4The \'Pearl\' loses its lustre

Tag : burnt-out print

The hordes of tourists that have descended on Dubrovnik arethreatening to destroy the very reason it was declared a WorldHeritage Site, writes Frank McDonald
THE FORTIFIED WALLS of Dubrovnik are very exposed in the searingmidday sun, real "mad dogs and Englishmen" territory. But hundredsof tourists pay 50 Croatian kuna (€7) to do this 2km circuit,gazing across the red-tiled roofs, spires and domes of the old cityand the blue Adriatic that surrounds it on three sides.
In the past, nobody who wasn't welcome in Dubrovnik would have hada dog's chance of getting into the place. The mighty walls withtheir bastions, barbicans, donjons and towers - even higher on thelandward than the seaward side - plus the dry moat and drawbridgeskept out nearly all but Napoleon.
But the gates of the city are now wide open to hordes of touristsfrom far and wide. Many of the passengers on my Air Croatia planefrom Rome to Dubrovnik and Zagreb were Chinese, and almost no-oneon board wanted transit cards to the Croatian capital; they hadcome to see the "Pearl of the Adriatic".
Dubrovnik was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1979because of its importance in the history of town planning. Datingfrom the late 13th century, it is one of the earliest post-Romanexamples of an urban settlement designed on a grid, with stonebuildings laid out on streets and squares.
Called Ragusa, it was an important trading centre for the VenetianRepublic until 1358. It was then a city-state in its own rightunder the crown of St Stephen (Hungary and Croatia) until 1526,part of the Ottoman empire until 1684 and once again under the wingof Hungary until it was captured by Napoleon in 1806.
It became part of his Illyrian provinces until 1814, then theAustrian Empire until 1918, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia until 1945and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until Croatiaseceded in 1991; notoriously, the Yugoslav army responded byshelling the city from the mountains that form its backdrop.
There are big enamelled plaques at the gates showing a map of theold city and the damage "caused by the aggression on Dubrovnik bythe Yugoslav army, the Serbs and Montenegrins in 1991-1992". Dotsall over indicate roofs and pavements damaged by direct hits or byshrapnel as well as burnt-out buildings.
What worried the London Times newsdesk was not so much the numberof people being killed (43 in two months), but the fate of theTitians in the cathedral, as Misha Glenny recalled in The Fall ofYugoslavia. And just like the much more devastating siege ofSarajevo that went on for three years, Europe did nothing.
NOW, IT IS A tourist trap. At least 700 cruise ships are expectedto drop anchor this year in the port of Dubrovnik, under the hugecable-stayed bridge named after Franjo Tudjman, first president ofthe new Hrvatska Republika (Croatian Republic), who was as culpableas Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the break-up of Yugoslavia.
It has become the third most visited city in the Mediterranean forcruise ships, after Barcelona and Venice. Barcelona is a city ofthree million people and it can easily absorb this kind of trade.But Venice's population has fallen to about 60,000, with some300,000 commuting into the city daily to serve the touristindustry.
Just like Venice, though on a much smaller scale, the old city ofDubrovnik is no longer real, but surreal. Only 1,500 people livewithin its walls and there are just three shops where you can buybread, milk and other staples; all the rest sell tourist trinkets,T-shirts, Croatian flags, dolls, handcrafts, postcards, art and icecream.
"Every year, there are fewer and fewer inhabitants," says one ofthe relatively few Serbs who still live in Dubrovnik. "Withresidential space making €4,000 to €5,000 per squaremetre, many people sold out and made lots of money. The apartmentsthey lived in are now owned by foreigners and occupied for a coupleof months a year."
Tour buses crowd around the Pile gate, with its inset statue ofDubrovnik's patron, St Blaise. I overheard a young American tourist(yes, they're still around) remark to his companion, "Oh, adrawbridge - so cool!". No wonder the white limestone paving slabsare so shiny; they're polished every day by the tourist "footfall".
Narrow side streets that offer shade from the hot sun are takenover by pizzerias colonising the pavement with tables under bigsquare umbrellas. There's even an Irish bar called The Gaffe. Butthe old city has only one top-class hotel, the Pucic Palace,resplendent in a former nobleman's house; all the rest are outsidethe walls.
During the day, there are signs of indigenous life in the washinglines strung Naples-style across narrow, steep side streets. Butwhen you walk around at night, after the tourists have thinned out,few windows are lit on the upper floors of buildings on the mainstreets. The town has been turned into a tourism "brand".
One of the best tourism ideas in the region is to form a "goldentriangle" of World Heritage Sites involving Dubrovnik, Mostar inBosnia - famous for its Ottoman bridge, destroyed in 1993 by aBosnian Croat tank shell and reinstated in 2004 - and the unspoiledTara valley in northern Montenegro, which is popular forriver-rafting.
Montenegro is quite unusual in that its constitution defines thissmall, recently-independent country with a population of 630,000 asan "ecological state". How this is going to be translated intoreality is an open question, especially in the midst of anIrish-style building boom - now one of the principal drivers ofeconomic growth.
Some €7 billion to €10 billion is being invested inroads, housing, offices and hotels. Seaside resorts such as Budvaand Becici have experienced phenomenal growth in recent years,although the explosion in hotel construction in thisearthquake-prone zone is only making them look more like anywherein Turkey or the Spanish costas.
"They're building too much," one observer complains. "Montenegro'sslogan is 'Wild Beauty', and there's a tremendously successfulmarketing campaign for it on BBC World and CNN, but I reckon in 20years won't be a centimetre of the Adriatic coast left, with allthe developers coming here like grasshoppers."
MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL is Kotor, right at deepest point of the onlyfjord on the entire Mediterranean. Lord Byron was lyrical about it,describing Kotor as "the most beautiful encounter between the landand the sea", one of the pearls of Montenegro. It has fortifiedwalls beneath the high mountains and is more real than Dubrovnik.
Foreign minister Milan Rocen tells The Irish Times that Montenegrois "proud of its God-given beauty". He claims the Tara river isstill the cleanest in Europe, surrounded as it is by "completelyuntouched nature" in a setting that's second only to Grand Canyonin Arizona. And the government is determined to keep it that way.
"We're conscious of our obligations to keep the environmentunpolluted, and we're in the process of setting up an environmentalprotection agency," Mr Rocen says. "We've just introduced an'eco-tax' on all vehicles entering the country, from €10 forcars up to €150 for big trucks, and all of this revenue willgo into an eco-fund." He points out that Montenegro is classifiedamong the top 20 "most promising investment destinations in world",and it also has one of the fastest growing tourism economies, withmore than one million visitors last year. However, he says itsTourism and Travel Council is aiming for "higher quality tourism",rather than merely quantity.
The Croatians also aim to make Dubrovnik an "elite destination",rather than a mass tourism one. They're seeking to attract high-quality hotels such as Hyatt to follow Hilton's example ofrenovating the grand Imperial Hotel just outside the walls.However, most of the tourists in the old city are clearlyday-trippers spending little.
What then, is the difference between Dubrovnik and Disneyland? Notmuch is the answer. The old city might just as well be a stage-setfor tourists, particularly those who descend on it like locustsfrom the cruise ships to soak up its architecture and what's leftof its culture, before sailing out for the next "hot spot"destination.
As for Venice, Ragusa's patron for more than 150 years, if itspopulation decline continues at the present rate, the city thatonce ruled a great trading empire could be denuded of inhabitantsby 2050.
This grim forecast raises the fundamental question: Is a UnescoWorld Heritage site designation the kiss of death for a city?
© 2008 The Irish Times
This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times