You can try the best spaghetti in the Bronx. They are prepared, of course, by Italians and Sicilians, of which there are many in this New York municipality. They arrived in America during the first half of the nineteenth century. In their native Sicily, longing Pečalbar ballads remained behind them. They settled mainly in New York's boroughs, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn.
Montenegrins came to America with the first Europeans to, as they say, "feed hungry mouths". Long ago, in 1902, a boat ticket from Kotor to New York cost 88 fiorins...
And from the fall of 1988, we were a delegation of the Motherland of Emigrants of Montenegro at the Sixth Meeting of Montenegrin Emigrants in Chicago, Veselin R. Đuranović, Slobodan Marunović i Slobodan Vukovic. Marunović brilliantly performed "Potonja ura Njegoševa", a monodrama Dr. Slobodan Tomović in directing Treasures of Erakovic.
We sat down in the Chicago restaurant "Italy village". It was opened back in 1927 by an Italian immigrant, Alfredo Capitanini. He went to "Village" and "King of Chicago", Al Capone. It was also his bar...
The restaurant was inherited by Alfred's son Rey (Renato) Captains with his charming wife nadom, born "from Doboj". She came to America in the sixties. She married the United States Naval Attaché in Ankara. Nada's husband and two children die in a traffic accident. Later she settled in Chicago and married Ray Capitanini.
And her heart, like Romania. She gave forty thousand dollars to equip the former Yugoslav-American cultural center in Chicago! It helps the old homeland; sends money for areas affected by the earthquake, for people with dystrophies, for children's homes...
- The modest help I provide to my Juga is soul food for me. I suffered a lot as a child and I know what poverty is - Nada Kapitanini tells me. - I am grateful to America, which received me, but I cannot forget my people. I live for the South. I came out of it naked and barefoot, excuse me, and without underwear, but I was born there and the South is everything to me...
It's cheerful in the "Village". With us and Bahrudin Bijedić Buri, consul general of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Chicago, born in Mostar, nephew Džemal Bijedić, President of the Federal Executive Council (Government). So Bahrudin gives me a business card and writes "Buri" next to his name.
- Don't let me - he says - forget this. That's what everyone in Mostar calls me...
Buri, a real merrymaker. Sometimes he called out: "Jennifer, Jennifer", and Jennifer would wave goodbye from one of the neighboring tables.
There she is Živorad Kovačević, ambassador of the SFRY in the United States. He came from Washington and was with us in Chicago for three days.
A Chicago autumn night is flowing. Montenegro. Marunović tells Njegošev "The most expensive night of the century", then Vuk Mandušić's monologue from "Mountain wreath".
- You are my paradise. You all come and go. Oh, I've suffered something for everyone - says Nada Kapitanini with dewy eyes. - Say hello to Montenegro, and especially Cetinje. I love Cetinje. Our people do not know what a foreigner is, otherwise they would behave differently, appreciate their country more and work much, much harder...
... Unfortunately, the national airline "Montenegroairlines" has been shut down, so now Montenegrin citizens are roaming around, around, to jump out into the wide world.
And air transport is a showcase in the world and an attribute of statehood.
But if you can't from Podgorica, you can from neighboring Tirana in all directions; wherever you want.
A spacious, transparent, above all functional modern airport building. Perfect order. Albania is an organized country.
An old woman from Gusinje in a wheelchair; they are pushed by a beautiful granddaughter.
- Why did you screw up that old lady!?
- We are going to New York to visit relatives. Grandma likes to sit there...
Fortunately, you can also travel on a thin wallet!
I flew from Tirana airport to Sicily with a return ticket for which I paid twenty euros! (Low cost). The plane was packed, mostly with young people; travel, travel... And let them travel, because, as the great traveler said, Njegos, those who don't travel don't know what life is, what human mixture is...
In Catania, a magnificent, modern airport building.
Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Even during the Second World War, it had a strategic importance, because it closes the Sicilian Channel with the islands of Pantelleria, Linosa and Lampedusa, so maritime traffic through the central part of the Mediterranean Sea could be controlled from there...
I am sitting in the crowded garden of the "Prestipino" restaurant. I am silent; I want to listen to Lim. I remember the first Montenegrin prose writer, Rista Ratkovića. In his visions, "Lim flows along the sea".
Catania, after Palermo, the second largest Sicilian city. From the plane, I look at and photograph Etna, the highest volcano in Europe (3.263 meters). Etna snoozes, smokes a little, rests, is silent, curled up. No one knows when he will roar.
Almost all the streets in Catania were paved, who knows when, with masterfully worked stone; and squares, and sidewalks. I have never seen so many "stone" streets anywhere. Etna can be seen from each. One street all under umbrellas; a humorous installation by a Sicilian artist.
Many palaces, dating back to the last century, with facades studded with lovely floral balconies, surrounded by wonderful lacy metal fences, which were forged with great spirit and skill by top craftsmen.
Italy is everywhere - Italy! Just like Rome, Sicily is rich in ancient cultural monuments.
Catania was founded by the Greeks in the 1444th century BC. A city with a University, opened in 1890, full of museums, architectural monuments, dominated by the Bellini Theater building with XNUMX seats, opened in XNUMX. Architect Savior he located a wonderful building in the square near the church of Santa Maria Nuovaluce. During its many centuries of existence, this opera house has performed all Bellini's works, and in 1951, on the occasion of commemorating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the composer's birth, it is in it Maria Callas superbly sang Norma by the famous Italian composer Bellini...
It's evening. I am sitting in the bar "Pellegrino" in Via Etnea. A crowded corridor, just like it used to be in Ulica slobode in Titograd.
Carefully groomed, young mothers, with prams and babies, happily chat with each other. Older walkers also stop and talk. Catania is not too big; many know each other.
There are also numerous ninety-year-old men and women walking around, in sneakers, vital, lightly dressed. In sunny Sicily, obviously, life is long.
Bookstores, open until late at night, luxuriously lit up, also "corse"; in one, books from floor to ceiling.
In Sicily, cultural workers will be happy to mention it to you Leonard Šaša (1921-1989), a great Italian storyteller, novelist, playwright. Šaša was born in Sicily and spent his whole life there. Naturally, Sicilian themes dominate his works.
Sicilians proudly point out that he is a famous Italian painter Caravaggio (1573-1610) lived in Sicily. A painter of strong contrasts, "bright light and deep shadows..."
Caravaggio, I remember, was a role model for Montenegrin painters Hazbo Nuhanović, a hardworking Pljevljak who enriched Montenegrin art with his unique style...
Down the Via Etnea, unobtrusively, from time to time, a police car quietly passes, then, at a leisurely pace, the carabinieri; a jeep appeared, a "range rover", with several soldiers in camouflage uniforms. Two carabinieri are walking around in their wonderful uniforms, which we still remember from the cult ones Fellini's movies.
Police officers are the foundation of the police profession all over the world.
Not infrequently, two policemen on motorcycles ("moto guzzi") roar, one after the other. Italian "guci" motorcycles were driven by Montenegrin militiamen in the XNUMXs. One was managed by a tall militia officer Jovo Mijač, so when Tito would visit Montenegro, Mijač would go in front of Tito's car driving a "guci".
Whenever I am in Italy, it always seems to me that the ghost of the legendary Montenegrin, Queen of Italy, is hovering nearby. Present. Italians remember her for her kindness and humanity. She wore a dress with large pockets full of money which she gave to the poor.
A beggar walked through the streets of Catania. One sat down in the middle of the main street, Via Etnea, crossed his legs, turned on his cell phone to make it shine, and in his own, special way, tries to attract the attention of passers-by and tourists...
Montenegrin ties with Italy are manifold. Someone often visited her; he stayed in Trieste ten times, then in Rome, and then in Naples (in Neapoli, as he called it) where he treated chest pains and had fun with Neapolitan women who listened to his stories with open mouths...
It's autumn in Sicily, but it's like summer; hordes of tourists are not abating. The season is still on; they visit cultural monuments and restaurants.
In the restaurant "Prestipino" I was served very tasty spaghetti, equal to those in the Bronx...
Above, from Etna, a thin stream of smoke curls.
Bonus video:
