A few days ago I had the chance to meet a Serbian photo reporter, Milos, who has been living in Athens for about 10 years, is married with a child, has a working permit and works for a foreign news agency in Athens.
He told us a story which I believe I should share and he wouldn’t mind me doing so.
Sometime ago he was assigned to go to Istanbul to photograph the final game of the Champions League. He stayed somewhere near Beyoglu (Peran) with a friend of his; he also had another friend, Mustafa who had a store near by. So he was very pleased to be working in Istanbul for a few days and spend sometime with his Turkish friends. One day, as he was walking down the street, a Turkish guy accidentally (!) tripped him from behind and an other guy supposedly helped him out not to fall, from the front. Milos thanked the guy for his philanthropic assistance and went home, only to realize later on that they had stolen his purse with his passport in it. In a few days his job in Istanbul would be over so he had to come back to Athens where his home is with his wife and child. First, he decided to go to the Serbian Embassy since he is a Serbian and his passport is from Serbia. A soldier in front of the Embassy stopped him and didn’t let him in because he spoke only Turkish and didn’t understand or even try to understand what Milos was doing there or why he needed to go to the Embassy. We have to mention here that Milos is also a quite suspicious looking guy. He is sweet as he is, his look in our days of extreme fear doesn’t help him much.
As he always does in the strike of crises he called his wife who is also a journalist in Athens, half Polish, half Greek and says “Louisa…problem”, hoping that she will find a way to help. And she did, she called the Greek Embassy in Istanbul, Ministry of Press in Athens…and finally managed to send somebody from the Greek Embassy to help him out. He found out from the Serbian Embassy that since he lived in Greece in order to travel from Turkey to Greece his papers had to be arranged from the Greek Embassy since his passport was stolen and hasn’t got a visa to come back to Greece. Going back to Serbia would have been easier of course. So, the Greek Embassy issued him a paper with a visa to go back to Greece. The next day he went to the airport to return to Greece. They stopped him at the first security check. The Turkish policeman looked at the paper first and then looked at him suspiciously, looked at the paper again and at him again and said “this visa was issued on Saturday, how come? Saturday the consulate is closed.” In the mean time all these conversations were taking place in Turkish, Serbian, very little English and mostly body language. While Milos tried to explain to him what he had been through, a well dressed guy, possibly some kind of government or airport official, heard this conversion and looked at the visa and said to the policeman “he has the visa, let him go, he is Greece’s problem now”.
However there were no more planes that day so Milos had to come back the next day at 10am to fly. He went back home to his friends and got ready to leave the next day. But he decided to go the airport early enough so that the shift wouldn’t change and he didn’t have to explain himself all over again to a new official. He got to the airport at 5am the next morning. His guy was there checking him out to understand why he came so early. He invited him to his office, offered him tea and they talked about football in several different languages. Phone rang and the guy picked it up and made to Milos some kind of hand gesture which made Milos think that maybe he needed privacy to talk on the phone although he didn’t understand a word he was saying. As very polite as Milos is, he left the room and went to another room which was right down from the hole. He went in and sat down, the chairs were of the kind that are attached to each other and don’t move around. Within a second another policeman showed up, handcuffed him and tried to get him out of the airport, probably to take him to jail. Milos shocked, didn’t understand what was going on, (“Louisa…problem”). Fortunately the other policeman hung up the phone and ran after Milos to save him. Apparently Milos went to a room where they keep the criminals or accused with crime to be taken to the police station.
Finally Milos arrived to Greece safe and sound. They tell him it is not a good idea for him to travel. I hope he will never be assigned to go to America. I can imagine him calling, “Louisa…problem” from Guantanamo Bay.
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