Today three years have passed since the proclamation of the Free Republic of Liberland. That's why I decided to write down my memories of being involved in this amazing project. Enjoy the read!

While hitchhiking towards Liberland I truly didn't know what to expect. I hadn't had an idea who's gonna be there, who those people would be and what they were actually doing there. The curtain covering the Great Unknown, however, tempted too much with its vivid color of adventure and atypicality of the whole project. A few hours after sending an e-mail with an announcement of my visit I got a positive answer - I may come, and I will be greeted by Liberlandias!

Liberland - libertarians' wet dream

I probably heard of Liberland for the first time on the day of its independence proclamation, that is on 13 April 2015. This date was not chosen by accident - on 13 April 1743 Thomas Jefferson was born, a great inspiration for Vít Jedlička, the founder and self-proclaimed president of the Free Republic of Liberland. I am not going to write too much about the micro-state itself, because I assume that most of you have already heard about it. If not, a lot of information about Liberland can be found on the Internet. This article is more of my memories and personal experiences with Liberland.

In a nutshelll - Vít Jedlička, as an active Czech libertarian politician, said one day that he would set up a new state for libertarian ideas more quickly than reform his country in that direction. Has already a place in Europe that could theoretically be took over due to not being owned by any other state - terra nullius - between Croatia and Serbia, which came to existence as a result of a lack of agreement on the borderline between those two countries after the collapse of Yugoslavia.



The red line shows the old current of Danube, which Croatia continues to recognise as a border. Serbia claims that the new current (blue line) separates the two countries.

source

The situation has arisen because during the existence of Yugoslavia, the Danube River current, which separates today independent countries, was diverted and. Serbia recognizes the new river current as a border with Croatia, while Croatia claims that the border goes along the old Danube current. In either case, the territory in which Liberland is situated does not fall under the jurisdiction of any of the mentioned states. So no one except Jedlička claims rights to this place.Vít's vision for Liberland is to build a microstate based on the principles of minarchism . Taxes are supposed to be voluntary and on very low level, the expansion of state limited by the constitution and most of the things are supposed to remain unregulated. Liberland would thus become such a libertarian, balkan version of Monaco (in fact it is 2x its size), a tax haven and a place with very broad civil liberties, where most of the services usually provided by the state in other countries, in Liberland would be provided by private entities.

Liberland situated on the map of Europe.

If You're Going to Liberland...

The next day after receiving the e-mail, together with Wojtek (my travel companion), we said goodbye to who we had met in one of the Belgrade hostels and started hitchhiking towards the north-west of Serbia, to the town called Bezdan. Bezdan is the closest town on the Serbian side in the vicinity of Liberland, located right on the Croatian border, and very close to the border with Hungary.

At this point in time we did not know very well how serious the initiative was behind Liberland. People we contacted called themselves the Liberland Settlement Association and from aforementioned Serbian village they were there trying to get to Liberland and settle there. We knew nothing more. How many people are there? Are they doing it in a serious manner? What are the nationalities? What property do they own, what do they have at their disposal? What is their plan? Is there a president there? Will we be able to reach Liberland?

This part of Serbia is not to be found in tourist guides. In fact, it is a very poor region and is not really famous for anything. There was barely any tourist attraction there. While hitchhiking in that direction we asked drivers about this new, strange creature in their neighborhood. After all, all the world's most important media, CNN, BBC, Fox, New York Times, etc., talked about Liberland! Most of them heard something the project, but they have almost no idea what it was all about. They approached the whole matter with distance, humour, but also with leniency. The last of them, a nice and funny Serb who travelled with the Ukrainian knew exactly where the Liberland Settlement Association was located.

— Yes, I know where it is. They have such a flag there. I will drop you there.

When we got out, he pointed with his finger towards a large house, from which a yellow-black flag of Liberland and, strangely, also Swiss flag were hanging. We couldn't believe it! These people really do exist! Quite insecurely we set off to meet them, at the same time feeling a growing excitement.

Liberland Settlement Association





Directly adjacent to the Liberland Settlement Association

...Be Sure to Have Some Bitcoins in Your Wallet

We were welcomed very warmly and quickly realised how the diverse individuals are in Liberland Settlement Association. Jay a crazy Englishman, about 45 years old, active in Anonymous movement, a fervent e-marijuana smoker and ex-raver. Lucas, a hardened rothbardian anarchocapitalist from Switzerland, brought with him a whole library of libertarian lectures, besides a club lovelas and the biggest "picker" from the whole team. Paul - a guy around 40 who turned out to be a little more left-wing idealist. Atilla - Hungarian vegan chef, cooked for the whole team on a daily basis (!). Max (actually Alex) - an American with German roots, the most "relaxed" of the team with an apparition of a Californian surfer. Mario - rather silent and hanging back German guy, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Hansa - huge like a mountain, but extremely friendly Czech, poorly speaking English, from what I know the only one from LSA who was actually paid. Sergei - a local former policeman. Aleks - a 14-year-old living nearby, coming by the LSA "base" of from time to time. Abdullah - Turkish, dental student and traveller. Nikolai - a young, noisy and feisty guy, despite his age one of the most important people in the base. And Kenneth - the chief decision-maker. He made an impression of being extremely reasonable and fully devoted to the cause. Apart from that, when we arrived there were also three American Jews and a few other people.

It quickly became clear that almost everyone here was taking the subject of Liberland deadly seriously. The first thing that struck us was the rather sceptical attitude towards the founder and self-proclaimed President of the Republic, Vít Jedlička. Some people directly criticized his activities, accusing him of using Liberland as a way of making profit and travelling around the world with Liberland supporters' money, promoting his own person. Others thought he was simply not acting rationally and his plans for the implementation of the idea were wrong and noneffective. But there were also those who supported him. So the attitude towards the President was varied. However, everyone cared about the common cause, and the disagreements were not that serious but rather constructive.





From left: Wojtek, me, Jay, Abdullah, Atilla and Hanza (with flag)

It took us a moment to understand that the LSA was a completely independent organisation from Vít, with its own motivation, and financed from a completely different source. Liberland Settlement Association was founded by Niklas Nikolajsen, an eccentric Danish bitcoin millionaire and founder of Bitcoin Suisse based in Switzerland (which has recently became the main sponsor of the national league hockey team from Denmark and has been renamed their arena to Bitcoin Arena). Niklas financed the house, expanses, and all equipment like means of transport used, and even some legal activities, to help settle in Liberland. We were not able to meet him personally, although from time to time he appeared in the estate and he even chased the Croatian police on the Danube (about which you'll read in a moment...). There was a complicated relationship between LSA and Vít, as if the two sides did not fully trust each other and were pretty cautious about each other's actions.





Veganese delights prepared by Atilla

To Conquer Liberland

Living at the Liberland Settlement Association was full of eternal discussions around one topic - how to get to Liberland? The only obstacle was the Croatian coercive system. We quickly found out that at the moment two people are in prison because they had entered Liberland (for allegedly crossing the border illegally). Many people have been arrested several times before, but the LSA has always paid a deposit to release them.





Jay and Yoshi mount satellite internet on the roof

Discussions, which sometimes lasted until dawn, therefore revolved around the idea of how to make the Croatian authorities stop arresting people entering Liberland. According to the LSA, while crossing the border from Croatia was indeed illegal (as there is no border crossing point there), entering Liberland from the Danube side should not cause any reaction. The harsh reality was quite the opposite. When any member of LSA was set foot on Liberland's beach, the Croatian police immediately docked to the shore and arrested them defacto outside their own country. They also patrolled the area on the Danube 24/7 and blocked every attempt to get close to the shore with their boat. Interestingly, a year later, when the emigration crisis began, the authorities had a much more liberal approach to the liquidity of their borders... If it had not been for Croatia, LSA would have been prepared to set up a large settlement camp in Liberland, supply electricity and start renovating the only building in the area. Unfortunately, this did not happen.