HomeBound: Life in a student dormitory.

The student residence hall “Stiv Naumov” is part of the State Student Housing Center – Skopje, a state institution which takes care of housing and meal plans for students coming from other parts of the country (Macedonia) to attend university in the capital Skopje. “Stiv Naumov” is by far the largest residence hall, with housing capacity for (approximately) 2000 students. It consists of barracks that have been around for almost 40-plus years, two somewhat newer male dorms, and one female dorm, built last, in the early 1990s. Its characterized by catastrophic and sub-standard living condition, making it the most famous, that is, infamous of all student residence halls.

I visited the Hall for the first time in the fall of 2007. No matter how much one is prepared, even at first encounter, the dire, physically-harsh, living conditions that encircle the everydayness for the Stiv residents leaves a lasting imprint; the stench from the restrooms that seeps through the hallways, the half-rotten furnishings of the rooms, the few in number functioning showers (2-3) per floor housing usually 70-80 students, the rooms without a telephone or internet connection, etc. Likewise, one cannot miss, right from the entrance point, the various wall scribblings and graffiti adoring the doors and the hallways, suggesting a resistance of spirit and an attempt to leave a personal mark, somewhat humorous (oftentimes vulgar), i.e., a way to neutralize the negativity that is not necessarily the residents’ making.

 

 

“Enter Code” written on the door to one of the rooms

 

The photographs portray, first and foremost, the characters and their individual storylines, accompanied by these young folks’ living conditions; nonetheless, these photographs stand to witness and to reprimand a communal (ir)responsibility and (non)solidarity. The photographs may also be seen as an incentive, for the students themselves, but also for the rest of us, to take responsibility and action, along the lines of providing and creating decent living conditions.

HomeBound is a story which attempts to breach the surface of things. It is a tale about the capability of the human spirit to adapt and to persevere. It is a chronicle of the desire and the attempt to alter, positively, the living surroundings we inhabit. HomeBound is a narrative about nesting, about the need to etch out a place we can call home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dejan:

“When I first came, the room was empty. If you manage to come first, before all the others, you can find little bits, from other rooms, a book-case here, a desk, chair there, all you might need. I found myself a new bed in a room that was still vacant. My bed was broken so I had to spring for a new one.”

 

 

 

 

Sashko (far right):

“I’ve been here in Stiv for 4 years now and I really like the way of life here. This kind of lifestyle you can’t find in any other residence hall. Here true democracy rules.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zdravko:

“It is not the best of lives, here. Every one marches to his own drum beat, without a care in the world. There is no atmosphere apt for studying; there is a constant roller-coaster of events, no intimacy whatsoever. You cannot hide anything; next door, they hear everything we are saying now, and they will laugh.”

 

 

 

 

Darko:

“We find things to do, little amusements. All sorts of things we find interesting, if only books and studying were this interesting. It is not all our doing, as the conditions here are not fit for a student. There is one common study-room; it’s a no-use place to hook up with boys/girls, as the people here in Stiv call it. Some go just to look at girls, others to find themselves a date. Or some get drunk, and crash in, doing all sorts of silliness, so everyone can remember them.”

 

 

 

 

Jovan:

“The first year, my roommate and I were sitting around one evening when someone started shouting in the hall. There two neighbors, each other’s roommates got into an argument. So they started throwing chairs at each other, jars filled with preserves, and in the end pulled out knives and chased each other through the hall. And we stayed in our room, too afraid to step outside. Others came afterwards, calmed them down and separated them.”

 

 

Mini electric stove placed on top an empty bucket of paint with coffee pot and used up coffee bags.

 

 

Eleonora:

“We who are assigned to the barracks have bath space and showers at a distance of a hundred meters. And they are co-ed: both for men and for women. So one day, as I am taking a bath, I accidentally glance upwards and I see that the guy from the next shower over had stepped over the sink and was peeking at me from above. So we stand like that, for a minute or so, I do not know what to say. So all of a sudden, I start yelling, cursing and the guy gets scared, jumps off of the sink, flees outside and runs away. “

Trajan (right):

“Day in and day out, we hang together, have a few drinks, then get plastered in some room, go to the discothèque and get plastered there, get plastered into oblivion… And then you wake up in a room, somewhere in the women’s dorm. And when you open your eyes, you see some girl lying next to you. Cannot recall who she is. This has happened to me 5-6 times.”

Cvetko:

“You know what they call Stiv? The Valley of Sex.”

 

 

Svetlana and Zule:

“Last year we rented out an apartment and it sucked. There was no comradely. We had heard that to stay in Stiv was a virtual catastrophe so we took an apartment, but here we had a better time socializing, we even came to the study-room to study. And so this year we transferred here.”

Homemade curtains with bows as decoration inside a room at the student residence hall.