America and Russia cleared out the fog in Skopje

Erol Rizaov

I laughed so hard when The United States and Russia, the world’s most powerful countries, offered cheap ideas, almost for free, on how to clear the fog and smog in the most polluted city in the world, our Skopje. You’d say that this is not a laughing matter, yet more of a crying matter. And that’s true, but dark humor sometimes can be very entertaining and funny. Besides, when two world leaders are chasing such thick fog, the third world leader in pollution is eager for humor and satire. And look, they chased it out, there is no fog in Skopje in the past three days, and you can breathe easily – if you own a mask.

To be honest, it was so refreshing to see the ambassadors of America and Russia, Jess Baily and Oleg Shcherbak, at the hotel “Park“ tasting Greek wines and eating souvlaki without masks on their faces, as a nice gesture of self-sacrifice to clear the decades-old Balkan pollution between Athens and Skopje. The team of Ambassador Baily, representing the United States and President Donald Trump, first announced the search for good suggestions on how to clear the fog and pollution in Skopje. While the poisoned inhabitants were still thinking about the beautiful American offers, the team of Ambassador Shcherbak, who represented Russia and President Vladimir Putin, responded immediately: The wind that will blow from Siberia on the Turkish Stream pipeline in a few decades will reach the main city ​​of Macedonia and all smog and poison will be blown out. Skopje will become the Balkans pearl, pure as a teardrop. All those who survive until then will be able to personally thank President Putin, who will still be the President of Russia.

If you ask me, I prefer the Shcherbak’s idea, because odorless and colorless gas will reach every house, every factory, every car, truck and bus in less than twenty to thirty years, which will mark the end of the pollution. Until then, Macedonia will be cleaned of both garbage and illegal dumps, from factories and mines, from iron mills, from various pesticides and toxins, and ultimately from humans, dogs, and kittens, and from other living things. There will be no need to build water purifiers because there will be no water. Then we can bury the old gas pipeline, which if it was working at full capacity, all bigger and smaller cities in the country, including Skopje, would have had complete gasification by now.
I have an idea for the wealthy Americans who can finance it. It’s very simple. It is necessary to bring down everything that stands in the way of the winds that blow towards the Skopje valley through Shar Mountain,  Skopska Crna Gora, Vodno and Kitka, and from the Aegean Sea. All these monsters of buildings, garage floors, towers and walls should be leveled with the ground, they should remove the obstacles along the streams of the tributaries of Vardar, also remove all vehicles produced in the previous century from traffic,and blow smoke like steam locomotives, and close the biggest polluters and gas chambers in the country that are still running as factories, and close all mills and mines. The employees should be paid one hundred thousand dollars per head in damages for poisoning, and they should be offered new appropriate jobs. Gasification with a new bigger tube, because the old one is rusty, remains as a possible additional project. You would say that this is impossible and unachievable. You would be wrong, it is just as realistic as it is possible for an even more ambitious project than the US and Russian production of fog wind, which is a canal between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea through Vardar, South and West Morava, through the Danube… and so forth to the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean, from Thessaloniki through Skopje and Belgrade to Florida, from there to the Cape of Good Hope … It’s all achievable as soon as there are elections somewhere in the Balkans.

And finally, the best, cheapest and the most realistic suggestion was given to me by the maintenance lady that cleans our building. She says: It’s okay, it all depends on the people – if they don’t make a mess, it’s easy to clean. When the whole building is a mess, it’s very difficult to clean it, nothing comes out, and when it does come out – it stinks… You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?