Posted on 08/31/2025 7:17:06 AM PDT by jonatron
On a video call, 20-year-old Daniel Jackson, the self-proclaimed president of the Free Republic of Verdis, looks the part: He is sitting at a desk with the country’s flag to his right and a banner sporting the name of his country behind him.
Instead of a presidential palace, he is speaking from a humble house in Dover, a port city in the south of England. And the Free Republic of Verdis, the country he claims to have founded in 2019, is nothing more than a small strip of uninhabited forest on the border between Croatia and Serbia, more than 1,000 miles away.
And yet, because of a historical border dispute, Jackson, who was born in Australia, claims to be the land’s rightful owner and ruler.
Known as “Pocket 3,” the strip of forest roughly the size of the Vatican was among several left unclaimed by both countries after the Croatian war of independence ended in 1995.
Jackson now envisions a country that could be a draw for humanitarian aid workers.
“Verdis was an idea when I was about 14 but it came back, and actually, we actually properly created the state after I had turned 18,” he said. “The reason being is it was just an idea that initially came up with a lot of people that I know that did humanitarian work in Ukraine. And we wanted to do something that was a bit, a bit bigger than, you know, just doing aid to one country.”
He added, “We want to be a neutral state. We want to be a hub for NGOs. We have a massive humanitarian background.”
...snip...
Jackson says he now lives in “exile” in Dover, where he socializes with friends and plays video games.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Translation: I -- not "we" -- want you to send me money. I'll sell you whoever you are shares, deeds, passports, flags, official stamps and visas. SEND ME MONEY.
I suspect finding a way to travel to this small country may be rather difficult, although it appears to be accessable from the Danube river. It is only 125 acres in extent.
might be a good place to set up a Grizzly hunting (European Brown Bear) concession....
If it exists and has no military or s small one, Putin wants it. Call Putin an evil dictator and wait for the inevitable invasion and then ask for aid.
I hope to be admitted to the United Nations any day now.
Then the aid money will start flooding in. 💰💰💰
The wildlife may comprise the entire constituency.
Fraction Jack, Who Profits by the Mistakes of Others
Nevada State Journal, November 4, 1923
“Fraction Jack?” said the old prospector. “That fellow is in a class by himself. He has made more real money than half of the mining men in the game. He has sold Fractions in every mining camp discovered in the past twenty years. He has had many a gun fight, many a rough and tumble scrap, and has always made the aggressor come to time with the money.
“He has the brain of an analyst. He has an uncanny sense of proportion of ground - making no difference whether rough or smooth. He will figure out the lines of a mining claim to a fraction - if there is a piece of ground vacant, he will see it at a glance. His name is Otis J. Stewart. He is known to the prospector from ‘52, down into the jungles of the Isthmus. He will be found in any gold stampede that starts. He never gets in with the first - for that very good reason that some old-time prospector, after his discovery, takes all the ground that he thinks that he will need. But Fraction Jack will be in with the first trail bunch. He always has, and does right today.
“Stewart is a man without college education. He had the advantages of common rudiments in the three R’s. He was born in Colorado. His father was a prospector miner before him. He, himself, is a top man at anything about a mine. He is also a first-class prospector. His long suit, however, is figuring a man’s ground.
Old-Timers Watch Him
“When Fraction Jack appears in a new camp, you will see every old-timer measuring off his ground and getting his stakes on the boundaries. He will also discover that the prospector is running his ground just a few feet shy of the allotment permitted by law, then he knows that he is safe from the wonderful - yes, unusual, insight that Stewart has for running boundaries. Now he does all this from a location monument.
Say a man claims 750 feet north and south from this monument and, of course, 300 feet on each side of the vein, or whatever it may be in our terms of description of ground. Stewart runs off that end line with his eyes, also the side lines - makes a mental calculation and, in every case, it will be found that he is right off the other man’s ground and on a small vacant piece of estate, that separates this location from the one that has been claimed by the man who located and claimed on the extension.
From grandfather’s article
https://www.iment.com/maida/family/father/jackbell/Jack-Bell-Prospector-and-Naturalist-38.htm#fraction
If they have no extradition treaty with the US, I can think of a few Democrats who might want to relocate there.
Regards,
Too bad he didn’t name it the ‘Duchy of Grand Fenwick’.
“Jackson says he now lives in “exile” in Dover”
He exiled himself from his own country?
Of course that’s the line that grabbed me, too. How thoroughly modern that his aspiration is to become a grifter.
BTW, if I had a micro state, you can be damned sure “king” would be my title. I’d come up with a jaunty slogan to obscure my oppression of the people: “Come to Jhavenfarmland! Serf’s up!”
Looks like a long walk to the “outhouse”...but then again, you won’t need it - unless you get your food dropped by drone. Otherwise, no noisy neighbors, lawn mowers, leaf blowers...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Utopia
And I’ve been wondering if Laz is ever going to get New Utopia developed to be a real thing... Oh wait, different Laz.
Now THAT was very pun-y, not "puny." A good chuckle is to be had on these threads at times. Kudos! Bravo!
Who else would exile him when the country is uninhabited?
No citizens to tax, no border fences to maintain, and no soldiers to defend those borders anyway. Even the King doesn't live there.
You would think the squatters would move in and take over, but there are no houses to squat in, no welfare benefits, no SNAP cards to draw on...
He should declare war!
Is he nine years old?
Serbs to the left of me, Croats to the right, stuck in the middle with Dan.
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