony Vaio (I have a Sony Vaio 😀 ).
Funny thing is that we watched The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in the cinema and a few days later there was Spider-Man 2 (from 2004) ×D

Speaking of movies, a Star Wars marathon is currently in progress (one movie per Sunday) and it was in progress when I was in Maribor 😀 A New Hope was last Sunday (yes, it’s my favourite – The Empire Strikes Back – next Sunday) and so was on my first Sunday in Maribor 😀 The picture quality was quite bad though, but I was just happy the channel was available. I remember writing an “ad”, on a piece of paper, that I was watching Star Wars that day and anyone who’d like to watch the movie with me was welcome, just had to knock on the door. Nobody came 😦

As I said, I only stayed in Maribor for a month. I had to write the master’s, do an internship and prepare meself for Helsinki. In the end, I think I made a wrong decision and should have stayed at least for another month.
At the very least, I should have gone in May instead of April. There was a quite cheap field trip to Brno and Zlin (those in the “shoe” business probably know Zlin’s shoe brand Bat’a, actually the factory was the key reason of the trip), Czechia and the Slovak girl organized a trip to Italy.

Most importantly, my favourite Croatian band held a concert in the bar in the campus I stayed at on May 6th and there was no entrance fee (prost vstop)! Yes they held a free concert in a place just a few metres from where I slept just six bloody days before!

What else is there to say about Maribor? Oo oi! Maribor is the first place where I saw Finnish vehicle registration 😀

CELJE (cf18)

Celje is the third largest city of Slovenia. It is one of the stops of the train from Zagreb to Maribor.

The town is interesting because it lies on four rivers. Kinda like Karlovac, Croatia which lies on five rivers.

There is a mediaeval castle overlooking the town. I really wanted to see the castle and I did. But the way to castle on foot is quite long, even for someone not screwed like meself. I did walk to the castle and I lost much time walking to the castle. Then I stayed at the castle for a few hours and then I spent much time returning to Celje. In the end I missed the early train back (“early” being 5:00 PM). Anyway, because I spent so much time in the castle, I managed to only move around the railway station a bit and not really see the town.

Picture time (cf19) 😀

Here are the few pics of the town I took:

The knight has the coat of arms of Celje on his breastplate. Actually, the stars on the coat of arms are so important to Slovenes that the coat of arms on Slovenian flag has them.

Celjski dom (cf20)

This is the front of Celjski dom.

Celjski dom was built in the early 20th century as the main seat of Germans in town. It was intended to contrast the Slovenian community centre Narodni dom, which today serves as Celje city hall while Celjski dom is a community centre. Many concerts are held there throughout the year, a theatre is there, as is  the tourist information centre.

This is the west side of Celjski dom.

This semaphore intrigued me because it has separate lights for cyclists 😀

I hadn’t encountered a single stray cat cat in Maribor (nor in Helsinki for that matter). I saw this fellow when I was walking to Castle Celje. The kitty in the pic was the only cat I saw in Slovenia (at least last year) and the little furball came straight to me 😀

A street sign I encountered on my way to the castle. Dolarjeva ulica can be translated as Street of the Dollar. Unfortunately, the greenery surrounding the sing ain’t the greenery 😉

Castle Celje (cf21)

And finally, the castle.

Remember my post about castles in Zagorje? I mentioned the legend of Veronika Desinić concerning the castle Veliki Tabor there. Anyway, Veronika’s lover was from Celje. Actually, the father of her lover was Count Herman II of Celje and this was his castle. The castle plays a vital role in the legend of Veronika Desinić. Castle Celje and Veliki Tabor are intertwined, both in legend and in the real history. After all, the border between Croatia and Slovenia didn’t exist back then and we were all one big (more-or-less) happy family.

An “inside look” of the castle.

A beautiful view of Celje from the castle

I bought this medallion in a gift shop in the castle. The inscription (Grofje celjski) says the Counts of Celje and that’s their coat of arms (just without colours 😮 ). Anyway, I just love to wear this shit. Seriously, I wear it pretty much always 😀 Definitely the most used souvenir I have ever bought 😀

GRAZ (cf22)

I just had to buy my speech therapist a No kangaroos in Austria magnet because she lived in Australia for 5 years 😀

The last week in Maribor was an off week at the Uni, so me and me Neighbour could finally go to Graz.

To get to Graz, we took the same bus I used to come to Maribor. Since the Neighbour speaks German fluently (actually he studies German), I at least found myself a bit useful when talking to the driver (Croatian bus). Though to be honest, me Neighbour would have no trouble communicating with him. After all, we two are managing to communicate without English, but still since the driver was Croatian and I’m Croatian, I did the talk in the bus. The Neighbour was in charge of Graz 😀

Anyway, remember how I said Slovenians love to hold vehicles with Croatian registration at the border? Well, we waited for an hour for the bus because it was held at the border. Actually a couple of tourists asked us if it was normal to wait like that (and they were quite disappointed when we arrived in Graz and found out me Neighbour wasn’t from Graz nor an Austrian for that matter 😀 ). The border between Austria and Slovenia is practically non-existent. I mean, the bus didn’t even slow down at the border. That’s why we arrived back to Maribor accurately to the second (no Croatian border between Austria and Slovenia).

Speaking of the bus and Croatian border, when I was returning home, I heard questions like Do we need passports? then answers like I think not, but I ain’t sure. Mkay, people (Slovenens and Croatians to be precise), I DON’T REMEMBER WHEN WE NEEDED PASSPORTS FOR SLOVENIA (AND VICE VERSA). EVER SINCE I REMEMBER WE COULD ENTER SLOVENIA WITH (VALID) ID CARDS (AND VICE VERSA)!!! NOW THAT WE ARE IN THE EU, WE DO NOT NEED A PASSPORT TO ENTER ANY EU MEMBER. THAT’S RIGHT, WE CAN GO TO EVERY EU MEMBER, INCLUDING SLOVENIA, WITH OUR ID CARDS, AS LONG AS THEY’RE VALID, OF COURSE. YOU CAN GO TO THE UK WITHOUT PASSPORT, YOU CAN GO TO GERMANY WITHOUT PASSPORT, YOU CAN GO TO FINLAND WITHOUT PASSPORT ETC. END OF STORY!!! I went to Estonia without passport. We are citizens of the EU now, for Christ’s sake!
I wonder if the vote for the accession to the EU passed so slimly because people hadn’t known (and still don’t know) stuff like this about the EU… I mean, you just don’t give a shit, but when you come to a border, it’s like Oh my God, what do I do?! Where is my passport?! and even if you hadn’t know that no passports are needed, you could have bloody checked before travelling.

Styria (cf23)

Now like Maribor, Graz is in Styria, a region shared by Austria and Slovenia. The region dates back to the Duchy of Styria of Austrian Empire (later Austri-Hungary). Graz is the capital city of Austrian state Styria and the largest city in Styria (both Austrian and Slovenian) while Maribor is the second largest. Now, Graz has always been important to Slovenes. Even today, there are many Slovenian students at the University of Graz (before I decided to apply for Maribor, I considered Graz, btw), particularly from Maribor and there are many Slovenian workers in Graz.

Picture time (cf24) 😀

So picture time now:

The first thing we saw in Graz. Bloody hell, this lexicon alone is worth learning German 😀

Colourful buildings 😀

The river Mur in Graz

An “island” on the Mur in Graz. Not quite like Maribor island, ah? Or any other island for that matter 😮 I think there’s a cafe on the island.

Graz City Hall

Viđu Vinkovce u Grazu 😀 [Vinkovci is a town in Croatia… and it was written on Croatian tricolour (i.e. red-white-blue) with the Croatian cheque in the middle 😀 ]

Aha! 30 % niža cijena. Raja navali u Billu po kilu ćevapa za samo 3,99€, prava sitnica 😀

Geek time now (cf25) 😀

Me Neighbour and I visited the many game (and comic) shops Graz has to offer.

You can buy a Super Nintendo for only €65,99 😀

…or if you prefer something newer, you can buy Nintendo 64 for only €110 😀 Note how the console is shiny turquoisely transparent 😀

There is, of course, a lot of SNES and N64 games to choose from, so your “new” console doesn’t get lonely 😀

Screw SNES and N64! Let’s go further back and buy a NES or an Atari game! 😀

…and I’d say the pricing is reasonable 😮 After all, the game is cheaper than a console (SNES, at least)…
E, ova cijena je prava sitnica 😀

Link! 😀 I think I saw Drizzt somewhere too though I do not know why the hell I didn’t take a pic of him 😮

And I just took a pic of shelves full of Croatian magazines in a book shop in Graz. Ironically, I didn’t see anything in Slovenian although Austria is neighbouring Slovenia, not Croatia and Graz is much more important to Slovenians than it is to us (Graz is still popular here). Probably because (Serbo)croatian is more spoken than Slovenian and there’s more Croatians than Slovenes.
Actually, there are a lot of Croatian papers and magazines in kiosks in Slovenia too. The only Slovenian thing I remember seeing in Croatia is a daily newspaper Delo 😮

I talked about the Maribor Castle, I talked about Castle Celje, but I’m afraid I’m gonna disappoint you now. I didn’t go to Graz Castle because me Neighbour didn’t want to use the lift and the climb is a bit to much for me, at least when I want to see a town and see it in time, so I we, don’t miss the bus 🙂

This is definitely the bust buy in Graz 😀 I wanted Yoda, but they didn’t have Yoda nor did they have Chewie, so an ewok was the next logical choice. When you press the ewok’s belly, it says that ewok gibberish (Oota, chiah gombuh fenguh wuh or something) 😀

A MAP FOR THE END (cf26)

Since I had covered a lot of area in this post, I thought it fit to end the post with a map showing the locations (of most) of the stuff I wrote about.

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Posted on January 23th, 2015 at 23:54 GMT
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