In March 2004, the Kosovo Albanians set on fire, damaged and/or destroyed a few dozen churches and monasteries belonging to the Serbian Orthodox Church. After that, UNESCO prepared a report on the state of those places of worship. Somehow I came across parts of that report and was surprised when I read about the high opinion about the cultural heritage belonging to my nation expressed there by some foreign experts. Admittedly, I remember that even earlier a work colleague of mine, a Belgian with a degree in archaeology, spoke with admiration about the Serbian medieval monasteries and reproached us saying that we had no appreciation for what we have and that any half-decent book on Byzantine arts had a mandatory chapter dedicated solely to the Serbian medieval religious edifices.
Then, over time, I found out how in fact a cultural or a natural heritage site gets onto the UNESCO’s List. Namely, the people who are the top experts for cultural heritage of a given country select from what they have on their own or rather country’s lists and what is considered to be the best of the best, prepare the documents to this effect and submit them to UNESCO. The documents then go to some commissions, committees or whatever, and when the international experts agree with what is in the documentation, then it is included in the List.
By the way, in 2004 Monastery Decani from the Kosovo and Metohija province was alone as an entry in the UNESCO’s World Heritage List under Serbia, but since 2006 it has been joined with the Patriarchate of Pec Monastery, Gracanica Monastery and the Church of the Holy Virgin of Ljevisa (which was one of those seriously damaged in 2004) under the joint name of the Medieval Monuments in Kosovo. They were all also inscribed in 2006 on the UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger where they remain to this very day.
So, what has all of this to do with my travelling? Well, when reading these reports I started to get an impression that all my life I had travelled in a completely wrong way. I did visit different archaeological sites and museums, but it was as if I had not seen them well or I had not been fully aware of what I was looking at. And from that moment on, the structure of my journeys has changed.
Gamzigrad-Romuliana, Serbia
As a result, when I decide which country I would like to visit, I first get a guidebook. Then I go to the UNESCO’s World Heritage List and find everything that is listed under that country on the map. Since I usually already know the airport I will land at, I then try to work out the optimal route that would allow me to visit as many of these sites as possible. Of course, I look left and right while travelling. Not everything that is beautiful in a country is on that list. But, as far as cultural and natural heritage is concerned, the List generally includes what is the most important. Nonetheless, the List is not exhaustive and one should consult other sources as well when deciding what to visit and see. On the other hand, had I not used the List, I think I would have missed out on many fine sites.
In addition, it is important to bear in mind that this is not a ranking list and it is wrong to compare different sites in different countries. What would not be particularly interesting in one country, may constitute the top cultural heritage in another. And everything should be observed in that light. Let me paraphrase what a friend of mine says about monasteries – they do not include only the churches and the buildings, they do not include only the monks or nuns living there, they incorporate the nature around the monasteries, as well as the community coming to these churches to pray and for which the churches have been built. All of this together constitutes a cultural heritage site. And this is the way each one of them should be seen – not only as a construction and as a part of the natural landscape in which it is situated, but also as a part of the nation and the culture of the nation it belongs to.
Monastery Sopocani, Serbia