Тег: Liberland

Liberland

From April 11 to 13, I was with a group of Montelibero residents at the eleventh birthday of Liberland. The party took place near Apatin, the closest Serbian Danube town to Liberland. There, Liberland had purchased land and built a tourist complex The ARC — a very cozy eco-village.

  • guest houses
  • canoes
  • summer cafe
  • sauna
  • various livestock grazing on the opposite shore of the pond
  • demanding carrots
  • remnants of a water spillway from another pond; Liberland bought the land there too, but hasn’t landscaped it yet
  • the main building, where all the action was
  • a huge fireplace — the centerpiece of the whole house
  • the first floor, with a dining room, bar, and stage
  • first floor
  • second floor — conference hall

By the way, the Liberland website has a list of Diaspora villages, where, in addition to Liberland itself and Arc Village, Montelibero is featured, along with some community in Mexico unknown to me, and several settlements from a single developer, ECI Development. It seems to me that colleagues from Green Zyland should connect with Liberland so that their Georgian and Antiguan Green Zyland settlements eventually appear on their map as well.

On the first day, there was an excessively dense speaking program; by the end, my head was swollen from English, and instead of normal networking, I shied away from all English speakers just to get a little break from them, but we had some good chats with all the Russians present. There was no single theme for the presentations; it seems President Edlička simply gathered everyone he could reach, and if someone had something to say, he pulled them onto the stage. So it turned out quite eclectic, and there were relatively few talks about Liberland itself, except for an overview report on what successes it has achieved over 11 years.

On the second day, they organized a trip along the Danube to show us Liberland itself.

  • a small Liberland houseboat
  • a larger rented one
  • and a motorboat, which was towed behind the houseboat and served as a gangway as needed
  • they invited a colorful singer named Branimir, who looks like Milei
  • Edlička shows where an attack on Liberland was being prepared
  • On the left is Gornja Siga island, on the right is Donja Siga; both form the territory of Liberland
  • A settler named Martin has lived on Liberland territory for several weeks now and is preparing to open a summer cafe there. He was cheered on from the boat.
  • signed the Liberland flag
  • signed the sand of a Serbian island

As the excursion approached the shores of Liberland, a Croatian police boat was spotted both above and below it, and a patrol car accompanied us along the Croatian shore. Croatia jealously guards the inviolability of foreign land. The plot of the conflict is described on the wiki, so I won’t retell it. Nevertheless, a settler named Martin waved to us from the shore of the smaller of the two islands that make up Liberland. It was mentioned that he intends to build a beach cafe there, although I don’t rule out that this was said as a joke.

What can be said about Liberland in general? The project is firmly on its feet 11 years after its founding. Despite the fact that quarterly congress elections regularly take place in this pseudo-state, the executive power does not plan to be re-elected until the official establishment of the state, which fully aligns with what Balaji Srinivasan writes in his “The Network State” — namely, that without a single founder figure, nothing will work; only under the leadership of a benevolent dictator are liberty-loving voluntarists capable of moving anywhere. The project is not struggling; it lives and celebrates without excessive luxury, but quite lavishly, and its establishment consists of fairly wealthy entrepreneurs.

A business approach is also evident in the treatment of participants. Tickets for events are paid, including simply purchasing the opportunity to watch a broadcast. Electronic residency is paid. Citizenship costs a quite significant $10k, which is, of course, cheaper than from the “big brothers,” but then again, the power of a Liberland passport is currently near zero. In short, it is a very interesting venture project that can exist in a state of limbo for quite a long time, but as soon as it receives actual diplomatic recognition, the project’s shares will skyrocket, since there is certainly no overabundance of libertarian jurisdictions with open entry in the world right now.

Since I plan to relocate to Serbia within the year, I will inevitably continue to interact with Liberland. We’ll see what the prospects are for attaching one business or another to it.

I continue to perceive Liberland without excessive seriousness, yet with respect.

Following the MTL-fest, part 1, Liberland

Vít Edlička, the self-proclaimed president of the self-proclaimed republic of Liberland, intended to speak at the MTL-fest on the topic of “how to build the freest state in the world.” Liberland is located on a territory called Gornja Siga, which from Serbia’s perspective should be in Croatia, from Croatia’s perspective should be in Serbia, but in fact, it is on the Croatian side of the Danube, and it is specifically with the Croatian authorities that the Liberlanders experience the most problems.

Shortly before the fest, Edlička and a couple of other Liberlanders were arrested by the Croatian side, followed by deportation to Hungary. And on September 22, one day before the MTL-fest, Croatian security forces went as far as to invade the territory of the settlement, destroying all the buildings there and confiscating all movable property. Thus, Vít’s account of his project was enriched with fresh, hot facts.

Croatia’s position is roughly as follows: yes, the border location is not settled, but we are responsible for the security of the external perimeter of the Schengen area, which we recently joined, and therefore we strive to curb any provocations, including provocations from some quasi-state.

Liberland’s position, in turn, boils down to the fact that since Croatia is part of the Schengen area, it no longer has full sovereignty over the border and cannot act lawlessly according to its own whim. For the destruction of someone else’s property, as well as the baseless detention of people outside its state borders, it will have to answer in court. Liberland also insists that a territory claimed by no current state is terra nullius, and the emergence of a new state upon it does not contradict any international norms; and if that is the case, please respect our state sovereignty as we respect yours, gentlemen Croatians—and in general, why fight, let’s be friends, don’t you want a powerful tourist cluster right next to you?

There is nothing that irritates those in power more than a reminder of legal norms. After all, legal norms place the parties of a conflict on the same level: the democratically elected government of a sovereign state in the EU and some clowns with a couple of wooden sheds and a houseboat. Therefore, naturally, the Croatian side will ignore any legal procedures as much as possible, simply leaving any statements from Liberland unattended. Nevertheless, this entire story is capable of raising a lot of stink, provided, of course, that the public does not forget to throw manure onto this fire.

Here is the contact page of the Croatian Ministry of the Interior, which organized the invasion of the territory of the sovereign Free Republic of Liberland. Here is the same page in English. You can send complaints to various addresses from the list provided there, which will be especially useful if you represent an official media outlet. Also, of course, reposts would help.