Belgrade, Serbia - Do You Mr. Jones?
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2006
1
12
110
Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
Belgrade,
Serbia and Montenegro
Friday, May 26, 2006
That chorus sums up my experience in Belgrade. I just never seemed to get it.
But first we need to realize that smoking can kill. Bear with me. I took the bus from Sofia to Beograd (or what we call Belgrade), which took seven hours to go a measly 220 miles because the border crossing took 1.5 hours and some of the roads were awful. Plus, the bathrooms at the border town where we had to change buses (with a one -our layover) were of the "stand-up shitter" variety - proof that this is not the first world. Even worse, though, after paying for the right to use the stand-up shitter, the tank on the wall holding the clean water fell off one of its moorings when I pulled the handle - the hose separated from the tank, and it spilled a couple of liters of water on the wall, the floor, and on my shoes. I didn't even touch, let alone try to fix it. No, I fled/slunk back to the bus without comment, where a few hours later a carton of duty-free cigarettes fell from the overhead storage space, nearly conking its sleeping owner on the noggin
Boat in a Moat
. The carton landed in the aisle with its huge warning label - "Smoking Kills" - face-up. they couldn't say it if it wasn't true, right? Just not quite this time.In short, Belgrade is a big, bustling, European capital. It's the third or fourth biggest in the Balkans and trying to resume its role as the business and market capital for the entire region. They had the little problem of NATO bombing them silly in 1999, but they are working on recovering from that. I went to the Serbian Military Museum and (you can learn this much better on line), suffice it to say, the Balkans have been a cross-roads for every government with a hard-on for expansion since before there were even Slavs here (1300 years ago). Serbia is believed to have been attacked 58 times. It sat in between the Greeks, the Roman Empire(s), the Austrian-Hungarians, the Ottomans, the Bulgars, the Franks, and a bunch of other forgotten 'ans. The spark for World War I was in sarajevo in 1914 when Gavrilo Princip of the Young Bosnia movement defenestrated (look it up ) Archduke Franz Ferdinand. After the war (where the Slavs fought the Central powers), a bunch of slap-happy U.N. globalist-types created the precursor to Yugoslavia - the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The problem is they don't like each other, so that attempt at internationalism failed with the on-set of WWII, when the "proletariat" government sided with the Axis while the Socialists (led by Josef Tito) fought the Germans
Cafe Scene
. The socialista held their own (and better) against the Germans and naturally became allied with the Soviet Union after the war.And everybody was happy, happy, right? Of course not - the Serbs still hated the Bosnians and the Croats. The Christians hated the Moslems. And the right-handers hated the left-handers. Left alone to their own devices after the crumbling of the Soviet Union, they did what all right-minded people with deep-seated bigotry do - each sub-Yugoslav group demanded independence and started killing and persecuting each other to get it. Or, to put in words my nieces would understand;
"Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars..."
To make a really long story just longish, the international community treated it as an internal problem until Slobodan Milosevic starting massacring gobs of ethnic Muslim Albanians in Kosovo. Sure, it appears that the insurgent KLA (a group defined by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization) started it, but Slobo pushed his luck and lost. NATO bombed Serbia hard until Slobo said "No Mo." However, his forces did manage to be the first (and only I think) to shoot down an F-117 Stealth fighter - see the pictures of the uniform and part of the plane in my photo gallery.
All this is a long way of saying this town is a weird place. It has all the trappings of Europe - the confluence of the Danube and the Sava, a pretty rockin' fortress with tanks in the moat, Eastern European hotties dressed to the nines (without the U.S
Confluence of the Damube and the Sava
. roll) in high heels, hiphuggers, and matching handbags, walking the promenade on a Friday afternoon, and an extensive pedestrian-only area lined with stores and littered with more cafe's per square inch than any city I have ever visited, but I never figured the scene out. For example, the town didn't seem to have bars - only cafes and clubs.Specifically, I arrived on Tuesday and went to the Old Bohemian area of town, which has a street called the Stadarska that must have over 50 cafe/restaurants which specialize in national Serbian cuisine. I had a fine platter o' meat, and wandered around checking out a couple of cafes I found in a guide online.
On Wednesday, though, I expected the nightlife to pick up. I first went to a local live music venue. I sat at a table alone and a couple and a non-couple joined me. It was the birthday of the guy who was not coupled. I tried to chat up his non-partner, but he wasn't drinking and was pretty non-responsive and boring, so they shortly bailed because he was being a pill. I next tried to go to "Beggar's Banquet", a Rolling Stones tribute bar that I had seen written up in 3 guides, but what I found at the alleged address was a Jazz bar. So I wnet up and down the block trying to see if the address was off, but all I could find was "Fili" - a bar full of long-hairs (very unusual in the Balkans, where the No.1 razor is a popular fashion tool), which was cool, playing Frank Zappa (second reference this trip so far and counting) and punk, which was also cool, but there was no real action because it was a bunch of freaks talking to each other
Detroit in the House!
. After I reached my freak limit, I went back to the Jazz bar, and, upon leaving it, noticed that the welcome mat said "Beggar's Banquet," so I think I had found the right place but it had gone out of business since the publication of all the guides, including an online one.On Thurday, my cluelessness continued. First, I went 0 for 3 at dinner, when my waiter said the salad I wanted wasn't available, the soup I wanted wasn't available, and brought me a different entree from what I ordered. Arguing with someone who doesn't speak English (and doesn't work for tips) is futile, so I just went with flow. The food was all fine, but I was left with the feeling that they made a few dishes a night and just gave them to the Yanquis regardless.
Next, several people had told me (and everything I read) said that during the summer the party scene was on boats on the river that became all-night bars/clubs. I could see the boats across the river, so I took a cab over there. When I get there, though, they were all dark but two, and those had about six people in them each, who were well-dressed Serbs with expensive cars out front and expensive looking women on their arms. Plus, the boats were playing "turbo-folk" - a god-awful, intolerable combination of a traditional Serbian song sung to the accompaniment of a techno beat played on a $100 Casio keyboard. I felt underdressed without my sidearm, so I took a cab back, and all I could find near my hotel was a gay bar
Exhibit at Serbian War Museum
. I can get that at home. The capper, though, was that some people I met on the bus to Sarajevo today who said that they went out those boats the next night (Friday) and had a blast. Hence, my feeling that something was going on in Belgrade, but I had no idea what it was. To further that frustration, I read a thing on-line about all these secret clubs in apartments and basements, etc., that would go from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., but they had fluid locations, so one just had to look for them. Me? Never got a whiff. I did find "Mr. Steven Brown," a club which even placed fliers in my hotel lobby, but the goons at the door said it was a private party, and I was even wearing a collared shirt!
Come Friday, I had given up hoping to figure Belgrade out, so I went and saw "The Sirens", a glam punk band from Detroit playing at the university student center. They were kind-of amusing, but no great shakes as musicians. They did, however, play covers of "Fox on the Run" by Sweet, and "Search and Destroy" by Iggy Pop and the Stooges, and I hung out with a couple of them afterwards (see the photo). It was their first day of a 16-day Serbian tour and they were already a little overwhelmed. All I can say is that Serbia made so little sense to me that I suspect it is the perfect small country to have an unknown (2 singles released primarily on MySpace), unfinished, unmarketable band play 16 dates. "Dude, we're huge in Serbia!!!"
Asides: (1) I got a haircut here. I think its better than many I have got at home, so there is one reason to come back; (2) my theory about porn on TV being inversely related to the availability of other outlets is collapsing - the porn on TV remains constant, but the prevalence of strip clubs, brothels, other outlets fluctuates wildly from city to city. C'est le vie - their goes my Nobel in sociology.
Next Stop: Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzogovinia
Comments
Green Eggs and Spam
Only you could get a Dylan lyric, a Dr. Suess quote, and a shitter story all within the confines of a single blog entry.
That being said, I know you - and you wouldn't recognize a Zappa tune save your life.
Re: Green Eggs and Spam
I can when it is 'watch out where the huskies go, don't you eat that yellow snow.'
inspiration and perspiration
'Mr. Steven Brown' would be a good name for a sock, although, otoh, it is sort of outable.