12 Jun 2023

"We got there in the end" - Vukan Cavor on life in Montenegro

From Here Now, 5:00 am on 12 June 2023
Image supplied

Vukan Cavor clayshooting in Montenegro Photo: Supplied

Vukan Cavor may have lived in New Zealand for almost thirty years, but he’s still as connected as ever to his beloved country of Montenegro.

He’s passionate about teaching Montenegrins about their history, helping to document the suffering that took place under Serbian occupation between 1918 to 1939.

It’s the events in the early 1990s after the collapse of Yugoslavia that drove Vukan’s Montenegrin family to flee to Aotearoa.

But it was a difficult transition: speaking no English and not having work, it was a time marked by depression and disappointment for his parents, but in that time the Cavors have managed to carve out a life, half a world away from where they were born.

Listen to their story on this week's Voices episode by Ruwani Perera: