A 1926 Commercial From the Kingdom of YU

Although seemingly very theatrical, the message is the same as that of today's commercials.

An Old Nation

As Serbian scholars and experts of all sorts exert themselves to explain how it turns out that Serbs are the oldest nation in the Balkans and how every other neighboring nation is not really a nation but a self proclaimed group derived from Serbs, we, the citizens of Serbia, have rapidly been enduring additional wrinkles and gray hairs. I mean this literally - not only are we lagging behind our modern counterparts with our mentality and habits, but we are an aging population. With a negative population growth rate (estimated at -3.5% in 2004), low birthrates and high brain drain, Serbia is becoming rusty in every sense - mentally, financially and demographically. Many people are afraid to have children - afraid that they will not be able to support them financially, that the state will not provide them with basic rights to education, health care, peace and safety and that their children will become like those of my generation. Those who do have children, aspire for them to live abroad. Those oblivious to Serbia's problems, also have children, and spend their time talking about some trivial topic, such as which nation really settled the Balkans first. I would by no means want to discourage any theorizing, however I do think that - in our case - this specific argument is detrimental. Yes, we are old, but we are old in so many ways much more relevant to our lives than the origin dates of our nation. We are an aging population demographically and an aging group of individuals mentally. Our streets are aged, our schools and hospitals obsolete. Why would we want to be old in any additional way?

Why would we want to tag along yet another theory that will turn our heads from the future?

Fail Mail

Feeling tired and particularly imaginative after a late-night walk, I am waiting for the elevator. In 2 AM silence, my 70's building resembles one of ghosts. I hear nothing but elevator wires and cars rushing in a boulevard close by. As dense mystery fills the hallways my gaze travels from the stairway, the dirty floor, the high ceiling… The mailbox. Have I gotten any mail? I reach for the mailbox key in my pocket. I don’t have it with me… But, by this time, curiosity has conquered me, invading and almost itching my brain. Many buildings have broken mailboxes in my neighborhood. Is this how they get attacked? Some are even burnt.

Hm. Just a peek, please. I slide a finger through the mail slot but it bites me. The slot is not wide enough for my finger and to leave room for me to see what’s going on inside. As I pull my finger out I spot a fast food flier on the floor. I reach down for the flier and open the evil mail slot with it. I use the thin flier to keep the slot open, giving me enough eye space to peek inside. Hah, we've tricked the system.

The mission's final step - the actual peeking in through the opening - all of a sudden makes me nervous. But, I can do it. I slowly, cautiously, lean my face towards the mailbox. If only someone saw me… My eyes anxiously look for the opening. Aha, there it is... With my right eye targeting the opening, I close my left eye and make the deciding leap towards my goal.

What?! Another wide-open eye is staring back at me!! I gasp and jump away, manically grab the door of the elevator that had arrived so long ago, run inside and hit the 3 button, anticipating safety on my floor. With an obnoxious heartbeat and weak shaky footsteps, I make it to the door. I use two wrong keys before unlocking the door, get in, slam, lock well. I take my shoes off and crawl into bed. Fall asleep, fall asleep. What was that?? Fall asleep, please... If only I knew whose eye that was.

Alas, I did fall asleep and wake up rather late, completely numbed. I had forgotten all about the mail slot, my bizarre thoughts, and the even more bizarre eye. I was eating my breakfast eggs, sipping on freshly squeezed orange juice, when my mom came in from the market and dropped the mail on the dining table. There it was! That creepy stubborn unblinking eye was looking at me again! It was the eye of a pretty woman whose face was used for a flier marketing a newly opened hair salon down the street. Trashy little salon flier, you’ve scared me and questioned my sanity.

I used to play this game every day. It made sense to play the game. I’d peak through the slot and discover letters and postcards, all sorts of hellos from real people. Family, friends, crushes, encounters, travel companions. It seems not that long ago even... Yes, my finger was small enough to open the slot and still leave some space to see what was inside, but apart from that, little has changed. The elevator is the same; its rusty wires remain unchanged. Even the wall paint is still the same. In a city like Belgrade, still largely guarded from globalization and development, the past haunts you. On awkward nights like these you may very well loose yourself. You forget that the only greetings awaiting in your mailbox nowadays are those from corporations and government institutions. Fliers; bills; and a notice or citation here and there.

Has anybody seen my pride?

It has been two days since the first "successful" Pride Parade in Belgrade and I am finally able to sit down and write about what has happened. Belgrade is still somewhat demolished, but this is nothing we are not used to. The anger in me has faded for now although, so far, my emotions have been rather difficult.

The citizen in me has been afraid. Not only afraid to walk out of the house but, more importantly, afraid that, one day, my right to walk the city and make a statement will offend someone and cause similar onset. The child in me has been looking for someone to blame. The traveler in me has been humiliated. The liberal in me f-ing pissed at the right-wing hooligans who were so set on hate that they put the entire city at risk and fought with the police all day long. Belgrade resembled a war zone with fronts set at the approaches to the pride's meeting point. Today however, the sociologist in me awoke. Perhaps more than anything, I now feel sorry for these tough, yet very confused guys. I cannot fully understand them, but I can try.

Who are these young people? Why are they angry and who precisely do they hate so much? Most of them seemed like they were in their mid-teens. They looked just like the boys who burn the city every time change knocks on the door. They are 15-year-olds cloned in sweats and hoodies, with scarfs covering their faces and Nike airmax shoes fancying up their outfits (westernizing them, almost).

Yes, they are homophobes. But this does not surprise me as much because so many factors in Serbia expedite homophobia: isolation and lack of exposure to diversity of any sort; economic insecurity questioning our fathers' masculinity and developing macho egos; the Serbian Orthodox Church; the right wing movement; years of conflict with the US and the EU generating resistance to anything that seems to be coming from the west; general loss of a sense for love as companionship - the vast decline in happy marriages is resulting in the idea of love gaining a practical "get married and have kids" meaning; and we could go on and on.

However, I do not feel sorry for the kids who spent the beautiful sunny Sunday morning and afternoon wrecking Belgrade merely because they are homophobic, although I do believe that they would be much happier individuals if they spent less time on hate. I feel sorry for them because they are hopeless.

Someone risking to get arrested or seriously injured, exposing himself to scrutiny and judgement by national and international media, in order to make a statement of hate (while by doing so gaining no rights or benefits) has clearly been demoralized, to say the least. This is someone who has little or nothing to loose. He is insecure and lost. He explains himself with "I don't want my son to be gay!", a statement that gives him a problem to solve and an excuse to let out the beast in him - "Hide them, scare them, kill them all!" The poor fellow really is convinced that exposure makes children gay. He yells out to the cops a clever parole thought up by his politically motivated, rather intelligent leaders: "You're defending Kosovo diplomatically but protecting the gays with force!" All of a sudden he is an informed activist. He has a purpose. He has something to hope for. These are all things he cannot get elsewhere. On his way home, he will break a couple of shop windows and steal an additional pair of Nike's. This heroic day provided the unaffordable 200 euro pair of shoes he has been eying for weeks! Aha, happiness, for several minutes at least...

Maybe I am utterly foolish, but I feel sad for him. And I am awakened and heartbroken to know that there are thousands of boys like him in Serbia today. I am clueless as to what the next step is. What do we do with them? They need help. But can we find it in our hearts to see them as the victim after all? Extremely challenging, but direly needed.

BBC's picture story

88 = 16

On June 14, my grandpa turned 88. When I asked how it felt, he said: Just like yesterday. Besides, 8+8=16 and that's how I always feel. Grandpa really is a miracle. He and my grandma (87) went to Tunisia on Friday and are going to the Canary Islands later on this summer. They have already been to France and Egypt this year and I am sure they are already scheming where to spend the winter holidays. Living by the moto - When you're our age, everything and anything is allowed - they really are an unstoppable couple. Grandpa also uses a GPS device, a smart-phone, a Facebook account, a synthesizer which he connects to a computer program through which he learns how to play, and many other gadgets too sophisticated for me to comprehend. As the years go by, he keeps getting smarter and I can see his French and English improve by the day. Every time I see him, he tells me about something he has learned browsing the internet and, more often than not, it is stuff that I have never even heard of.

Grandma is special in her own ways. Very stubborn, very opinionated, very strict. Although today she uses her age as an excuse, I really think she always thought she was allowed to do anything. Raised in a bourgeois family, she would steal skis and other expensive goods from her own household to donate for the Partisans, then a guerrilla force fighting for liberation from the Nazi's. Grandma sometimes brags in a nonchalant tone about her contributions to WWII resistance as a medical worker. She traveled on foot and on horse with her own group of all-male Partisans from Belgrade to Zagreb through wilderness and forests. She entered Zagreb on a horse, on the very day that it was liberated, surrounded by the boys that she had been taking care of. Although she supported the communists when it was very dangerous to do so, Grandma left the Communist Party in disappointment when not supporting them was dangerous. Ever since, she has been very used to disagreeing with the world and I think she overcomes it all by being convinced that she is always right.

One hot summer in the mid 50's, Grandpa was riding around with his motorcycle buddies when he noticed Grandma. She was the only girl in Belgrade to ride a motorcycle at the time and techie Grandpa couldn't help but notice that it was a nice one too. Decades after they had fallen for each other so unconventionally, they have decelerated to a more predictable life. Regardless of their plentiful travel, they do have to comply with some rules - lunch is at 12:30, nap time is from 2:00-4:00, dinner is at 6:00, bedtime at 9, etc. For as long as I have been around and can remember, they have been splitting a 0.75 liter bottle of beer for lunch. Having already had bad experience in Tunisia, where beer is very difficult to find and expensive, Grandma decided she would pack 10 0.75 cans of beer for the 10 days of their vacation, for them to split a can each lunch. Grandpa disproved, but she had decided and that was it. So, she packed 5 cans in her own suitcase and the other 5 into Grandpa's case, secretly. I can just imagine the Partisan inside her chuckle when she did this - He may be against it now, but when I surprise him with a can... heh heh.

Lo and behold, their suitcases arrived to Tunisia safely, yet completely wet. The cans exploded from the juggling and air pressure. In a very inconvenient way, Grandma was busted. Somehow, they did not have any problems going through the customs. Somehow, they survived the embarrassment of walking into their 4 star hotel smelling like two alcoholics. But when they arrived to the room, Grandpa found that even his fancy camera had gotten wet. Let's just say that I received an ample of angry text messages from Grandpa. They are not back yet but I hope that they got over it quickly and started enjoying their trip. In the meantime, I have been seriously considering being a third wheeler on the trip to the Canary Islands, if they'll have me. I am sure it would be a one of a kind adventure. Who knows what our guerrilla traveler has prepared for that episode. Stay tuned...

North Korea Spreading Hope?

Last night, I went to a bar in Belgrade with my friends to watch Brazil, the number one soccer team in the world, play against North Korea, one of the longest shots in this year's World Cup. None of us expected much of the game and, if anything, we thought it would be a game full of Brazil's easy scores, one similar to when Argentina scored 6-0 against Serbia in 2006. Little did we know that North Korea's goal against two Brazilian goals would feel like victory for all of us.

As the North Korean anthem played and one of their players was shown crying his eyes out, an incredible sense of support and fellowship toward this team spread across the room. I kept thinking what it was like for the players to fly over to South Africa only to be uncertain whether their efforts would be broadcast home. I think that most of us remembered the 1994 World Cup in the US, when the UN Security Council imposed sports sanctions on Yugoslavia for political reasons and our teams had been prevented from playing in any international games or tournaments from 1992 to 1995. It would have meant the world to the broken moral of our country at the time to have played the World Cup.

Spontaneously, the entire cafe began cheering for the boys in red, whose no-name jerseys looked as if from a different era in comparison to the flashy Nike yellow-green outfits. Here and there, I would even imagine that the Chinese "fans volunteer army" was honestly cheering for North Korea. And perhaps it was. Perhaps it was too swept away with hope and sympathy like I was.

In Serbia we have a saying that goes like this - "There are few things money can't buy... Everything else is available at the Chinese market." Did North Korea actually manage to purchase support, not only from the Chinese but from people in Serbia and all around the world? Rumor has it that the player was instructed to cry during the anthem. Maybe we, the "spontaneous" supporters, were all just a part of President Kim Jong-il's game... But maybe, and hopefully, we simply remembered that all humans deserve a chance.

Mixers, Blenders, Shakers. Festivals For All.

I have been recovering from the 5-day festival "Mikser" for the past 3 days and things not look promising. I feel tired, unproductive and, by the looks of it, I am going to need a couple of more days to get back to myself. This time, I think it was well worth it though.

I knew that the festival was going to be a peculiar one, judging by its location. As I approached the gray scary-looking humongous wheat mills in an abandoned industrial zone of Belgrade, I could not imagine what was coming. Labeled as a Design Festival, Mikser (meaning mixer, like the one used for cooking) is much more than that. It seemed to me that it threw various aspects of the youth's subculture and social life in a bowl and literally mixed it into something very delicious, of universal taste. The way the industrial site was utilized for all of this was inspirational. Each day's repertoire offered a perfect blend of education, creativity and partying. Every day, I would start of by exploring the expo and talent zones, the former one mixing design talent with industry and the latter one, set in the midst of the "scary" silos towers, reserved for independent artists and designers of all sorts. Then, I would listen to a lecture or visit the open air "kino" to see a documentary. Hopping from one "zone" to another, I would stop by the graffiti artists' stand, the tattoo stand, artisan workshops and - possibly the highlight of the festival - a hanging tunnel made up of packing tape that made you feel like you were in outer space when inside. The designers were all there and happy to talk about their art which was awesome, particularly for us non-artists. Filled with positive energy and ideas, I would watch the pink sun set behind the Danube and wait for the colorful selection of music performances to begin. Day after day, I got carried away and began taking this type of life for granted, as if it would not end.


Oof, fortunately, festival season is open in Serbia! Some of the festivals coming up or happening as we speak are Cinema City and Exit in Novi Sad, and Refract Festival, Belgrade Design Week, Japanism Festival, Nitrate Film Festival, Belgrade Summer Festival (BELEF), International Folk Festival, Beer Fest, the Boat Carnival, and many more in Belgrade.

I think I'll manage...

Our Good Friend Yugo

Maaarijaa come onnn!! Deki was yelling out to my window from the street, leaning on his white Yugo and reaching in through the window to honk, in his shiny-fluorescent-red tracksuit and rave shades, with trance blasting as loudly as it was possible with the car’s humble sound system. The tracksuit was sent from his uncle in Germany, making it very cool, regardless of the black two-headed eagle emblem, just like the one on the Albanian flag.

It was 8 AM and he had partied all night in a city in the north of Serbia but he was conscientious enough to leave for Belgrade and drive fast enough to make it in time to compete at the hair show at Hotel Yugoslavia. I was his “model”. I ran down and, before leaving, we did our usual synchronized Yugo shake – Deki stands on one side of the Yugo, I stand on the other, and we sway the car back and forth to hear how much gas is juggling inside. Yugo gas meters never worked and were impossible to repair.

We rushed over the bridge, crossing the Sava River onto New Belgrade and were in front of good old proud Hotel Yugoslavia in no time. With not as many cops and traffic on the streets of Belgrade as there are today, the Yugo was great for bringing us everywhere in time. We entered shabby Yugoslavia and walked through the dark hallways of what had been considered to be the most prestigious hotel in the Balkans, with a few shattering lights greeting us, to the room reserved for us and the hairdo. It was one of those rooms where Queen Elisabeth II, Nixon and Tina Turner would have stayed when visiting Tito’s great country in the 70’s and 80’s. It too was dark and shabby.

Deki did a few of his tricks and shortened my “model” hair even more, I painted my face with drastic make-up and we went to the show hall. As I walked the stage, everyone seemed to like my boy look, and Deki enjoyed himself mocking and making faces at me. The more I “modeled”, the more I resembled a boy, and all that seemed to matter at the time was to have fun while satisfying Deki’s strict boss, a coked out 40-something-year-old and the owner of the salon where he worked. Neither Deki or I ever earned any cash competing and presenting at these hair shows.

***

It’s 2 PM, following a successful hair show. A guy in a shiny-fluorescent-red tracksuit and rave shades and a girl with short white hair, black eye makeup and punk clothes are leaning on a white Yugo in front of Hotel Yugoslavia. The sun, fortified in the midst of New Belgrade’s communist blocks where shade is scarce, is melting the girl’s cakey and over exaggerated makeup. The guy is also sweating severely under his cool polyester outfit.

What are they scheming?

***

We decided it was useless to go home, rest until the evening and meet up again. We hopped into the Yugo, put on a psychedelic trance tape and let the fun begin. After a stop to the gas station for beers, we headed to our usual parking lot, where I would practice driving. Deki considered the Yugo to be sort of like a drivers’ boot camp. He would always say that the best drivers learnt how to drive on a Yugo and that, if I learned all of the tricks on a Yugo, it will make any other vehicle a piece of cake. We parked the car to drink a beer and relax a bit. He was giving me some pointers on parking as I noticed two cops approach us. We turned down the music. What a pain. They rarely ever approached us for something substantial and it seemed like too nice of a day to chitchat with them, especially since we were looking to save up the little cash we had for beers in the evening, not waste it on bribes.

“Good day”, they looked at us as if they were on to something. “Can we see your license and registration?”

It was a good thing Deki and I hadn’t swapped seats yet. He had me hold on to his beer as he searched for the documents and handed them to the fatter cop.

“So, what are the two of you doing here?” –the other one asked.

“Uh, you know, we just thought we’d enjoy the sun, hang out… the usual…” Deki responded nervously hoping the cop would stop gazing into the beers I was holding.

“Open your trunk.”

As the fat and the fatter cop shuffled the messy trunk, we rolled our eyes. This annoying procedure was a standard way for to get us to pay up when in hurry or simply looking to avoid embarrassment in front of a girl. This would have been the 30^th time that the Yugo was undergoing such an exhaustive search and Deki and I were too good of friends to be embarrassed by this situation so we silently agreed on not giving them the cash. 45 minutes later, the fatter cop was sweatier than polyestered Deki and pissed that we had all the time in the world for their “procedure”. His red dripping face crawled in through the window.

“Next time, take her home to fuck her. It must be rather uncomfortable here,” he said as he returned Deki's papers.

Like a pair of angry chubby boys disappointed about not getting the candy they had been anticipating, they trotted off to their Yugo 101 Skala and drove off. The finishing touch of their performance, the degrading childish line, left us in numb shock. It was the type of shock you would get from the behavior of a person, who you know pretty well but disliked, who you thought would not be able to shock you anymore than they already had, but they still manage to. Time after time.

We watched the sun set behind Belgrade, poured down a couple of more beers, and decided it was not the day for me to practice driving. “Besides”, Deki was now arguing a contradictory yet equally valid Yugo theory to the one he had been selling an hour before, “if you learn how to drive on this Yugo, you will have trouble shifting gears on other cars”. Every Yugo has its own way of handling the stick shift and, more often than not, the first and reverse gears are particularly challenging and require extra strength and special angles in entering. Every owner is the master of his/her own stick shift and it is difficult to get accustomed to others after.

***

It was finally getting dark. Our time to shine. We drove over to Ivana’s and picked her up. Now when I look back at Deki’s white Yugo days, all I remember is excitement. The night after the parking lot incident with the cops was no different, no special. We drank, laughed, talked, smoked, mocked each other, danced, stuck our heads out the windows singing from the top of our lungs (to tracks blasting as loudly as it was possible from a Yugo). It was one of those moods that would make Ivana and I blow kisses at random drivers in cars around us. Bored cab drivers, lonely men and women, other careless youth like us. Blowing the kisses seemed to have a wonderful impact on everyone, confusion and surprise on their side, fun and spontaneity on our side.

The bastardly cops, the absurd hairshows and ridiculous hairdo’s, the coked-out boss, the messed up country and the shitty car couldn’t have mixed better. It was an accidental film for us to cast in as teenagers, a film full of mistakes and adaptations. And, for us, this life worked perfectly. Just like Deki’s white Yugo.

"Super-duper-natural"

Yesterday, I went to a festival called Supernatural, where the point was to promote sustainability through amusement with various band and DJ performances. In order to enter, we had to swap 3 cans, 3 plastic bottles and 3 magazines for 1 ticket. Everything seemed so idyllic, the Kosutnjak forest was full of beautiful people throwing frisbee and playing badminton to electronic music. However, as the day unveiled, it started getting colder, the happy pretty people got drunker and the green surfaces turned gray. Covered with trash.

"Well, they're going to have people clean it all up afterward either way", a friend of mine tried to make me feel better.

That's not the point. If one of the goals was to acquaint the Serbian youth with one of the easiest forms of waste management, then why was it difficult to set up recycling bins apart from the ones behind the bars and the one set that I spotted at the very entrance of this large two-stage festival? Moreover, water was only sold in plastic bottles and the bartenders were given orders to pour it out of the plastic bottles into plastic cups. I saw the bartenders dispose the original drink beverages - cans, water bottles, juice boxes and other glass bottles - into recycling bins but what about all of the plastic cups? I found myself having to put them down on the grass upon finishing each and I am not sure if the cups that covered the grass by the end of the night were recycled. Regardless, we generated much more waste than needed.

I felt like a fool walking my way out of the forest and to the bus stop. This, too, was one of the ways to decrease waste. A great one, I must say. The festival was made to be inaccessible by cars and the visitors were pushed to walk to and from the party in the beautiful spring weather. As much as it "added to the experience" on the way there, it felt rather silly on the way back.

Thank you forest, I've trashed you, and now I am walking home to feel good about it all.

I'll have some ash in my pancakes, please.

This week, Grandma treated me with her wonderful pancakes! The occasion? My 87-year-old grandparents have only two friends - a couple of the same age - with whom they organize Sunday lunches at each others' houses. It's exhausting, boring and often frustrating. Boba, the male friend, usually falls asleep within the first five minutes of sipping the aperitif, wakes up to groggily move over to the dining room to eat, and falls back asleep shortly after.

Nonetheless, this tradition gives my grandparents, and probably the other couple as well, something to prepare for, something to plan, and something to gossip about after.

The pancakes that Grandma spent Sunday morning making and that ended up as a treat for my coworkers were in fact intended for Boba and Jovanka. Grandma called me around noon to ask me to pick up the pancakes as there had been a sudden change in plans. The Sunday lunch that had not been skipped in a decade was not happening. Boba and Jovanka were not coming.

After a dramatic pause called for by the sudden shift in my heart from being excited for the pancakes to worrying about my grandparents' only friends, I gathered the courage to ask: "...why?"

"Boba is afraid of the volcanic ash cloud! He won't walk out of the house, you know him." - We simultaneously burst into hysterical laughter. Secretly feeling at ease, I told her I'd be there in 10 minutes.

Born in 1922 in Belgrade, my grandparents and their friend Boba witnessed a lot throughout their lives - the Nazi occupation followed by the "liberation" carpet bombing, the often kind and sometimes very unkind communist rule, Milosevic's rule, sanctions, embargo, the second highest hyperinflation in world's history, the NATO bombing, the October 5th revolution and countless additional life complications - all to be lucky enough to be healthy and alive at the age of 87.

Why on Earth is Boba worrying about volcanic ash?

The names mentioned in this blog entry are fictional based on real characters.

One Proud Ballerina

The Ballerina - a typical ride on Serbian fairs, festivals (including the BeerFest) and portable amusement parks (we do not have a real amusement park yet and the closest thing to it was Bambiland, a controversial park built by Milosevic's son in the 90's and abandoned after Milosevic's fall) - set in front of a prototype communist building with a Heineken add. This spot is located on Belgrade's Danube riverbank, between the delta of Sava and Danube and the historic Zemun area.

Another Yugoslavian Breakup & Lousy Makeup

After several false announcements, the Sarajevo - Belgrade railway is back in business. Some foreign media have romanticized this but I must say I find it rather confusing.

The luxurious Olympic Express, coined so after being garnished with a red carpet, upscale dining and stewardesses in smart uniforms for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, is now an outdated train segmented into 3 mismatched cars, each under the jurisdiction of a different railway company. Moreover, the Bosnian-Serb car disconnects where the Serbian part of Bosnia ends, never even reaching Sarajevo.

This faded train resembles the chaos that captured Yugoslavia during the war. What used to be a cross country train now has to cross two borders and two (often very unpleasant) passport controls. It runs once a day, rather than 3 times as was the case prior to the war. Its passengers - once cheerful party-goers, skiers and businessmen - have transformed into none but a few worn out faces.

Smoking is kind of allowed in the cafe car... While travelers may light up when passing Serbia and Bosnia, they are forbidden to do so when the train is crossing the more European, Croatian non-smoking tracks.

18 years after its last run through Yugoslavia, the Olympic Express is slower. Due to the severe warfare damages that the railway, bridges and facilities underwent, it now takes over 2 additional hours to get from Belgrade to Sarajevo. So finally, the results of our war have in some way been quantified: we are two hours further apart, whatever that means.

Its windows smeared and seats shabby, the train looks nothing like its old self, when it was called the Olympic Express and trumpeted as the pride of the Communist-run nation.

www.guardian.co.uk , 13 December 2009

Market Middlemen

While the post-communist transition process picks up in Serbia, even the make up of our open air markets has been transforming. As real peasants can no longer afford to travel to the cities to sell their produce, the middlemen/women of the markets have prospered. The buyers do not trust these new "businessmen", partly because the prices have considerably risen and partly because they are unsure about where the food they buy comes from. Thus, the market middlemen wear clothing as similar as possible to the stereotype image of the Serbian peasant, in hope that someone will mistake them for one and become a regular customer.

Serbocab

Stepping out of Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport, you will be happy to find what seems like a line of legitimate taxis right at the exit of the arrivals section. Such a convenience!

Do not be fooled. These taxis are what are commonly known as "divljak", literally meaning "vandals" in English. Unfortunately for us Serbs, airport - city transfers are the first impression visitors gain of a country, which is why I feel particularly passionate about helping you avoid "divljake".

What the locals do in order to get a cab is they either call one or waive one that has a blue plastic sign with white numbers next to its Taxi sign, like the one in the photo below:
Either way, be sure to avoid the following taxi stations:

• In front of the Tesla Airport
• In front of the Train Station
• Taxis by Trg Republike (the main square)
• Taxis lined up on Terazije, in front of the Benetton store
  

Divljak taxis will not only rip you off but also drive you around in circles and tend to be very aggressive if you confront them. Whenever I have tried to resolve these issues, I have lost, had to pay the amount of money that their adjusted meter suggested and ended up on the verge of tears. Not worth it.

So, there are two ways for you to get to the Belgrade's city center from the Tesla Airport and vice versa. One is the shuttle bus organized by JAT Airways, which takes you to Slavija and from where you can catch a variety of buses, trams, trolley buses and taxis. These buses leave hourly from the Tesla Airport to Slavija 7 AM - 10 PM, as well as from Slavija to the Tesla Airport 5 AM - 9 PM. JAT passengers get a complimentary voucher for these buses; otherwise, the price is RSD 250 / a bit under EUR 3. Tickets are bought inside the bus.

The other option is to stick with the taxi. However, do ask someone at the airport to call one for you. The standard rate to get from the Tesla Airport to any destination in the city center is EUR 10, when riding the on-call taxi.

Some legitimate taxi companies and their phone numbers are:

• Beo: (+38111) 970
• Beogradski: (+38111) 9801
• Maksis: (+38111) 9804
• Pink: (+38111) 9803

You should use these numbers throughout your stay in Belgrade and, when not going to or from the airport, you get a 20% discount on on-call drives. These taxis are registered, monitored by their taxi association and are reliable. Unless there is a complete collapse in the city due to weather conditions or a strike, they arrive in 3 minutes.

Random tip: when getting in and out of the taxi, avoid opening the rear door on the driver's side. This is where the wire that connects to the taxi sign goes through and using this door will show that you are foreign!