Resting on the Sabbath is part of an effort to live as closely as possible to Jewish law. But despite this community’s traditional ways, they’re not opposed to newfangled things.

“Anything that can be used to enhance Judaism is welcomed,” says Rabbi Chanoch Kesselman. “But like so many things there are uses and abuses.

Rabbi Chanoch Kesselman represents the main Jewish authority in Britain, the rabbinate. Kesselman says the Internet, for example, offers access to valuable religious texts and discussions. But the rabbi says it can also lead to immodesty. He says that in the same way, cell phones can help people do business or help parents keep track of their children. But they also can lead children astray.

“The rabbinate was very concerned that cell phones with texting facility should not be used by youngsters,” says Kesselman.

Texting is not only a waste of time, the authorities found, it encourages “immodest” exchanges which would not happen on the telephone or face to face. So the rabbinate decided to give its official seal of approval to “kosher” cell phones, stripped down devices which can only receive and make calls. It helps the community feel more comfortable about choosing a phone, he says, much like shopping for kosher food.

“Using a phone with a similar seal on is similar to buying any article that is certified as kosher,” Rabbi Kesselman says.

The pace of passersby becomes more hectic as the Sabbath approaches. Menachem Weinstein is smoking a cigarette outside a synagogue. Before rushing off, he tells me that not all Ultra-Orthodox agree on the need for kosher cell phones.

“I think in this day and age they should be more focusing on, not disallowing stuff, but finding out why the teenagers, because that’s why they made the kosher phone, why the teenagers are abusing it. I have to run,” Weinstein says.

Weinstein races away. Shortly afterwards speakers blast out music, telling the neighborhood that the Sabbath is about to start.

At Rose Communications, the company which sells the phones, Maxi Rose says there are only about 20 to 30 thousand haredi families in the UK, not enough to make it practical for a cellular network to offer Kosher phone service.

“So no network would come really and make those changes,” Rose says. “So the changes had to made from the hardware and software in the device, rather than from network level. So the devices are modified. No cameras allowed, no SMS allowed, no Internet allowed.”

Rose says the phones have been a big hit. Not just to protect children, but among adults who prefer the simplicity. He says there’s also been a kind of crossover appeal, most of his online sales are to non-Jewish customers around the world, to places like Saudi Arabia.

Rabbi Kesselmen reports British Muslims telling him that they too are concerned about the decline in moral standards among Muslim youth. Just as halal or Islamic dietary laws are very similar to kosher, the rabbi says Muslims and other non-Jews have no problem following the lead of “kosher” phones.

It has a collection of everything from East German blueprints to Soviet artwork.

The museum’s most spectacular exhibit is probably its portion of the Berlin Wall. It is the biggest chunk of the wall anywhere outside of Berlin.h

So where exactly is this museum where all this Cold War stuff is amassed?

Hint: It is nowhere near Eastern Europe. It is within the heart of “Screenland” not the heart of the old continent.

The Wende Museum is located in Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles, Calif.

For many scholars and historians, the Wende is a treasure trove of unusual objects from East Germany and Eastern Europe, which you won’t find in many other archives.

The World’s Matthew Brunwasser recently visited the museum.

The Wende (“Turning point” in German) Museum offers the rich resources of its Los Angeles-based collection to visitors, scholars and exhibitions. Almost 6,000 miles away from the divisive historical debates in Berlin, the Wende hopes to preserve selected physical remains of the Cold War in order to inform present and future generations about its legacy.

An anonymous business park in sunny southern California is the unlikely home for this Cold War archive. It’s hard to imagine anywhere farther away from the emotional debates about Europe’s painful past, but Museum director Justinian Jampol says that’s exactly the point.

“We wanted to have a archive away from it all, to be able to begin to preserve the materials for future generations,” says Jampol.

Europeans have long been ready to move on, so saving the material culture of the unpleasant era isn’t especially high on anyone’s list. Jampol says the museum sends out scouts across Eastern Europe looking for art and artifacts, including Communist-era statues about to be melted down for scrap.

“That happened up until about a year ago,” Jampol says. “We have a 10 foot bronze sculpture, by Bondarenko, one of the very important Russian artists, that was still being melted down. And we got a call saying that this is available and we bought it for the price of the bronze plus five percent.”

Preserving the history of political, cultural and personal life, the Wende collects materials you won’t find in a typical historical archive.

“Ranging from furniture to blueprints to design material, artwork, menus, erotika, photo albums, journals, diaries,” Jampol says.

The collection also includes pop music, like the Puhdys, one of East Germany’s most popular rock bands.

“This is dissident artwork, this is from perestroika in the 80s, critical of both Lenin and Stalin, when the process started of coming to terms with the past,” says Jampol. “In fact, this is one of my favorite pieces…”

One of the iconic pieces is a bust of Lenin which once stood in Leipzig, the Tahrir Square of East Europe back in the tumultuous days of October 1989.

“It was painted to look like a clown using pink and green florescent paints,” Jampol says. “As the main figure of the ideology, if you could paint him like a clown, what next? Where does the state stand? In fact, one month later to the day, the Berlin wall collapsed.”

The main archive has about 75,000 items in its supermarket-sized facility. Many might find this enormous and neatly organized and cataloged collection of historical bric-a-brac – a warehouse full of old junk.

Scholars find it a precious resource of valuable information about the minutia of daily Cold War life. But outside academia, the Wende has another life, trying to make the Cold War resonate with the public today.

It is a living museum after all. The Wende organizes public events like one celebrating the anniversary of the Berlin wall coming down. The Wende built a replica across Wilshire Boulevard — dividing LA for a night into west and east.

One current exhibition displays original surveillance equipment of the Stasi, or East German secret police. The idea is to provoke debate about contemporary surveillance of American citizens.

While Europeans try to put the Cold War behind them, the Wende is trying its best to give life to the memory and the lessons learned.

The province used to be part of Syria once, but was ceded to Turkey in 1939.

It is an ethically diverse province and even includes a village with a 100 percent ethnic Armenian population.

The capital of the province is the city of Antakya.

Hatay is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

Hatay is home to the only village in Turkey that is populated solely by ethnic Armenians considering that most ethnic Armenians, in what was then the Ottoman empire, fled or were killed or ethnically cleansed in 1915.

Reporter Matthew Brunwasser paid the village a visit.

Bitterness over the 1915 Armenian massacres and ethnic cleansing in Turkey by then Ottoman forces is still unresolved. But Turkey’s last remaining village inhabited solely by ethnic Armenians is a seriously peaceful place. Vafikli Koyu today attracts visitors with its pretty views, excellent climate and tasty organic produce.

It’s a balmy Sunday in Vakifli Koyu, a sleepy village on a lush mountaintop overlooking the Mediterranean. The air smells like orange blossoms and the townsfolk, all 135 of them, never seem to hurry.

It feels like it could be any Sunday from over the centuries, as services start at the St. Astvatzatzin Armenian Apostolic Church. But today there is big news. The village has a new resident priest for the first time in 11 years. And today is his first service.

Father Avedis Tabashyan was born and raised nearby. He is 31 and excited about his new job.

“I think more worshipers will come to church because there will be regular services,” says Tabashyan. “The spiritual life of the people will improve because they have a priest now with whom they can share their problems.”

The village looks and feels more prosperous than its neighbors – largely due to the money sent by family members working abroad. There is also innovation here. The village was one of the first in Turkey to start growing organic oranges in 2004. Tabashyan says most of the young people have left and the remaining villagers have realistic expectations.

“Agriculture doesn’t bring us much money so the population will continue to shrink,” he says. But even if there are only 50 people left in the village, there will still be Armenians here. And whenever there is a holiday those who have left will always remember the village and many will come back.

A historical Ottoman-era building, crumbling and neglected. (Photo: Matthew Brunwasser)

“There’s a little difference, but our traditions are very similar,” Chaparyan says. “We go to each others villages for weddings and religious festivals and there’s no problems at all.”

The village is tranquil. The runoff from village farms flows down steep stone steps, carved into the mountainside along the village’s streets.

It’s also a small village. Taking a short walk, I run into Chaparyan again, sitting on a bench and playing a wooden folk flute.

The song he’s playing is emblematic of the painful relations between Turks and Armenians, sari gelin or “blond bride” in Turkish.

“Sari gelin, sari” says Chaparyan. “It’s a song both Turks and Armenians share. The real meaning in Armenian is ‘mountain bride.’”

A documentary film using the name of the song, produced by Turks, promotes the Turkish nationalist perspective that Armenians were in fact the aggressors in the bloody events of 1915. But the people of Vakifli Koyu can’t be bothered. They’re more concerned about business.

Gohar Kartun is selling jars of locally grown and prepared food products to the crowds of Sunday tourists who like to shop here.

1187 Gohar Kartun selling locally-produced preserved fruit and vegetables, oils, sauces and juices on behalf of the Vakifli Koyu's women's collective. (Photo: Matthew Brunwasser)

“Sometimes, sometimes,” Kartun says. “It depends on the questions they are asking. Not everyone looks through the same window. Some of them say, ‘we are so happy to see Armenians in our Turkey.’ They want to come and see what kind of creatures we are.”

Kartun says that tourism is one economic bright spot for Vakifli Koyu. The main attraction in the Hatay region is the nearby ancient city of Antakya, Antioch in the bible. The province also has one of Turkey’s most multi-cultural populations, including Turks, Arabs, Christians of various denominations, Alevi and Sunni Muslims.

“Hatay is a rainbow and we are one of the colors. And I’m trying to show it to the world, ” Kartun says.

As Turkey matures politically and moves away from the ethnic nationalism of its founders, minorities like Armenians hope that Turks learn to appreciate diversity. Locals want people to think of Vakifli Koyu as nothing more than a place for a relaxing weekend stroll.

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“The basic idea that we have an edge is really dubious,” Sofaer said.

Cyber warfare is the term used when one state tries to take down another state’s internet infrastructure. The stuxnet worm intended to cripple Iran’s uranium enrichment program is a much discussed example. Its hard to say when cyber “incursions” reach the threshold of “war,” Sofaer says, because it can be almost impossible to identify the combatants.

“People can come up with things that we cant even think of,” said Sofaer. “There are very bright Iranian kids, Chinese kids, Russian kids and they are being funded by their governments, I’m not suggesting that they are on their own. They are coming up with ways that threaten.”

More developed countries like the US are more vulnerable to cyber attacks because they’re more exposed. But so far there aren’t any clear international alliances being developed to counter the threat.

“My sense is that its more like the wild west out there,” said Kate Jastram, from the UC Berkeley Law School. “So I think its really critical as we move into cyber operations that we are clear about what boundaries are going to be put around this activity.”

Cyberspace is an open field for military planners as well as lawyers. Lt. Col. Peter Hayden, deputy legal counsel for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that the defense department just told congress that it has officially moved beyond kinetic warfare, involving physical force.

“The department has the capability to conduct offensive operations in cyber space, to defend our nation, allies and interests,” Hayden said. “If directed by the President, the Department of Defense will conduct offensive cyber operations in a manner consistent with the policy principles and legal regimes the department allows for kinetic operations, including the law of armed conflict.”

The main debate now focuses on how to apply the existing body of international law on warfare and protecting civilians to cyber war.

“The important thing is that cyber attacks may have humanitarian consequences, so it is really fundamental that they are regulated by the law which already exists,” said Anne Quintin, from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Quintin says the humanitarian consequences of a cyber attack could include damage to infrastructure like power grids and toxic waste facilities. Many legal scholars wonder whether the word “attack” is even appropriate. Cyber “events” can range from hackers trying to infiltrate commercial or government computers for fun, to terrorists trying to cripple air traffic control systems.

And then there’s the question of how bad the threat actually is. Some, like Abraham Sofaer from the Hoover Institution, contend that the cyber security industry has a strong interest in stoking fears about cyber “war”.

“Because they want to hype the situation, create massive income for themselves, giving advice to companies and the government about how to protect themselves from this terrible war,” Sofaer said. “I’m quite suspicious about the hype. And if you sit down and you make a list of how many real serious attacks we’ve had in the last decade, hey, it wouldn’t exceed 10.”

But don’t tell that to Estonia or Georgia. Both former soviet republics suffered crippling attacks on their internet infrastructures in the last five years. All fingers pointed at Russia. But in cyberwar, there’s no satellite photos of tanks or troop movements. Little can be done to prove whether a state has launched an attack.

Kalaidzhis don’t marry outside the group. And boys and girls aren’t allowed to date without adults around. So this festival for the feast of St. Todor is one of the few chances they have to meet potential mates, and dance the horo, or ring dance.

The scene in the open field outside town is a strange mixture of modern and old fashioned. The Kalaidzhii women wear their hair in braids, long velvet skirts and brightly colored headscarves and lots of gold jewelry. Their daughters dress just like modern Bulgarian women, in tight, flashy clothes and heavy makeup.

There’s beer, grilled meat and lots of socializing. But even if a couple gets to know each other at one of these events and decides they want to marry, the suitor needs permission from the bride’s father. And most importantly, they need to agree on a price. Vasilka Todorova says the tradition keeps the Kalaidzhi backward.

“The Kalaidzhis go to the market to sell their daughters like horses,” says Todorova. “They are treated like animals. The only thing that’s missing are signs which say how much they cost? I don’t like it at all.”

But while money is a big part of the matchmaking, it’s not like husbands are “buying” a bride says Velcho Krustev, a Bulgarian anthropologist. The bride price, known as “blood for the father,” is essentially payment for his personal guarantee that his daughter is really a virgin. Kalaidzhis see this as the only way to know for sure that the babies she’ll have are her husbands.

“The boy buys the honor of the girl and not the bride herself,” Krustev says. “And the husband’s family is buying the right to include the women’s future children in their family line.”

Deals aren’t completed on the spot. Negotiations take months, dragged out over many similar social events. Krustev says the money is not really a “payment” since it’s generally returned through gifts and financial help for the young family. So the high asking “price” is a kind of proof for the bride’s father that his new son in law will be able to provide for his family.

But for young Kalaidzhi bachelors like Petko Kolev, the price is way too high. He’s been looking for a bride for a long time.

“Maybe 10 years,” Kolev says.

Kolev says the global economic crisis has hurt Bulgaria, but hasn’t affected the expectations of Kalaidzhi fathers.

“It’s making more people poor, but they wants the money,” he says. “The price is not going down.”

A normal price is about $7,000 — more than a year’s wage for the average Bulgarian. Young men here say it can go up to $20,000 if the hoped for bride is really beautiful.

“I don’t like this tradition, it’s very bad, this is a crazy tradition,” Kolev says.

Kolev could elope or marry a Bulgarian woman, but breaking with the tradition he hates could mean breaking with his family. So Kolev says he has to go along.

“Because this is a very old tradition and I have to listen my family,” Kolev says. “I don’t want to be angry with my family, they have taken care of me since I was baby. It wouldn’t be good to do this.”

Kolev says he’s constantly thwarted – even though he’s not even looking for the prettiest girl. He just wants a nice one. “I don’t want her to be beautiful you know, just to have a good heart,” he says. “I want her to be beautiful inside, you understand, to have a good soul.”

Krustev the anthropologist says the Kalaidzhii – of all Roma groups – have preserved the tradition the most. But there are some changes underway.

“They have already started picking their own marriage partners,” Krustev says. “Sometimes they even elope. The older generation doesn’t choose the spouses as often as they used to. The children can choose their spouse, if their parents agree. That’s the big change. The bride price is becoming more symbolic.”

Most younger Kalaidzhis more or less agree that this tradition, like others, will disappear soon, along with the older generation. They’re having fewer children, connecting to the wider world through the Internet and cell phones and mixing more with outsiders. But the end of the traditions, the older generation fears, will mean the end of the Kalaidzhis themselves.

People everywhere are moved by the power of Esma Redzepova’s voice.

But now the queen of gypsy music has taken on power of another kind. She was elected to the city council of her hometown Skopje, Macedonia, in 2005. She is currently serving her second four-year term.

“I’m most active on the council in matters concerning physical improvements to the city, for it to be cleaner and more beautiful, “Redzepova said. “I support the construction of public monuments.”

A member of the governing nationalist political party, Redzepova says she is mainly involved in the city’s cultural affairs. She has a long history of working for humanitarian causes, helping orphans, women and Roma war refugees among others.

She has sung more than 2000 charitable concerts. She says working on the city council is an opportunity to serve the public in much the same way.

“I said as a city counselor that we should not have such high salaries and that we should lower them,” she said. “I stood up and said that it is a very beautiful thing that we are able to work for the citizens and make their lives better, for young people and old people, and for pensioners and children. The city has opened playgrounds and many sports centers.”

Her political career hasn’t really affected her music she says. But her music and some 15, 000 performances around the world, she says, have given her a global perspective, which she brings to the council. She also wants to serve her country. Ethnic Roma minorities face severe discrimination in most countries, and Redzepova says Macedonia is one of the few places were they are not forced to assimilate.

“I think everyone should consider Macedonia as a model for how countries deal with their Roma populations,” she said. “When I travel abroad to perform, people say, ‘oh, you are very lucky, you are born in Macedonia where Roma have a lot of rights.’ They are not mistreated. A roma can go anywhere, without any limits. no one will ever say to you ‘hey, you Gypsy, what are you doing here?’ People here live in the most normal way.”

Redzepova’s smile radiates much like her voice. She wears big gold earrings and each finger and toe nail is painted in a different bright color. A star since childhood, Esma, as she is known, was a favorite of the socialist-era dictator Marshal Tito. She represented Yugoslavia at official high-profile state events around the world.

“I have been composing since I was 9 years old when i made “chaje shukarije,” the most famous Romani song in the world,” Redzepova said. “There is no wedding or joyful occasion anywhere in the Balkans where they do not sing it. Many musicians from all over the world want to record cover versions.”

“Chaje Shukarija” means “beautiful girl” in Romani language and tells a story of unrequited love. After more than five decades of singing, she’s still getting rave reviews.

“I haven’t changed my style,” she said. “I’ve used the same ornaments since I was little, and continue to do so now; the only difference is that now my voice is more mature, my voice is more beautiful. Because I’m getting older, I know better what to do with my voice.”

Despite the collapse of her beloved Yugoslavia and the coming of the free market to the Balkan music business, Esma has stuck with her trademark sound. She said she hopes the Balkans becomes better known for the beauty of its music than for the bitterness of its wars.

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The Syrian military defectors in Turkey are kept in a special high security refugee camp near the border. Lt. Col. Hussein Harmoush, one of the highest ranking defectors to date, snuck away from a group of soldiers out shopping and sat in my car. He told me about getting pulled into the chaos in Syria. As the protests became more frequent, he said the military began an ideological campaign to condition soldiers to attack unarmed protestors.

“They told the soldiers that the demonstrators are Salafists, radical Islamists, that they have weapons and that they work with Israel and America against Syria,” Harmoush said.

Harmoush said in many instances special security forces formed a second line behind soldiers, to make sure they shot at protestors. If they dont, he said, they were shot themselves. He claimed 90 percent of soldiers killed in protests had gunshot wounds in their backs. Harmoush said that ideological control over the military has become complete. After fleeing to Turkey, Harmoush decided to lead a group of disaffected officers against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. But since our interview, Harmoush disappeared.

And then he turned up in Damascus, where he mysteriously recanted all his criticisms of the regime on Syrian state television. Activists say he was a bargaining chip in a prisoner swap between Syria and Turkey. Turkish officials deny he was handed over and insist he returned voluntarily. The case highlights the murkiness of events in Syria. I talked to another officer in my car, Lieutenant Mazen Alzayn.

“I left after I saw two parts of the army starting to fight against each other,” Alzayn said. “After what I saw in my city of Jisr al-Shughour, I understood that we were no longer talking about the security of the country but about the security of my family.”

Alzayn says his family was threatened by security forces simply because their city was the site of a huge protest. He says the protest turned into a battle between Assad loyalists and soldiers who refused to shoot civilians. Alzayn explains that many soldiers are simply young draftees and not considered ideologically “dependable” by the regime. The government said the casualties were victims of “unknown groups” of criminals and terrorists. Despite the deepening chaos, he says the military is still supporting the security forces and the Shabiha, a militia loyal to Assad.

“Nothing has changed,” Alzayn said. “The army still has the same role: to pacify an area, to start shooting the big guns until the Shabiha and the security forces come and establish control. The security forces fight from behind the army lines and the army is shooting at the people.”

Other officers were harder to meet in person. I talked to Mohammad Suleyman Ajina, a sergeant in military intelligence, on a cell phone from inside the refugee camp. He told me about the first time he was ordered to shoot at unarmed protestors.

“I was in a demonstration which started in Dara,” Ajina said. “There were orders to fire at will. Some soldiers fired in the air, others shot directly at the demonstrations. After the protest, the soldiers were talking proudly about how many demonstrators they killed on this day and how many on that day. On that day I saw 13 people killed in front of me.”

Ajina handed the phone to a comrade from his unit. Emad Al-Sattouf says every Syrian soldier is clear-headed about what it means if he refuses orders to shoot unarmed demonstrators.

“They will kill him and tell the others that the ‘unknown groups’ killed him,” Al-Sattouf said.

For months, human rights groups and world leaders have been turning up the pressure on the Assad regime to refrain from violence. But it’s still unclear what effect the pressure is having, if any, on developments inside Syria.

The Albanian-dominated government in Pristina has very little presence here. Institutions like the post office, schools and hospitals are funded and managed by Belgrade. But Serbia wants to join the European Union. And the EU only accepts members who have normal relations with their neighbors. Many countries have made it clear they don’t consider Serbia’s presence in Kosovo very neighborly.

“The pressure by the international community and by Pristina has never been stronger than in the past 2-3 months,” says Tatjana Lazarevic, a Serb who works at a community development organization in the divided city of Mitrovica, which marks the beginning of the Serbian-controlled north. Lazarevic says its absurd to even consider cutting off the institutions.

Lazarevic says: “Why would anyone dismantle a system which works for 12 years, on the basis of free will of 100 percent of the Serbian population of the north? I would say if the Serbian institutions are dismantled, 100 percent of the people in the north would flee.”

It’s not that Serbs so strongly oppose Albanians running their post office. Controlling institutions is about political power. The wounds from the 1999 war have not healed. Despite the fear and hatred between the two communities, some two-thirds of Serbs in Kosovo live in the south under rule by Pristina. While distrust is high, ethnic violence is rare. Kosovo’s form of government was created by the Ahtisaari plan, named after the Finnish Nobel laureate who designed it. It gives strong protections for minorities’ rights. Of the 16 Kosovo government ministers in Pristina, three are Serbs.

Like Nenad Rasic. “Our only concern as gov representatives, is not to make tension or radical moves that could make the Serbs panic,” says Rasic.

Many Kosovo Serbs fled after the 1999 war and he’s afraid more might leave: some out of fear and some for economic reasons. Belgrade helps Serbs get by in Kosovo through jobs and subsidies. If they disappear, Rasic says, Serbs may also leave for economic reasons.

“The only way we can help the Serbs in Kosovo is provide them the benefits,” says Rasic.

Ahtisaari is based on the decentralization of powers and offers the north limited autonomy. The plan’s first step would be to hold local elections in the north for communities to choose their leaders. There are already eight Serbian municipalities in the south, which were elected last year. Voter turnout by Serbs was around 47 percent. Peiter Feith heads the executive body implementing Ahtisaari. He says Serbs in the north haven’t yet seen the benefits of participation.

Feith says: “We have not yet, because of local resistance, been able to hold elections in Mitrovica North. There are other provisions which would give far reaching autonomy to the Serb community. For instance, they would be allowed to work with Belgrade and get support from Belgrade in the sectors of health and education and there are other things that can be thought of.”

Serbia’s lead negotiator in Belgrade – Pristina dialogue, Borko Stefanovic says: “That’s a dream scenario of Mr. Feith, but he’s wrong.”

Stefanovic says Serbia will not stop supporting Serbian institutions in Kosovo. And that the international community is deceiving itself.

“First of all, we have no intention to help in creating something called an independent Kosovo,” says Stefanovic. “The other thing is that the Serbs in the north would never accept Pristina-based institutions. And they know it.”

But while the north of Kosovo is mostly Serbian, some five percent of the population is Albanian, like Adem Mripa. He says at some point, Serbia will have to let go.

“I believe that Belgrade should promote reconciliation, and persuade Serbs to live equally with Albanians in Kosovo,” says Mripa. “They must know that this country will be called Kosovo and not Serbia. I think that pressure on Belgrade from the international community is the only way to promote reconciliation in this part of Kosovo.”

Kosovo remains a highly charged political issue for Serbs, an underground reservoir of emotional power which politicians can easily tap into. While polls show Serbian voters think the EU and economic issues are more important than Kosovo, no one expects any dramatic moves before Serbia’s national elections in April.

The European Union requires candidates for membership to have peaceful relations with their neighbors. Twelve years after the Kosovo War, the governments of Kosovo and Serbia are trying to normalize relations.

Serbs’ historic sense of victimhood dates back centuries to the Ottoman era.

A nun bangs on a wooden plank outside the Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery at Gracanica, one of the Serbs’ holiest places. Serbs say the tradition comes from when their Ottoman rulers prevented churches from using bells to signal services.

Slobodan Milosevic rose to power in the 1990’s by promising to protect Serbs from Albanians in Kosovo. His crackdown stoked an Albanian insurgency. The resulting war left some 10,000 dead and more than a million refugees. And it brought on a NATO bombing campaign. Animosities are still sharp. But both sides may have to overcome their fears and heal the wounds. Serbia wants to join the European Union. And the EU only wants members who have peaceful relations with their neighbors.

Just outside the church, Radovan Zdravkovic says Serbs will never feel comfortable with the Albanian dominated government in Pristina.

“All the people in the government now in Pristina are mafia and terrorists,” says Zdravkovic. “They are all Serb-killers. They are the ones who managed to take power. They were the ones expelling and killing Serbs. What can you expect from such people now?

Albanian Kosovars generally see the Serbs’ fears as a result of manipulation from Belgrade. And they hope that pressure from Brussels will stop Serbia from interfering in Kosovo’s affairs.

“It’s very clear that progress of Serbia to the EU is linked with the progress in relations with Kosovo,” says Edita Tahiri, Kosovo’s lead negotiator in Pristina’s dialogue with Belgrade. She says Serbia is preventing Kosovo from becoming a normal country by funding separate Serbian institutions here. Tahiri says Serbia is pro-EU in rhetoric alone.

“In practice they pose obstacles not only to Kosovo but also to the whole region in terms of cooperation and helping the region speed up the Euro-integration process,” says Tahiri.

While Europe is becoming a union without borders to trade or travel, the western Balkans are still plagued by anachronistic conflicts. Eighty two countries, including 22 of 27 EU members, recognize Kosovo as a state. It declared itself independent from Serbia in 2008. But Serbia refuses to accept it. And Kosovo can’t get a seat at the UN because Russia, Serbia’s powerful friend, thwarts it. Kosovo is still partly run by the international community, but is solidifying its institutions with the ultimate goal of EU membership.

The macchiatos at the stylish Strip Depot cafe in Pristina are creamy and masterful, rivaling those found in Rome or Paris. For the young patrons here, European integration can’t come fast enough.

Shkelzen Polisi says that Serbs in Kosovo don’t have to worry about their physical safety. They enjoy more civil rights protections than other minorities in most west European countries. He says they’re unable to admit the real reason for their angst.

“I believe that Serbs in Kosovo got used to being the ones who lead and they just cant accept the new reality,” Polisi says. “I think that’s the only reason. No other reason.”

Kosovars want their institutions to get international respect. And they’re sensitive to slights to their sovereignty. So the Belgrade – Pristina dialogue is a delicate business. So far, talks have achieved agreements on issues such as freedom of movement, property registration and most recently, customs stamps. But parliamentary opposition Leader Albin Kurti says the international community is pressing Kosovo to give too much away in the interest of normalizing relations with Serbia.

“And this is very worrying because our government is very weak and soft,” Kurti says. “This paradigm of stability, short-term stability, is suffocating us because Brussels does not have much ambitions for the region, it just wants to keep it stable, terrified that new conflicts might reoccur.”

Serbia hopes to get an invitation for candidate status to begin negotiations for EU membership at the next European Council meeting, in December. A cable released by Wikileaks reported that German diplomats did not think Serbia would join before 2019.

Today, the city, which was the capital of this empire, has a culinary reputation and roasted lamb sandwich is one local specialty. It comes with grilled hot peppers and tomatoes and a generous pinch of fresh oregano, which makes it nice and spicy.

The Ottoman Empire is the answer to the Geo Quiz and Istanbul is where The World’s Matthew Brunwasser took a walking tour of Turkey’s favorite foods.

It’s 9 a.m. outside the spice bazaar in the Old City of Istanbul. Istanbuleast guide Angelis Nannos is waiting for his tourists Adrian Van Allen and Julie Cheng from Oakland, Calif.

Nannos is a Greek who fell in love with Istanbul six years ago and has lived here off and on ever since. Nannos tells us we’re going to experience Turkish food where it lives, not by sitting in a restaurant. The six-hour tour will include roughly three-hours of walking and three hours of eating.

“Let’s make our breakfast together, like buying stuff,” Nannos said.

The open market has huge bins with dozens of types of olives and cheeses, spicy red pepper pastes, pickles, nuts and meats. One of the most important elements of Istanbul street food is the omnipresent simit. It’s like a sesame bagel, but baked and not boiled.

“It’s something that you grab before you go to your job, or it’s a snack,” Nannos said. “It’s something very Turkish and you buy them most of the time from people with pushcarts around the city.”

Nannos is skilled at retooling the tour for squeamish or adventurous eaters. He points out one special Turkish cheese you probably won’t find in your local supermarket: tulum.

“Tulum, lets see, it gets aged in the skin of a goat,” Nannos said. “It takes this very strong taste, it’s a kind of a Conan the Barbarian kind of a cheese.”

Van Allen says part of the reason she came to Istanbul is her love of Turkish food, which reflects its history as an enormous multi-cultural empire.

“It’s an interesting synthesis of all the different areas around it,” tourist Adrian Van Allen said. “It’s no one thing; it’s actually a combination of lots of different things. It has the Middle East food, along with some of the Mediterranean. In one plate you can have something that looks like lamb ravioli and humus right next to it.

Nannos takes us to find something to eat.

We have breakfast at a simple table in the entryway of an ancient building filled with workshops. Then we stop off for a pide, otherwise known as Turkish pizza, originally from the Caucasus Mountains or the Black Sea region.

Back on the street, Nannos says he wants to show us something. He leads us down an alley and shows us kokorec.

It looks like a long greasy football on a stick, spitting grease on the coals. It’s fat and sweetbreads wrapped up like a mummy, but instead of bandages, it’s wrapped up with lamb intestines.

The kokorec maker cuts off a section, adds tomatoes, peppers and oregano, and chops it up for a sandwich.

When Turkey began negotiations for joining the European Union in 2005, one of Turk’s major fears was that EU food laws might ban kokorec.

“They didn’t make demonstration for the political things, but they went out on the streets for kokorec,” Nannos said. “They made this pop song with so smart dressed people, singing for kokorec if you can believe it. Kokorec its looks like something bizarre, it’s something very Turkish, and before to leave you should try kokorec. I’m not sure if you’d like it or not.”

“It tastes kind of like chopped sausage, but with a bit more of the offal taste,” tourist Julie Cheng said.
“Awful taste??” asked Nannos.
“No, O-F-F-A-L,” Cheng said.

Cheng might be a more adventurous eater than most American tourists in Istanbul.

“There’s a little bit of a bacony taste to it too,” Cheng said. “Do you ever put lemon on this?”

The tour takes us to a candy shop which makes its own hard candies, an old-fashioned soda fountain-type place for boza, a fermented millet drink, and of course, a doner kebab stand. After five hours of walking and eating, we make our first stop in a restaurant.

“We are so lucky that we still in 2011 we can still find in Istanbul all this diversity of food that it comes from the Ottoman times,” Nannos said.

The specialty of the place is boneless smoked lamb, slow roasted on a chain above hot coals. But by the end of the tour, it’s tough for the tour goers to eat any more.

“Most of the time I see half closed eyes and a huge belly, telling me no more, no more and thanks very much, but please don’t feed me any more, I mean, now I just need a bed to take a nap, and that makes us happy,” Nannos said.

Istanbul is an increasingly trendy destination for tourists from around the world. And while it’s cool to be a foodie these days as well, the Turks have been serious about their food since long before today’s foodie trend began.

Turkish pop music video by Mirkelam about the Turkish delicacy Kokorec

In fact it is a lot emptier than usual tonight but not because of the holiday. Shortly before Ramadan, witnesses say, municipal police brutally grabbed tables and chairs off the street while customers were still eating and drinking at them. The controversy is only the latest in Turkey’s perennial conflict between its Islamic faith and its secular government. Akyol says the restaurant owners accuse the city of forcing Islamic morality on the public.

“Some people say ‘well, they weren’t paying the rents and people couldnt walk on the streets, because there were too many chairs and there was a pragmatic reason to do that,’” Akyol says. “Others say ‘Oh, this is an Islamic minded municipality, so they’re trying to minimize the space where you can drink alcohol.’”

Akyol is a writer and columnist from an urban, educated secular background. He considers himself a believer in keeping with Turkey’s moderate Islamic tradition.

“I dont see that much of a Sharia-minded conspiracy,” Akyol says. “I think it’s more pragmatic.” After finding a quiet corner to sit in, Akyol makes the argument for his book “Islam without extemes: a muslim case for liberty.”

“When 9/11 happened, many people in west looked at the Arab world and Muslim world, and said oh, there are hardly any democracies, so Islam might must be producing non-democratic regimes,” Akyol says. “There’s a catch in this argument. Many of the dicators in Islamic world are secular, not Islamic. like the dictators in Tunis, the regime was banning the headscarf on the street, it was very secular-minded.”

A lot of the Muslim extremists developed their tactics because of political oppression from secular dictators, Akyol says. To blame Islam for the Middle East’s political problems is like blaming Christianity for the attack by Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik, who killed innocent civilians to achieve his political goal.

“Of course this doesn’t make Christianity responsible at all,” Akyol says. “But I think it should be seen, he acted in the name of the western identity. He was a terrorist who in his own way was protecting the west from Islam. With Al-Qaeda you have a similiar picture, you have people who think they are protecting the Muslim identity against the west.”

The sad irony of that act in Norway, Akyol says, is that there’s currently a worldwide movement toward Islamic liberalism. And it’s being led by Turkey, since the Islamic AK party won power 8 years ago playing by the rules of the democratic game.

Akyol says: “Turkey emerged as a very successful Muslim nation, succesful in terms of economy, diplomacy, prestige in the world. Also, it emerged as this country in which Islam and democracy really go together.”

Turkey is now an example of a successful country by any standards, he says. It’s a rising regional power with one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
“And that’s why Turkey is becoming more interesting for the average Muslim in Tunis, in Cairo, in Bosnia, everywhere,” Akyol says.

But Turkey is also inspiring for religious reasons, he says. Islamic parties from Egypt and Tunisia are studying the governing AKP to understand how an Islamic party governs a secular state. “And I think in Turkey there’s a silent Islamic reformation going on,” Akyol says. Akyol doesn’t expect a Muslim Martin Luther to post a thesis on the door of a mosque, but rather a growing bottom up demand for Muslim liberalism from society.

Experts aren’t convinced that there is a worldwide Islamic reformation. And if there was, whether it would come from Turkey. Gareth Jenkins is an analyst and author of the book Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? He says it’s unlikely that Turkish religious initiatives would find much traction outside the country.

“Turkey traditionally has not created any great Islamic theologians,” Jenkins says. “I think, the real change in terms of Islamic theology will come from Arab world or from Southern Asia.”

But even without theological influence, Jenkins says that Turkey can enjoy respect across the Muslim world by being both pious and modern. Jenkins says: “If Turkey is to serve a role for the Islam world it won’t be in terms of re-interpreting Islam as a religion. It will be more in terms of how they live Islam in the modern world, and I think that’s quite an important difference.”

Back in Asmalimescit, Akyol says Turkey’s growing middle class will be leading the changes. Ten years after 9/11, a globalized Turkish and world economy may help increase the spread of moderate Islam.

“I think, in a decade from now, we will have an even more modernized Turkish society, and a middle class which is very modern and religious as the same time,” Akyol says. “We are seeing the signs of that now. We are in Ramadan and there are advertisements of mini golf before the fast-breaking on Ramadan nights. So that’s the middle class culture thats coming up in Turkey.”

The Muslim yuppy might well serve God by fasting during the day at Ramadan and then enjoy a jazz performance at night. “So now that person is a person you can convince easier when you make the case for Islamic liberalism,” Akyol says. “I think, this trend will continue as Turkey continues its economic success and its integration with the world in general.”

At the same time, the tensions between Islam and secuarlism in Turkey don’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Among the bar-owners in Asmalimescit, rumor has it the tables will be back in the streets after Ramadan.

The Syrian opposition is trying hard to get its do-it-yourself revolution cooking. It’s breakfast for 8 young revolutionaries living in this house. Most have never lived away from their mothers before. The setup here is pretty basic. Most of the guys sleep on the floor. And they are doing the cooking and cleaning for the first time in their lives.

And they’ve certainly never worked in politics before. Political activity in Syria, for the last 40 years, has meant supporting the ruling Baath party or jail. These men came here just a few weeks ago from the refugee camps inside Turkey, after an opposition supporter agreed to pay the rent.
Nazir Al-Abdo is one of the leaders. He was studying sports at the university in Latakia before he fled. Al-Abdo and the others don’t have documents so their movements are limited.

“We don’t go outside at all so that nobody sees us,” Al-Abdo says. “We always hiding. We don’t have the right be here. We don’t have passports. Al-Abdo didnt have much time to think before he fled. He was involved in protests and still went to classes like a normal student. But then ten minutes before his exam, his phone rang.

“My brother called me and said don’t enter, the security forces will come to your university and take you,” Al-Abdo says. “I said ‘it’s not possible. I will just go to the exam.’ He said, ‘they will come and take you.’ I didnt go to the exam.

The television in the living room shows grainy cell phone images of corpses and chaos in Syria. Its the opposition Syrian Al Shaab satellite channel.

Nazir Al-Abdo (center) and Jamil Saeb (right) meet with fellow activist (Photo: Matthew Brunwasser)

“You see a lot of people running from the shooting,” Al-Abdo says. “You see another guy get shot in his leg. You see the blood, there’s a lot of blood. And they didn’t have an ambulance. You can hear the shooting, tick tick tick. This guy is dying now because no one takes him to the hospital. you see the blood.”

The men in this house may not go out but they do get visitors. Young men show up with more videos, smuggled out on flash drives. One of them is a 20 year old who wants to be called Ahmed. He snuck out of his refugee camp. Ahmed says that if he’s caught outside the camp, Turkish authorities could send him back to Syria.

“Of course its dangerous,’ Ahmed says. “But I will do it for my homeland Syria, because I have to help. The world needs to hear our stories.” The oldest revolutionary here, at 35, is Jamil Saeb.

“When the protest started in Syria we had to create a new strategy,” says Saeb. “We had no organization. People just came out and said whatever they felt like saying. Now we are on the next level.”

One of the activists in the apartment (Photo: Matthew Brunwasser)

Saeb says: “It’s a serious problem because we don’t have money. And these opposition groups who just met in Antalya, in Turkey, they spent a lot of money for a 5 star hotel, for talking and meetings and accomplishing nothing. We should be using this money for technology, logistics, translations, and communications.”

Al-Abdo is watching another video of protests in Syria. “You see they shot just on innocent people,” Al-Abdo says. “You see how they run, they will die for freedom.” Nazir Al-Abdo is frustrated.

No foreign reporters are allowed in Syria, so independent verifications of activists’ accounts are not possible. And he’s tired of having to prove that the Syrian government is brutalizing its people. But clearly the message is getting out. The United Nations has condemned the Assad regime in Syria. But Al-Abdo and others wonder why America and Europe aren’t doing more.

These Syrian refugees are desperate for their voices to be heard. But Turkey doesn’t want you to hear them. This protest after Friday prayers could only be recorded from outside the fence. Journalists are not allowed inside the camp, except during the occassional specially organized media event. The refugees’ chants demand the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The camp perimeter is patroled by Turkish police so I’m not able to speak to anyone through the fence. But one refugee snuck out of the camp to tell me his story – at the risk of being sent back to Syria if caught. He doesn’t want to use his name.

He speaks for an hour about the protests and increasing violence and chaos in his hometown Jisr al-Shughour. During a protest, he said, unarmed demonstrators were shot and killed by the Shabiha, a militia loyal to Assad. Thousands of demonstrators gathered for the funeral, angry at the deaths of their comrades.

“We all went to the graveyard to bury them,” the refugee said. “And when we were coming back, the Shabiha and military police started shooting at us with automatic rifles. The regular military didn’t want to shoot at us, so the soldiers started to fight against the Shabiha and the military police. Many civilians were killed in the battle.”

The Syrian government claims that 120 soldiers were killed by “armed gangs” in what it calls the “heinous massacre” at Jisr al-Shughour. This nameless refugee says the Turkish government doesnt want the world to know the truth about the slaughter of peaceful protestors in Syria. It’s not only journalists being denied access. Refugee and human rights organizations are having an equally hard time.

“The restrictions are quite unusually severe, they really are trying to keep whoever they can out of these camps,” says Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch.

Bouckaert says that under international law, which Turkey recognizes, refugees should be allowed to live wherever they want. “In my opinion, the Turkish authorities are afraid that if they allow the Syrian refugees to freely tell their stories, and be outside the camps, then information about atrocities committed inside Syria will be generated from Turkish soil, and they would have a serious problem with their neighbor.”

Relations across the 500-mile Syrian-Turkish border are tense already. In the past few weeks, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used strong words against the Syrian President. As recently as May – after protests had already started – the prime minister referred to Assad as “a good friend.”
Turkey is still trying to decide whether to back the Syrian regime or the Syrian nation, according to Syrian opposition activist Omar Al Muqdad.

“The Turkish government has a strong relations with the Syrian regime before and now they are trying to make a balance between the Syrian regime and the Syrian nation. So they are trying to stand in the middle of this mess,” says Al Muqdad.

At the Turkish Foreign Ministry, spokesman Selcuk Unal denies that Turkey is playing politics in the refugee camps. Turkey is concerned about the refugees’ safety, he says, many of whom don’t want to talk to the media because of well-founded fears of reprisals in Syria. “The security and the order of the camps and all the adjacent areas is also an important issue for us,” says Unal.

Unal says there is no reason to think Turkey wants to silence bad news coming from Syria. And he says the Prime Minister’s strong words against Assad are evidence of that. But despite what Unal says, it seems that at the Reyhanli camp residents are eager to talk. I give a small recorder to a refugee to smuggle inside and gather stories.

Yusuf Esmail, from Khirbet al-Joz says he was just talking with some relatives back home, and they said they found two corpses with their tongues cut out, so badly-beaten they couldn’t be identified.

Reyhanli recently held elections for camp-wide committees. Mahmud Moussa, an earnest schoolmaster from Jasr Al Shagur was elected to the Media council and finagled special permission to talk to a reporter. While camp personnel treat the Syrians with compassion, he says, its the Turkish government’s policy he finds confusing. He’s suprised by the tsimilarities between Syria and the “democracy” of Turkey.

“In Syria you can’t come in as a journalist and speak with the people and ask them what happend with you,” says Moussa. “And also in Turkey, in the camps, you cant come in and ask us: ‘what is happening with you?’ So now we are the same. So we are asking the Turkish government: ‘why you are like Bashar Assad?’”

Turkey still calls the Syrians in the camps “guests” and not “refugees.” And with protests in Syria expected to pick up now during the holy month of Ramadan, the fine line Turkey maintains between the two sides will get more precarious. The crackdown by the Assad government shows no sign of easing.

The refugees’ stories make Syria sound like a house of horrors. And in Guvecci, Turkey – poor, scrappy and peaceful – there’s plenty of time for chatting. Syrians who’ve fled visit with friends and relatives over cups of strong, sugary Turkish coffee. Most people in this region are ethnically Arab.

Hamed Abdullah came from the village Khirbet al-Joz in Syria about two months ago. You can see it from Guvecci, only about a mile away. He fled with his family on foot and came to stay with relatives.

“Yesterday I called my house and a soldier answered the telephone,” Abdullah said. “I said ‘what are you doing there? There is nobody left in the village anymore. What are you still doing there?’ The soldier said to me, ‘this village isn’t yours anymore, it’s ours. If you come back, we’ll kill you. Stay in Turkey and let your Prime Minister Erdogan keep you safe.’ That’s what he told me.

(Photos by Matthew Brunwasser, Jodi Hilton & Alexander Christie-Miller)

All he can do is wait, Abdullah said. With no documents or legal permission to be in Turkey, he can’t work. He’s even afraid to leave the house since the Turkish authorities could send him back. But still, it’s better than Syria.

“If they didn’t close this border, refugees would come here from all over Syria,” said Abdullah. “It’s not that the military wants our villages, they want to keep the border sealed. Even soldiers and officers are deserting the army and trying to come to turkey because they too are afraid for their lives.”

Some 50 families from Syria are staying with relatives in Guvecci. Mohammad, who only wanted to use his first name, lived for two months in a makeshift tent camp on the border before coming to stay with his uncle.

“There are a lot of people sleeping along the border while Syrian soldiers occupy the nearby villages,” Mohammad said. “Sometimes people go secretly through the woods to get to their houses back in Syria. We are like thieves going to our own houses to get some things. And then we return to our tents.”

Accounts by locals of Syrian troop movements along the borders are backed up by international observers. Peter Bouckaert, from Human Rights Watch, says that Syria wants to prevent stories of atrocities committed by government forces from leaking into the outside world.

“They very clearly wanted to stop any outflow of people into Turkey, and they’ve done the same on the border with Lebanon,” Bouckaert said. “The border guards check to see where people come from, if their IDs are from places where protests and crackdowns are occurring, they are not allowed to cross.”

Families and trade here have long zig-zagged across the border without much thought about either state. Ali Tekbas is an ethnic Arab citizen of Turkey. Tekbas says he’s made around 20 trips across the border recently with journalists’ cameras to document life in the border camps, and the civilian victims of Syrian snipers.

He says for months Guvecci residents have heard sporadic gunfire coming from the Syrian hills. Tekbas says late one night last week there was shooting at escaping Syrian soldiers.

“On that day we were coming back from another town, and when we arrived in the village, everyone was out on the street wondering what was going on after they were woken up by gunfire,” Tekbas said.

He knows they were Syrian military defectors because he saw them picked up by Turkish military vehicles.

“Five or six cars came to our village from Yayladag,” he said. “When they left, we saw that they were wearing Syrian military uniforms.”

Refugees are still camping wild in the mountains in the Syrian borderlands, close enough to Turkish soldiers to protect them from Syrian fire. As their military tries to close off the soft spots along the border, Syrians continue to seek them out.

Like the Egyptian pyramids, this landmark was built to honor a leader. He was a communist dictator who who headed an oppressive regime. The leader’s been dead for 18 years and the pyramid is in ruins. There are plans to tear down the landmark and build a government building in its place.

Still don’t know where we are? Here are more clues:

The mystery city is the capital of Eastern Europe’s last communist government. And the country was known as the hermit of the Eastern Bloc, hostile to both NATO and the Warsaw pact. It turned its back on China after President Nixon’s breakthrough visit to Beijing in 1972 – because China was turning bourgeoise.

What’s the name of this European capital city with one prominent pyramid?

The answer is Tirana, Albania and the landmark was built as a museum for the late Enver Hoxha. The Albanian leader kept Stalinism alive in Europe for decades after the Soviet dictator died in 1953. The pyramid is still standing but it’s starting to crumble.

In fact, during bloody anti-government demonstrations in Tirana back in February protestors broke off pieces of the pyramid to throw at other government buildings.

Albanians have been trying to figure out what to do with the pyramid for years. Just last month, the parliament passed a law to tear it down. Even so, opponents of the demolition are gathering petitions to save the building. And the current president is deciding whether to sign the bill or side with the protesters.

From Tirana, Matthew Brunwasser gives us a tour of the controversial pyramid.