Then she nods to her colleague at the bar. We are the only clients. Her name is Deya Her name is Deya, or at least that's what she says. She's in a black mini skirt and a vest-like top.
The dark glass with an inch of liquid bangs down on the glazed tabletop. The barmaid saunters back to the bar. She utters them more or less every twenty minutes, in a sort of casual, off-handed manner. The attempt to strike up a conversation runs into a flat "ne razbira" ["no understand"], a nervous smile and fleeting glances at the gazda boss , who is leaning on the bar and watching us suspiciously.
This is one of the four bars offering sex services in the Macedonian village of Veleste, 10 km from Ohrid. The big, bare-brick houses are inhabited by Albanians only. The streets are virtually deserted after 9 p. The streets are narrow and muddy. The pub is a 3 by 4 m room, with five tables and a bar. Outside, there are no signs or any other indications that this is supposed to be a bar. It's in the basement of a house. We never get to know its name. After a thorough inspection from behind the shutters, the owner unlocks the door.
Seven scantily clad girls aged 16 to 20 are huddled around the table, next to a battered air-heater as if straight out of the changing room on a building site. One of them rises and starts stripping, swaying gently between the fridge for Coke, the air-heater and the peeled door to the rooms at the back. That's supposed to be a striptease act. Her movements have nothing to do with the beat of the music.
Realizing that the clients are Bulgarian, four of the girls stalk out through the door behind the bar. They must have been Bulgarian too, but we couldn't be sure. The young Shqiptar [Albanian] at the bar orders the others to join Deya at our table. One is also Romanian, and the other is Moldovan. Veleste is one of the dozens of villages in Western Macedonia where trade in women is something normal. Business in the villages around Ohrid is controlled by Leko, another Shqiptar, whose name is uttered by the Macedonians with awe.
