When Time Stops

One of the best things you can do with your time is hire a boat that you can sleep on and float up a river for a few days.

Time stops.

Absorb the weather, whatever form it takes, but sunny is best. Breathe in the air. Sleep as the boat gently bobs up and down. Contemplate. Talk. Play games. Eat. Swim.

Peace descends and nothing much matters any more.

I’ve done this several times on the Thames and, having just spent a few days in Serbia, I now plan to do the same thing on the Danube. I just had a little taster.

I flew out to Serbia because I was speaking and performing at Liberpulco, the European brother of Anarchapulco, an anarchy meet-up - I hesitate to call it a conference - held every year in Acapulco. The idea is that the European version should take place in Liberland.

Wait! What? Where?

Gornja Siga is a small area of river islands and floodplain in the Danube about three square miles in size (more when the river is low). For some context, it would be about the size of Gibraltar.

The Danube forms the border between Serbia and Croatia. Following the break-up of Yugoslavia, there was no agreement as to who owned this floodplain. It was terra nulla.

Enter Vít Jedlička, a Czech politician and entrepreneur, who declared the territory the Free Republic of Liberland and has been trying to establish his own micronation ever since. “We are building the greatest tax haven the world has ever seen,” I once heard him declare in a presentation.

Jedlička is a wonderful speaker, a great publicist and highly entrepreneurial. For obvious reasons, the project appealed to alienated libertarians around the world.

He began selling passports and citizenship. He appointed various ministers. The nation’s coffers were held in bitcoin. The nation even declares an annual profit.