I can never… I can’t even forgive myself, not to mention anyone else… It’s my fault, I’m thinking, why should that happen in my own homeland?
KATERINA STOILEVSKA: Good afternoon.
BLAGOJCE PETRUSEVSKI: Good afternoon.
KS: Can you tell us who you are?
BP: Yes. My name is Petrusevski Blagojce and I’m from the village Arachinovo, born here. My family’s been living here ever since my great-grandfather and we had a good life here in Arachinovo.
KS: How long did you live here?
BP: We lived in Arachinovo from… I was born in 1959, and up until 2001, when it all began, we lived well in Arachinovo.
KS: So, there was coexistence with the Albanians?
BP: Yes, good coexistence, we spent our childhood days with… In school, we played together, we played football and other games.
KS: What was the structure of the village, which ethnic group was prevalent?
BP: Well, in the beginning we were… In ’63, we were almost even, so, I might even say there were more Macedonians, there were some Roma as well, around 20 households of Roma people, and so we kind of outnumbered them. Kind of, not too much, but we did.
KS: Aha. When did that structure change?
BP: Well, now it’s all changed, the sudden immigration – Albanians began immigrating here in ’67 – ’68, that’s when their number suddenly grew, so it’s back then that Albanian ethnicity started growing.
KS: Mhm. Were there any problems back then?
BP: No, back then no. Back then… we were getting along with them, we had nice coexistence.
KS: Right. When did the first issues arise, according to you?
BP: Well, according to me, the first issues arose around ’83, I think, something like that (uncertain), some people, part of the Macedonian nation started complaining that they had received some emigration letters, and so it was.
KS: Mhm. Your children, did they have any problems?
BP: Well yes, they did. On the bus, when going to school, we, some of us Macedonians, we had to escort the kids. So, going to school, waiting for the kids, for us parents, it was a bit stressful and…
KS: How did you feel about that?
BP: Well, stressed, naturally, you know how it is, as a parent one must watch over one’s children…
KS: Did you anticipate 2001?
BP: Did we anticipate it? We didn’t, we didn’t have many reasons to expect that it would… come, right here in Arachinovo. It never crossed our minds up until 2001, but when it started happening around Tetovo, around Kumanovo, it began… How should I put it, it’s like we could feel it, that crisis will come to Arachinovo. But, personally, I couldn’t believe that it would come all the way here, because we were close to the city of Skopje, barely 7-8 kilometers away, so I didn’t think it would happen. But, there, it happened.
KS: Did anyone warn you, the media or the Mayor or any institution, that you might not be safe, before 2001?
BP: There was no such thing. At least… for me, if you mean if I was informed by the media or so, that it would happen in Arachinovo, there was no such thing, there wasn’t. Nothing on the media, and in the police stations, from what I could hear about the movements – “no, no, there will be no trouble, it won’t happen in Arachinovo”, and so on…
KS: How did you leave your home? When?
BP: Well, I left, how should I put it, when the crisis began, which day it was… I forgot (tries to remember) I can’t think which date it was exactly… When I left, all the popula… all the population had already left, and I… It was Saturday, I left Arachinovo on Saturday. So, on Friday night I moved my family, then I went back alone, fell asleep. I slept really well then (laughs) and the next morning when I woke up I heard (coughs) some car engines making noise, some movements outside.
KS: Why did you decide to leave your home and take your family away from the house?
BP: Well, I decided to leave because I could feel it in the air, the terrorists came, now, whether they were from among the people here, and we didn’t recognize them or… They were masked, so we couldn’t know who they were, I saw they came with a Jeep… in front of the house with mortars and…
KS: Did you make contact? Did you speak to those people, or just…?
BP: No, no, no, no. We never made any contact, if we did, we would have… I would have realized that I should really leave Arachinovo.
KS: So you didn’t think it was that serious?
BP: I didn’t, yet I… I removed my family and I still didn’t believe it would happen.
KS: Mhm. Did you take anything with you?
BP: We took nothing, nothing. When they came… how should I say it, I had some, some garden stuff here in the yard, so I was working, I had a pump, I was irrigating all the time. So I finished, and around 12, my sister-in-law came and woke me up and said: „Blagojce“, she said, „terrorists came“, she said, „you should know“, she said, „it happened over there, people are being checked, they’re telling them to run…“ (speaks with tears) And what was left for me to do – my sister-in-law, my cousin’s wife, just gave me the car keys, she had a Zastava truck. I started it and we left. I took nothing with me. I left with bare hands.
KS: Mhm. How did you feel when you left the village? Were you tensed, excited?
BP: Sure we were, all the… It’s natural that we were under stress. When we passed by, with the Zastava down there, on the main street from the left side, many were gathering… uniformed, terrorists. And I say to myself, what do I do now? I don’t know, what is going to happen to me?
KS: So you panicked, you were scared?
BP: I panicked, yes, and fortunately no one said anything to me and so we managed to leave.
KS: Where did you stay?
BP: We came here in Ekonomia. My wife’s father has a house here, so we came here, this is where we settled.
KS: Your family, the rest of it, they were with you?
BP: They were with me, yes. Two or three days later when it all passed, we heard about the bombing and all that, so I took my family away from here to Lisice, at my sister’s, in Gorno Lisice, to stay there. Because it was sort of different there. More populated, a bit aside. We couldn’t stay patient here, because patience is not for… We couldn’t be patient because we were scared. So I thought, why should I put my family in danger, it’s better to stay further, it’s safer, I thought, and so I took them to Gorno Lisice.
KS: How long did you stay with your sister?
BP: Well, 7 days, that’s how long we stayed, and in the mean time I was running around to – I heard they had anounced that they would settle people in dormitories. We didn’t want to bother my… It’s a small house, my sister’s, and if we all stayed there, it would have been uncomfortable. It would be more comfortable in the dormitories, we thought, and after around 7 days it really happened, we moved there. We went to „Ranka Milanović“ (a corrective facility for minor delinquents), we took a room there and as, as the day went by, I came back, took my family and brought them to „Ranka Milanović“, we took a room.
KS: Was it all the same to you that you had to settle there…?
BP: How could, how can it be all the same?! It cannot be, you can’t be indiferent… Many other families moved in after us, and in the beggining we were thinking – OK, in the beggining, naturally, we thought „This is how it has to be“ and „It won’t be for long“, you know, but it turned out it took a long time… And it can’t be all the same to you, sharing the same bathroom, waiting in line in the restaurant, eating, then another line for, something sort of, I don’t know… You never served in the military, I did, there too you wait in a long line, one by one, to take your food, you know how it is. And we were a well situated family till then, not too well but still, well situated people back in Arachinovo we were, and we were used to… we were free to choose what to have for lunch, breakfast, dinner, we had 3 meals each day.
KS: Mhm. So it was a turmoil that you didn’t expect?
BP: Exactly. It was a big turmoil, and we couldn’t – we even started to, with the population here, to… not to be able to tolerate each other… not to… There was hostility between us and the others.
KS: During the conflict in Arachinovo, were you getting any information about the situation with your home? Did you take intere…?
BP: No. We didn’t receive any information from anyone in particular, because they were bombing. I was moving around a lot, I would come to Ilinden, there at the overpass, and we would use binoculars to try see – we couldn’t see anything, until they let us get inside, to see our houses, we didn’t have any information till then.
KS: How long was it before you went to see the house for the first time after you moved out?
BP: Well, the first time we went there, it was after 15 days, when it had already… I don’t know, maybe it took longer, I can’t remember right now, but when we went there we realized that this Filip guy from the government, he had notified the Albanians that it was ok to return, but he hadn’t informed us. We were told at the check points, and so we organized to go see our homes together. To take the chance to go and see our homes.
KS: How did you feel when you saw your house after all that time?
BP: Eh, how did we feel? It seemed deserted, with the doors smashed, the windows broken, the tiles broken and my house wasn’t even among those most ruined, but it… it had some odor, very strong. And what could I do… When I got inside, I couldn’t believe it, and just went to see the fridge, because we had had a Saint’s day celebration a day before we left, some food had been left, so I cleaned the fridge and then it was time to go with my cousin. He said “come on”, he said “let’s go, our time is almost out, you know, they might not let us go back to the check points”. And I… stood there aghast, watching him, and I thought: “What is he talking about?!” I said to myself: “How can I leave my own home now? I couldn’t wait to return here, and now I have to go right away?” And so, I left, sad, and (tears in his eyes) I went back to my family to tell them about the situation in our home, then they all started to cry a little, and what could we do, it was what it was.
KS: Did you think you were going to go back home earlier, that it wasn’t going to be so long, that…?
BP: Yes, yes, yes. I was thinking to go back and I, I couldn’t even sleep anymore, I just wanted to go back, but we couldn’t. It took a long time, and we still couldn’t go back thinking that we could, and it lasted quite a while and finally we became overcome by worries.
KS: Mhm. Why did you decide not to go back the first time?
BS: Well, we didn’t decide it, we didn’t have, I say, where to go back to, because first it wasn’t safe… It wasn’t so safe for us to… The safety… We didn’t know what was going to happen, the terrorists, we didn’t know if they were still there. They were telling us that there were no terrorists, that there were no… When I went there, I saw some neighbors were back, but with my family here and the house ruined, even if I wanted to go back, to risk at the moment, I couldn’t.
KS: Right. Did you communicate with the Albanians after 2001? Had anything changed in your relationship with them?
BP: Well, when I got back, we communicated, the relation with some of them was really… With some people it was like before, but with others when we went back to Arachinovo it wasn’t just the same, people somehow didn’t look at us same as before. Somehow they were staring at us, they talked to us in Albanian some things, but still… you could say we got over it well. So, I decided to go back home, because I couldn’t stand it in the dormitory, I couldn’t…
KS: Mhm. So, you got back to Arachinovo, after a while from…?
BP: Yes, yes. I got back after a year and a half, that’s when I got back. I started working on my land here, so… There wasn’t, there really wasn’t any trouble, but still, it was as if you could feel trouble was about to come. At any moment, you feel problems will arise.
KS: Mhm. Collectively, with the other internally displaced persons, did you do anything about it?
BP: Yes. Together we… took some measures, so that we could form an association and we did, the association, we named it “ZORA”, I was a member. We elected Jana Petrusevska for president, we had a vice president, a secretary, so the association was working, functioning well, but there, there was some misunderstanding between the people, within the association as well, some quarrels, the whole atmosphere was bad.
KS: Aha. Right. While you were living in Arachinovo, did you hear any comments from other Macedonians about your return…?
BP: Yes, that’s right. Look, I felt it on my own skin, a little bit like… I don’t want to offend our Macedonians, but, you know, some are thinking differently than others. Now, you know, we can’t all have the same opinions. I was thinking differently, it’s the place where I was born and I have to go back there, I felt like a resident of that village and I wanted to stay there, in my native village. But when I got back, later when I got back, some people were looking at me strangely, thinking I’m a spy, a snitch and I don’t know what else (laughs) but it wasn’t true. I tried to talk to some of the folks, to tell them they should look closely to see that wasn’t the truth.
KS: Mhm, right. So, you returned in Arachinovo, and while you lived there, you didn’t have any problems, as you said. Did you think you were going to stay in Arachinovo for good?
BP: Yes, I thought I was going to go back and stay there the rest of my life, and yet, those Macedonians who stayed in the dormitories never went back, just some of them did, maybe around 20 households, most of them elders, and what could we do, in the end I decided to move as well.
KS: Mhm. So you decided to move?
BP: Yes.
KS: Who do you think lost more because of 2001, you or the Albanians?
BP: Well, I think we lost. As for the Albanians, the Albanians won some rights that… No offence to them, but they, they’re never satisfied, this country is a country of Macedonians, I mean, the Macedonian people, may they pardon me, but we simply can’t make them all happy. We lost. Why did we lose? We lost, I lost the place where I was born. And, how can I feel some place else like I feel in my homeland, where I was born… Besides, I didn’t leave willingly, I just realized there’s no…
KS: …conditions?
BP: …conditions, it’s not – we didn’t have neighbors anymore. It was different before, we had relatives, a lot of friends in the village Arachinovo, we were mostly natives. We were related – a family, and it’s not easy to simply leave Arachinovo (speaks with teary eyes). We can still feel the wounds.
KS: Mhm. Do you think it could have been different?
BP: Well, I thought it was going to be different, my way, but it didn’t turn out as I imagined, so I was a little mistaken (speaks with teary eyes) that it was going to be that way, but in a way, yes, with some of the Albanians I can still communicate, we can, I could go there anytime but there’s… The Albanians themselves, there are problems between the Albanians, unsolved matters, they’re outnumbered too, now there are people who immigrated in Arachinovo from everywhere, it’s not as it was, so I guess around 100-200 households are newly populated.
KS: Who do you blame for what happened?
BP: Well, blame? Who can I blame, I blame the State. All the blame is on the State. The State was supposed to protect us, keep us from moving away, to prevent the conflict in 2001, the State was supposed to protect us. That’s why it exists. It should have been able to stand on firm ground, to stand between the people and say: „Stop!“. And instead, it allowed for the terrorists to enter the… 7 kilometers from the capital of Macedonia (tears in his eyes).
KS: Do you think coexistence is possible today?
BP: Coexistence? Coexistence, there cannot be coexistence, the way things are, coexistence seems difficult. There cannot be coexistense, not until the „cool heads“ put som sense in some poeple from their nationality, there really cannot be coexistence until the end. It cannot be as long as they’re in this state of mind, but in the future, if they sit and think about it, it could be, why shouldn’t they allow it? What is it, what do I have that the Albanians don’t? They have it all. All of them, here, we could go to Arachinovo right now and you could see the houses they live in, some built, some… What kind of roads they have, they have water supply now, everything they need. And we, when we lived there, we slogged through mud.
KS: Right. Can you forgive what has been done to you?
BP: I can never… I can’t even forgive myself, not to mention anyone else… It’s my fault, I’m thinking, why should that happen in my own homeland? (tears in his eyes) I can’t forgive the State for not protecting us.
KS: Do you think 2001 should be something to talk about in the future, or should it be forgotten?
BP: Well, look. I pray God it will be forgotten, because I wouldn’t wish 2001 not even for my greatest enemies, to put it that way. We felt it on our own skin and we know what 2001 meant (tears in his eyes). I wish we could have a nice life in the future, I hope 2001 won’t happen again. That we could have a life together somehow, that we could be able to live with each other, our youth as well.
KS: What do you expect in the future? How is your life today, after you left Arachinovo?
BP: Well, about the future, I hope we’ll go on, but somehow it’s not working. We, you know, our thoughts lead us back to our old home, our village, and we, the elders, for us it’s a trauma that will stay with us till the end of our lives… (cries)
KS: You won’t be able to forget?
BP: Yes.
KS: Mhm, right. Where do you live now?
BP: Now I live in the municipality of Ilinden, or the village Marino, more precisely. I moved in a year and a half ago, I bought myself some land, built a house and it’s nice here for now, it’s calm, peaceful. I think of Arachinovo sometimes, I try to comfort myself (tears in his eyes), I would go to… to the farm in Belimbegovo (former name of Ilinden) and then I’d turn around and leave, I would just take a look at Arachinovo and then go back, saying to myself: „Go back to Marino, Blagojce“ (laughs with tears in his eyes).
KS: Was there anything I forgot to ask you that you would like to say?
BP: There’s a lot to say, a lot to say. Maybe we missed a lot, but… I don’t know… what to say anymore, what to… talk about. We talked nonetheless – you know, what would make me happy is if we, Macedonians, set forward with our country, if our children, the youth have a good life, if they’re spared from these problems, if they leave the problems for us elders, and have a nice future for themselves.
KS: Thank you.
BP: Welcome.
KS: Thanks for sharing your time with us.
BP: Thank you.
KS: Goodbye.
BP: Goodbye.
