The peoples of eastern Europe have little left except their character set. Their industry dilapidated, their politics venal and acrimonious, their standard of living dismal, their society disintegrating, and their national identities often fragile - they cling fiercely to their "historical" myths and calligraphic lettering, the last vestiges of long-gone grandeur.

"The Balkans" - I say - "is the unconscious of the world."

It is impossible to really understand an Easterner. The syntax fast deteriorates into ever more labyrinthine structures.

Am I a racist? If this is taken to mean "do I believe in the inherent inferiority or malevolence or impurity of any group of people (however arbitrarily defined or capriciously delimited) just because of their common origin or habitation" - then of course I am not.

The Austrian Embassy again held a Vienese Ball at the Alexander Palace Hotel in Skopje, Macedonia