Blast from the past

 

I have just stumbled upon this photo - there is a online group devoted to old pictures of my hometown and it is always fascinating to see some really ancient black & white pictures from 1920s and such, but what I do find extremely annoying is when people passionately claim that everything used to be better in their youth, the food tasted better, the girls were prettier, the sun was shinier, the air was fresher, etc - add to this another claim, that Zagreb is the prettiest city in the world and many of them could never in a million years live anywhere else. And than they post some apocalyptic photo that completely contradict this claim and it is exactly the place I remember. This picture - showing my old neighbourhood precisely as it was when I was a boy - was very highly praised and nostalgically commented as "the good old times" and it just made me shudder. I have fought tooth & nail my whole life just to somehow escape it and find my footing elsewhere. 

At the age of fifty I have managed finally to turn a new page and open a new chapter, exactly where i always wanted to be. In a city that is beautiful even in the rain, where each street carries some interesting history and where multi-racial, bi-lingual society is accepted and welcomed, not criticised. I have never felt this kind of excitement when I walk trough my hometown, the way I feel here. Yes, I understand its all about the perception and they probably have their share of frustrations and problems like anywhere else in the world, but I am not aware of them - being a foreigner, I am able to switch off, something that I can never do in Zagreb, where I am aware of even the smallest difference in a spoken language. So now I am where my heart feels good and often still can't believe it finally came true. Seeing these old pictures is something that stop me dead in the tracks, I look at it and can't believe people feel nostalgic about these times. And that I had pulled out of it alive.