When Hus' cow Belka was born, the river Stupljanska did not divide two independent and internationally recognized countries, Serbia and Montenegro. While she was growing up carefree, Huso didn't tell her anything about republics, states, wars and divisions - and especially NOT about the division of her pasture.
Belka met a lonely forester in the forests of Dražana and Stupljana, but police patrols, ramps and checkpoints, for her cow's perception of reality, are something completely new. She grazed and plucked all the grass and leaves there in Serbia, on the Draža sides and always watered, udders full of Serbian milk, she came to her Montenegrin warm stable.
Huso, as honest and insufficiently informed about what the XNUMXs brought to Serbian Draga and Montenegrin Stupa, taking seriously the fateful political agreement of Milo and Rafet on the cross-border trade of goods, things, property, feelings, family ties and ties, continued as before.
He didn't care, nor did he consider it forbidden or any kind of smuggling to carry some church trinket from Stupa to the Tutin market or from Tutin to get some small thing when it is returned to the children. Although, completely confused by the fact that there, where he used to guard cattle as a shepherd, there are now implacable Dračenov customs officers, and despite the fact that he is only literate enough to know how to sign, Huso has mastered the strict customs regulations for the simple reason that he has met them once and more times a day.
Therefore, he was careful not to buy the children anything worth more than 100 euros, and even more so not to transfer something similar from Montenegro to the other side. And if he was deceived by the agreement and election promises that his divided Sandzak and the state border would be porous, "almost as if it were not there", Huso lived that way because he had to, making ends meet.
However, a strange fate was in store for Hus. Unencumbered by national and ethnic affiliation, Hus's cow, Belka, lived, and still lives today, in a completely different world. Happy and modest, satisfied with what life offers her, she once stared at a cross-border Serbian bull.
He Galonja, karsan, with sharp horns and a long tail, the way the bovine instinct carries him, opened Belka's heart - that's how a great cross-border love was born. He knew Huso about Belka's love woes. So one day he soaked her in a new-money headpiece and led her to the Serbian Galonja, near the border ramp.
It lasted for several days. Belka and Galonja, with their great love, pursued party agreements, both original and rigged ones. All borders, past, present and future, as if they never existed and never will exist. Huso spoke to his cow as if he were talking to a cow - Belka should finally return home. As always, submissive, she started with her master, and all the way to the police-security customs crossing "Dračenovac".
"I left my passport at home. Hold Belka while I bring him. I didn't buy it. She was in Drago to guide the bull."
"There is no question!" announced the customs officer, sanitary and veterinary inspector almost in unison.
Poor Belka, although her customs regulations were Spanish villages, realizing that it was most likely her love's fault, decided to defend herself by remaining silent.
Huso assured all those people of the truth, visibly confused, sometimes sad and sometimes ironically laughing at himself, that he and Belka had only established an agreed cross-border cooperation, crowned by Belka's sincere love that is not subject to customs clearance or a ban on returning home.
In an instant, the human and bovine right to freedom of movement and freedom of communication disappeared in the small-scale traffic of love and needs. The political pact on defrauding citizens is being trampled on. Belka was deprived of her liberty on the spot and, according to the police-inspector's order, as contraband, she would be placed in a "detention unit" in front of the "Gradina-company" industrial slaughterhouse, where she is now awaiting execution.
Huso, whom he does not understand and the harsh decisions, helpless as he is, throws him into despair, after he has endured all the pleas and experienced misunderstanding, visibly panicked, came to my law office. He wailed loudly from the door:
"My dear brother, they robbed me! I brought the cow to lead, and they say it's a border violation. Save the lawyers if you can, for God's sake – where will I be with the children without a cow?”
Well, my Huso, there is no help for you or me or all those who are condemned by the border. We were deceived, Huso, when we voted for this country, when we provided it with statehood with our decisive votes. They also promised honey and milk, and even signed some false agreements that guaranteed us that we who live along the border will have a privileged position, as they have in most of the civilized world. On the contrary, Huso, state strictness is practiced here, and those who come from the end of the world, with full wallets, nobody touches them or asks anything. They are no danger, they say.
But Huso, what would you say about me? Born in Sanžak, right next to Tutin, in the town of Gnila, where I also have land. But it is now in another country. When I sow potatoes, I can grow them, pull them out of the ground, but I can't take them half an hour's drive home to Rožaje to cook them. For that I have to get a mountain of papers, to convince ours that the potatoes are mine and from my country, that they are not poisonous or radioactive or who knows what. It's trouble for you, Huso, trouble. I know them, you know them. And your cow knows them too. But what to do? That love has no boundaries, unhappy Belka will believe only if she survives.
Bonus video:
