Republic Square sits in the heart of Belgrade, and many say it is the heart of Belgrade. It features the famous statue of Prince Michael and is bordered by the National Theatre and the National Museum. In 1997 it was the site of the anti-Milosevic rallies.
A visit to the National Museum has been on my wish list ever since I arrived in Belgrade, and Draga kindly planned it into to our busy schedule. “It’s enormous,” she says excitedly, as I cast one more look upon the sizable scrotum of Prince Michael’s horse. “I visited this museum at least ten times in my youth. If you want to understand my people, you should see this museum.”
Caryatides by Ivan Mestrovic
at the National Museum of Serbia
The entrance on the square is blocked by scaffolds but the one on Ulica Vase Carapica is open. We enter and ascend a wide staircase flanked by two imposing rows of Caryatides, created by Ivan Mestrovic, who also made Victor, the signature statue at Kalemegdan and symbol of Belgrade.
A tired man with glasses like jam jar bottoms and wild curly hair sits in the ticket booth. The photo on his ID proves that he was young once. He smiles wryly as Draga orders two tickets, and informs us that the National Museum is closed for tourists and has been closed for a decade, ever since the NATO bombing of 1999. The collection is in storage in the basement. “For students of history of art we keep a special program, with the highlights on display. Not many of those come here though,” says the man.
There are plans to reinstate the museum but the board needs 100 million Euro to accomplish that, the man insists. Somehow that seems a bit excessive to me, but I recognize the grim reality of a culture that does have money to build enormous shopping malls and a cathedral devoted to the national hero Saint Sava, but not to preserve the memories of a troubled past.
“A wounded man will try to become better first,” explains the man, “Only when he’s back on his feet, he might want to know what struck him down.”
He’s been here his whole adult life and has seen it all; the masses mourning after Tito’s death, Milosevic working the crowds when they still believed him, and their protests when they did no more. He held on to his ticket counter when the bombs destroyed the buildings around him and when the people outside began to celebrate peace. He sat there when men crated the relics that told it all and carried them down to the basement.
We say goodbye to the man, and sink to street level between the parades of Caryatides. They stand there as proud as they were when they were first installed and care not that they uphold an empty vault, or even supply the last refuge of a man who hold a nation’s history behind his tear filled eyes.
The English speaking traveler to Serbia will be pleasantly surprised to find pretty much everybody capable of conversing in English on a basic level. And the same traveler will be even more surprised to find many young Serbs fully fluent in English.
The national language of Serbia is Serbian, which is a Slavic language based on a Latin grammatical structure. That means the daily conversation covers three genders, eight tenses and seven declinations, which any foreigner will find virtually impossible to master. Wisdoms conveyed in Serbian supersede Boolean logic, as demonstrated by the double negation feature, which never ceases to flummox me. The perfectly proper sentence “Nista nemam” literally means “Nothing I not have,” which logically means “I have everything,” but which every Serb understands to denote a complete absence of possession.
Seen at Tesla Airport
Belgrade, Serbia
Slavic and Germanic languages (such as English) are so different that even the most seasoned late learner will never get the hang of either one. The afore mentioned declinations are the terror of the student who comes from a language area that does not deflect nouns. On the other hand, elements of the English language that we find utterly simple - such as the use of the (in)definite article - will remain a mystery to Slavic native speakers.
I’ve heard Serbian people say things like “all the night long,” or “wash car with the soap,” and then proceed to use words like “undulation,” “torpid” and “ostentatious.” I don’t know enough about the Serbian language to make a valid assessment but I’m guessing that the general Serb commands an incredible vocabulary and library of metaphoric images.
I was at an Internet café, nervously pacing between computer and printer, when the girl behind the counter said, “Don’t worry; I’ll fetch them for you.” Another time I met a fellow on a street corner holding a hand on his head, looking troubled, and I asked him what was up. He pointed at a piece of billboard that had come flying from a stand and said, “That struck me.”
A native from the Unites States would have said, “I‘ll get‘em for you,” and “I got hit.” A Brit would have invoked body parts at both occasions. An Aussie would probably have said something not relevant to either situation, and incomprehensible to anyone not an Aussie.
In the short period I’ve been here, I’ve only read a few books that were translated into English from Serbian. What I’ve noticed is that the Serbians like their texts as Baroque as Mozart, their style verbose and meandering as if every article is a play. It almost seems that the subordinate clause is the primary means of verbal expression in Serbia.
“People who grew up on a stone hill beneath such an exciting panorama cannot but be broad of gesture, stormy of temperament and changing of mood. These people, who stay in their city despite everything, even as history destroys and crumbles it, covering the land with layers of leaves and remnants of previous settlements and past civilizations, such people are capable of building their city anew, in a relaxed and unpretentious way; they are capable of building a city of human proportions.”
- Momo Kapor; A Guide to the Serbian Mentality.
Book sellers in Belgrade, Serbia
The Serbs are not only polyglots, capable of astounding precision in various languages, or so hooked on books that there are more bookseller than hot dog vendors on the streets of Belgrade, they also maintain two alphabets: the Latin one that I now use to talk to you albeit expanded with all kinds of dots and jingles to form 30 separate letters, and Cyrillic. Cyrillic was the original alphabet of the Serbian culture (standardized in 1814), and it’s still ubiquitous in Belgrade. It’s almost as if the heartwarming hospitality of the Serbs comes with a friendly warning that the heart of Serbia is quite private and guarded with a public key. I like that.
Plato Book Store
(Menu of the coffee corner)
In order to play a part on the global marketplace, the Latin alphabet was adopted by Serbia in 1830 (the same happened in many other countries, such as China and Japan). But because the original Cyrillic is far richer in sounds than, say, written English, the Latin alphabet had to be augmented with diacritics. This richness is consonants is so strong even that the Serbian language has words that are written without vowels. Utterly curious to a foreign observer are words like krnj (meaning defective) or krst (means cross).
Bil Brajson (Bill Bryson)
Made in America
Another curiosity is that some words that are incorporated from other language would be pronounced incorrectly when absorbed as-is. That leads to formations such as Academija (Academy) and kvota (quota). Even names befall this fate. In Serbia, Angelina Jolie is known as Andjelina Djoli, I am Ari Ajtenbogard, and I was amused and endeared to find books by my beloved author Bill Bryson offered under the name Bil Brajson.
The title of his book Made In America remained unchanged, and no Serb in the bookstore seemed to mind.
To be, or not to be– that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet
The Horse Statue at Republic Square in Belgrade, Serbia
Quite literally at the heart of Belgrade stands the statue simply known as The Horse. It’s located on the central Trg Republike (Republic Square), but it’s also the prime reference point of the city. Before venturing into town, clubbers meet ‘at the horse,’ and every direction to any other sight-to-see starts with the horse. To get to Kalemegdan, walk from the horse to Knez Mihailova, and follow that street in the direction of the horse’s but. To get to theatre Atalje 212, follow the arm of the guy sitting on the horse.
But who is the guy sitting on the horse and where is he pointing at, other than theatre Atalje 212?
Horse Statue - Belgrade, Serbia
Equestrian statues are common in our world. They usually depict military leaders who played crucial roles in the evolution of countries. Rearing horse statues are rare because balancing such a sculpture necessitates the horse to be almost vertical, and that will inadvertently push the rider into a pose that fails to convey an authoritative and astute composure. Subjects like to see their rulers to be in control of things. A horse that caries such a ruler has no business rearing. It should slowly but surely progress.
Hence, horses are commonly shown to daftly step, in subject to their rider, who usually sits there pointing at something. His pointing shows the ruler’s determinative aim for some kind of objective, which is a future state much rather than a physical destination. The horseman of Belgrade does so too. But he did that at some point in the 19th century, when his nation still had a very long trot coming.
Prince Michael - Horse Statue
Prince Michael (Mihailo Obrenovic) ruled Serbia as a vassal subjected to the Ottoman Sultan. He strengthened the nation by supporting Serbian literature, and in the early 1880’s he reorganized the Serbian army into becoming the strongest army in the Balkan. To give his creation a try he revolted against the Turks, who withdrew into Kalemegdan and started bombing the town from within. Prince Michael felt forced to call off his armed revolt but continued his resistance on the diplomatic front. In 1867 the Turks pulled out of Belgrade, and some years later they surrendered all control of Serbia. That ended their 400 years occupation.
It also ended the brutalities with which the Turks would keep the Serbs subdued. One way of executing insurrectionaries was impaling them in front of the Stambol Gate. When the Turks left, that gate was razed to the ground, leaving an open space in the city that would become Trg Republike. (An ‘inner’ Stambol gate can still be found at Kalemegdan). In 1882 the square was adorned with a monument to Prince Michael seated on a stallion. Perhaps he points at a liberated Serbia, perhaps he’s showing the Turks or any other invasion force the door, and perhaps he’s pointing merely to show that the going is compulsory; countries must evolve just like rivers must flow.
Horse Statue on Republic Square - Belgrade, Serbia
Belgrade was bombed in 1914 by the Austro-Hungarians, by the Luftwaffe in 1941, by the Allies in 1944 and by the NATO in 1999.
Prince Michael never experienced the independence of Serbia. He was assassinated in 1868. But on Republic Square, Prince Michael will never stop pointing, and the Belgradians will never stop meeting.
Looking at how people behave in their cars is an excellent way to estimate how people are when they’re not in their cars. I’ve driven all over the world but taking the car into any metropolis remains a daunting enterprise.
In Boston, for instance, driving means partaking in a collective panic attack. The flow of traffic is largely organic, meaning that drivers don’t typically stay in their lanes but go wherever the traffic pushes them to go. Honking the horn is ultimately ineffective in congested traffic but Bostonians lean in on that thing like there’s no tomorrow. Leaning out the window and diverting blame is also an integral part of Bostonian automotion. Meet a Bostonian out of his car and he’ll seem to apogee of chivalry. But beneath that composed exterior shudders the heart of a chicken.
In the Netherlands people drive with calculated precision. They also drive 120 kilometer per hour, stay at a safe distance from the next guy and rarely honk their horns. Once there was a fire in a tunnel. Folks that drove into the tunnel brought their cars slowly to a standstill, waited until the cars behind them were stopped too, put the car in reverse and slowly backed the whole herd out of the tunnel. No one was hurt. No car was damaged.
Driving in Poland is like driving in Boston during a Martian invasion. It’s not unusual to see five cars side by side going in three directions on a two-lane road full of holes. Poles will honk at each other for stopping, accelerating, overtaking or refraining from doing those things. Poles loath foreigners, loath Poles and loath themselves, and make that known by turning driving into a perpetual assassination-slash-suicide attempt. Speed limits mean nothing in Poland. Stripes on the road mean even less. Fans of demolition derbies should all move to Poland and let it rip.
Much to my surprise, driving in Belgrade is much more like driving in the Netherlands than driving in Poland. Even though Belgrade is fantastically congested, Belgradians are courteous, cautious and precise. They’ll let you in, give you right of way and only honk at you when you really deserve it. Drivers in Belgrade all seem to share the knowledge that cars are expensive and lives are easily destroyed. As in any big city, drivers in Belgrade will suffer an occasional ‘Flojd moment,’ but in general the going is slow and easy.
I have a theory about that.
When the iron curtain fell, only very few people in Poland owned a car. In the early nineties especially young people went abroad to earn money, and when they came back (if they came back) they would buy cars. That means that the collective driving tradition in Poland is very young and upheld largely by impetuous and discontented kids.
In Serbia, owning a car was very common during the Tito years. When the economy collapsed, salaries decimated but the cars that people had stayed those same cars. Somebody with a car that once set him back an annual salary suddenly owned a car that was worth ten years of labor. When the gas prices went up, people drove less and very careful when they did.
Nowadays salaries in Serbia are about 10% of what they are in the West, but the traffic seems quite equal to that of the West. There are very few shitty-olds and many well-maintained small sedans. Occasionally the stray Mercedes or BMW will zip by, but cars in Belgrade are mostly 10 year old hand downs from Germany and Italy. And they’re driven with the same grace and hospitality the Serbs will show when they’re not driving.
The quaint Ruzica Church, hugging the wall of Kalemegan fortress, should be high on the wish-list of every visitor to Belgrade, Serbia. In the summer it’s entirely covered in green ivy, making it one of the most appreciated churches in the world and a symbol of Belgrade’s recuperation.
Ruzica means Little Rose, or Rosie (the diminutive of Ruza), although its official name is Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God. Belgradians started calling it Ruzica when a local legend began to take root.
The story goes that once, some six centuries ago, there were two ruling brothers Jaksici, who together had three daughters: Dragica (after draga meaning precious; darling), Ljubica (after ljubav, meaning to love; beloved) and Ruzica; little rose. The brothers built three churches; one for each daughter. The churches were originally named after saints but the people of Belgrade rendered them the names of the three Jaksici daughters.
Ruzica Church Interior - Belgrade, Serbia
Wars destroyed the churches of Dragica and Ljubica, and only the church of Ruzica remained, even when the Turks invaded and occupied Serbia. When the Austrians conquered Belgrade, they made Rose Church into a gun powder store. The Turks retaliated, drove out the Austrians but recognized the merits of Rose Church as an arsenal.
Late nineteenth century the Turks were kindly asked to leave Belgrade to the Belgradians, and after some inventive incentives they actually went. Rose Church was cleared from ammo and reinstated as a church.
Chandelier Ruzica Church - Belgrade, Serbia
Since Rose Church is located at Kalemedgan, an ancient battle fortress, remnants of war abounded. To commemorate the persistence of the Serbs and their Rose Church, some of the spent bullets, swords and other weaponry that were unearthed during clean up were collected and made into striking chandeliers.
That the church is now entirely covered in green vegetation is unanimously recognized to be a sign from God: Rose lives and will forever.
Visitors to the battle fortress of Kalemegdan in Belgrade will see a gold cross over the north wall. By all means, follow that cross, because below it sits one of the prettiest little chapels you’ll ever see: the church of Saint Petka.
Church of Saint Petka - Kalemegdan, Belgrade
Petka, or Parascheva (Greek for Friday; kind of cute in a Robinson Crusoe kind of way) was born in the 11th century, in Epibatos, a town in Turkey, just west of Constantinople. Like Saint Martin, she too gave her clothes away to beggars. She lived as an ascetic in Jerusalem for a few years but then went home. She died anonymously at age 27 and was interred in an unmarked grave.
Some years later a dead sailor washed ashore and he was buried next to Petka. But his corpse gave off such a pungent smell that saint Petka felt compelled to appear to a local monk, with the request to move her body away from the stinking sailor. When the villagers dug up the body of Petka, it was found to be in tact, and she was recognized as a saint. The body was transferred to a more worthy place.
The Woman at the Well
Church of Saint Petka - Kalemegdan, Belgrade, Serbia
“But we have her finger,” says Ilija Jovicic, the friendly young priest. Taking pictures in the chapel is forbidden but I get special permission. He even shows us around.
“Try some of the water,” he says, pointing at the famous spring water that comes trickling down a pipe, into specially manufactured Petka bottles.
Although there have been chapels on this spot for centuries, the present church of Saint Petka was built in 1937. The stunning mosaics are from the early eighties.
Should you ever be in Belgrade with an evening to spare, do yourself a favor and go to any play that features Dragan Jovanovic. I’ve seen two now and although I understand about five Serbian words, I spent both evenings in stitches.
Dragan Jovanovic is Belgrade’s resident jester as much as political mirror. His plays invariably take the piss out of everybody and anything but always in the kind manner of a family friend. He never insults but eagerly shows how silly we really are.
Jovanovic & Company
More Boney M than Boney M
His vocal range is enormous; he’ll squeal out in arrested amazement, howl like a banshee or cheer on an invisible football team in hoarse brays. Whenever there’s a need to, he dances like only he can.
No one is immune to his antics. Even his fellow actors jackknife on occasion, and the play is suspended, the fourth wall is shattered and Dragan Jovanovic prances about wallowing in standing ovations.
Jovanovic as Che (or Gay?) Guevara
If you haven’t seen Dragan, you haven’t been to Belgrade.
The castle’s been luring us since we arrived. We can see it from our window, through the concrete high rises; a park with lawns that are green even in the winter, surrounded by an ancient wall. On its highest point is the castle itself: Kalemedgan.
We walk side by side as if we’re representing a new Europe that looks back on its past; she is Serbian, I am Dutch. She’s orthodox, I am protestant. While I grew up in economical prosperity, she stood in line for bread. Now my world is overflowing hers. We follow the pedestrian shopping street Knez Mihajlova until we reach the entrance to the park. I’m pleased to see welcoming signs with clear explanations of what this building is all about.
For millennia people have drawn towards the confluence of the rivers Sava and Danube, and where these signature rivers kept washing the land clean, armies brought their conflicts and left their dead and weaponry, planted flags and claimed this magical spot for themselves.
Inner Stambol Gate - Kalemedgdan, Belgrade
The confluence has been occupied by settlers since antiquity. In the third century BC, Celts proclaimed it a dwelling but were disposed by the Romans. By then there was already a fortress there. The Romans battled the Huns from it, and legend has it that Attila’s body was interred below its walls.
The Turks conquered the fortress in the 16th century and called it Kalemegdan, after the words for battlefield and fortress. At the conclusion of the four hundred years Turkish occupation (with intermitted visits from the Austrians), the city of Belgrade decided it needed a monument to commemorate Serbia’s brittle victories. The world famous Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic was commissioned to create it. He finished the statue to see its installation thwarted by the outbreak of the First World War. The conflict left much of Belgrade destroyed but not the statue.
Victor - Kalemegdan, Belgrade
“His name is Winner,” says Draga, pointing at the huge, naked man on his pedestal. “He’s the symbol of Belgrade,” and explains that the Serbian word podobnik comes from the verb pobeda, meaning to win. In English this statue is known as Victor.
In 1918, the federation that would later be called Yugoslavia was pronounced in the Corfu Declaration, and the statue called Victor was erected on the edge of Kalemegdan’s grounds. It stood there silently overlooking the city in 1941 when Belgrade was bombed by the Luftwaffe, in 1944 when it was bombed by the Allies, and in 1989 when it was bombed by the NATO.
Victor - Kalemegdan, Belgrade
We stand looking up at the impressive sculpture. Victor offers the dove of peace on his outstretched left hand, but holds a sword in his right, hugged to his chest. The expression on his face is both defiant and entreating. Through his partly parted lips he seems to both expel a sigh of hope and a muffled provocation. His eyes, however, are decidedly passive, concerned even. Victor has the body of a war god but the face of an observant child.
My search for the heart of Serbia leads me to a studio in Belgrade, where I am to meet with one of Belgrade’s most promising young musicians; Novak Askovic, just 23 years old, who’s already managed to leave a mark on the local music scene, and is now putting Belgrade on the musical map of the world. But this world-mapping is going far too slow, according to some observers. What’s keeping Novak?
For a few moments I stand in front of a unmarked door. Then it opens.
“Come in,” says the handsome young composer generously, “I was just working on a score for a movie.”
I had secretly expected to find empty booze bottles strewn about and the familiar scent of weed hanging like a mist over the mixing tables, but no, there aren’t even ash trays. Novak doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t drink, doesn’t even smoke.
“I do music,” he says shortly.
“What’s this called?” I ask as suspense, thrill, careful confidence and sensual tension slowly build up. Synthesized strings sway over a clean snare and a deep, almost ska-base. The frivolous melody is carried by a plucky piano riff.
“It’s the score for a movie that doesn’t have a title yet, so my score doesn’t have a title yet either,” says Novak concentrating on his screen, searching from folder to folder through his master pieces.
“Scoring movies, is that your main occupation?
“For now I pay the bills with creating scores for movies and theatre productions. Soon we’ll be able to live off pure inspiration. A movie score augments visual images, but music in its purest form must be vivid enough to evoke images on its own.”
I’m mostly into classical music but even though Novak’s creations are a little out of my league, I do recognize quality when I hear it.
“I love classical music too,” says Novak, now leaning back into his chair, holding his hands behind his head, “But classical music is old. It’s been done before. I make new stuff, just like the classical composers who you like did. People like Mozart, Bach and Shubert didn’t get big from doing what everybody else was doing.”
In a split second I inspect his experimental studio. The only synthesizer in the room is a old Yamaha that looks like it has seen the rise of House in the eighties. Over a slot it says, “Insert floppy here.” A yellow post-it note says “London called.” Who’s London, I wonder.
“Do you ever make House?” I ask intelligently. Novak snickers. “It takes five minutes to make ten minutes of House,” he says, “Everything you need for House is a side-chain, sprinkle it with beeps and gimmicks and you got yourself a House hit. House is poverty. I’m Dubstep, drum-bass, all that. Everything is experimental.”
Novak Askovic
Musicians struggle with the issue of money everywhere, but musicians from a challenged economy, such as that of Serbia, must always have been at an unfair disadvantage. Instruments tend to cost an uneven fortune to folks who have no idea where their next meal might come from, and when they’ve finally saved up enough to buy an instrument, their economic disadvantage makes it difficult to seek out musicians from other cultures and study their work. Now that music in made mostly on computers, it doesn’t matter anymore how old the computer is (creating a piece on Windows 92 will sound the same as one made on Vista, it’ll just take a bit longer).
“We’re no longer bound to genre or even location, for that matter,“ says Novak cheerfully. “Through the Internet I can listen freely to music from all over the world, and adapt what I like and reject what I don’t.”
His phone rings. Novak mumbles short commands in English and disconnects.
“Vienna,” he says as if I’m supposed to know what that means.
“Can you explain the title Hormon (Serbian for Hormone)?” I ask as Novak changes the track. “Listen,” he says. “If I have to talk about my music, my music would be inadequate. I’d have to become a writer, like you.”
“There’s Prodigy here,” I note. Novak politely concurs but then explains that Bach is also not in every violin concerto, just because Bach wrote some.
Then I hear it. Where Prodigy sounds mostly intrusive, Novak stays harmonic. Prodigy expresses mostly discontent but Novak’s piece carries desire and passion. When the haunting vocals of Bojana Racic kick in, I’m sold and drift off into a lucid trance. I see caravans of camels towing Joseph off to oblivion; Cathy cry out for Heathcliff over the windy moors, and 47 Ronin weep in anguish over their dead Daimyo.
“My music tells stories,” explains Novak helpfully. “Each one of my pieces has what I call a movie-moment; a harmonic climax that will absorb the listener and trigger visual images. In Hormon I use a Shamisen, a Japanese instrument - you can even hear the clash of swords - but the harmonies are still western.”
Chakra unfolds into something distinctively Arabian. “Do you think that Serbia’s 400 years of occupation by the Turks makes it easier for you to adopt Arabian sounds into your music?”
“What? Which Turks?” he replies wildly. “No you’re wrong. I also don’t incorporate yodeling or the MacDonald’s theme song, unless of course I find them musically striking. I scrounge the global music scene for unusual sounds and musical oddities and incorporate them based on their musical merits.”
“How come you’re not all over YouTube?” I ask. I tried to do some preliminary research but all I found were two songs that were uploaded years ago. “I made those when I was eighteen,” says Novak. “I’ve evolved since then. Now I tell stories and people should take their time to listen to them. They’re worth it, I can promise you that. I don’t want to create entertainment for bored people. Slow is better. Quick release gives you a quick but short career. I want my music to make a permanent mark. To stay there for years and years. I gave Chakra to one person and now it’s all over Belgrade, clubs and radio stations.”
“But isn’t that the dream of every musician?”
“There’s no money in publishing music. Money comes from live performances. The dream is to have people look for your music because they saw you perform live. We’re waiting for the right moment. We’re producing an album for Serbia release, but we‘re waiting until everything is just right. Launching a project such as this must be carefully planned. So that’s what we’re doing.”
“Is the musical climate of Serbia receptive of your kind of music?”
Novak stares at the floor for a brief moment. I can see I hit a nerve. “The musical climate in Serbia is still maturing. We’re the only group in Serbia that performs this kind of music live. But we’ve done DJ performances in Croatia and all around Serbia, and live performances at festivals with LTJ Bukem and Roni Size, both phenomenal artists. Future performances are scheduled all over Europe. A record label from Belgrade named IndieRecords published a CD, named CCBit. Evidence contributed a number named Blato (Serbian for Dirt). But it’s real Dubstep,” he warns as he leans over and hits enter.
“Aren’t you afraid that your right moment might never come?”
“No-no,” laughs Novak. “The right moment is not something that comes falling from the sky. The right moment is something you create, just like a musical composition. I spend 60% of my day composing music and 40% communicating with publishers and festival boards. The right moment is when you’ve created a storm and then cut the ropes that tie you down.”
“Who was that guy?” I mumble as I step out of the studio into the windy city. Ahead a grey Belgrade dons colors in the dawn. Behind me rises the basso drone of yet another Novak Askovic creation. I promise myself that before I’ll process my notes I’ll figure out exactly how I got this interview. Until I do, and probably after, I’ll live on in the realization that I’ve been moved like a pawn by a multifarious genius half my age.
Evidence
Evidence:
Novak Askovic: composition, key boards, production, DJ
Srdjan Adamovic: production, DJ
Nenad Bradas: production , MC
Bojana Racic: vocals
It takes us half an hour to find the car and about five to drive from Ljubljana to Belgrade. The highways in Slovenia and Croatia are in excellent shape but as soon as we cross the border into Serbia the blacktop begins to show signs of wear and demise. We cheer as we pass the Beograd sign but as we come to a slow halt in the congested traffic on Branko Bridge I’m beginning to doubt he wisdom of bringing a car into Belgrade.
Parking is a problem in every European city - since none of them was built with cars in mind - but parking in Belgrade is a complete nightmare. The inner city is divided into three zones; each zone has its limit on how long you can park. In the red zone one may park 60 minutes tops; in the yellow zone 120 minutes, and in the green zone 180 minutes. Zones are indicated by a red, yellow or green sign that features an all-telling image of a tow truck. Dues are to be paid at kiosks or, very hip, by sending your license plate number per SMS to number 9111 (for the red zone), 9112 (yellow) or 9113 (green).
These rules apply between 0700 and 2100 on weekdays and until 1400 on Saturdays. During those hours, officers armed with palmtops patrol the streets in search of freeloaders, who get towed without ado. Any Belgradian will tell you that once your car gets towed off, it’ll take half your vacation to get it back.
Most tricky is the interface between inner city and surroundings, where the green zone somewhat jaggedly flows over into the free zone. There are no chipper smiley-signs or something like that to indicate that you’re in the free zone, but you can recognize it from the outrageous amount of cars that are parked virtually everywhere; on sidewalks and lawns, often side by side and often blocking each other, showing a candid confidence of the Belgradians that everybody leaves for work around the same time. But even during the day, parking spots are hard to find. It seems that Belgradians park their cars somewhere and leave them there for ever.
Draga guides me from alley to alley, from friend’s house to friend’s house. The phone rings continuously from even more friends telling her that someone they know saw a free spot somewhere, at the other end of town. It takes us over two hours to arrive at the conclusion that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a foreigner to find a parking place in Belgrade. Morose but grateful we slide into the gaping hole of a parking garage in the heart of town. A small uniformed man with a badge and a Maclite welcomes us and promises to guard our car with his life. That will set us back a mere 90 Eurocents per hour.
Outside I raise my arm to hail a cab. About a dozen of them respond by rolling away from the curb towards us. Before Draga and I get in, we experience a moment of spiritual awakening as we stare at the pockets of emptiness they leave behind.
Leafing through tourist magazines at the visitor’s center on Republic Square, Draga expresses the wish to show me more of Serbia than just Belgrade. It’s only too bad that we don’t have a car.
“But I have a car,” I say realizing that I’m not entirely sure where I left it. “It’s in Ljubljana.”
A day later our lives are packed in Samsonite duffle bags, and we perch beneath them on the train from Belgrade to Ljubljana. For some reason the train ride from Belgrade to Ljubljana costs 13 Euro less than the other way around (36 Euro versus 49 Euro).
The pandemonium of the trip up to Belgrade is fortunately not repeated. We have the coupe to ourselves, and a peaceful nine hours of train travel ensue. Draga unfolds a blinding array of sandwiches, cookies, chocolate, juices in sturdy glass bottles and six liter of mineral water that had somehow made it into my backpack. She settles down with a Haruki Murakami, which is so exiting that I get a kick in the shins every other page or so. I am finally finishing Bill Bryson’s masterful tome At Home.
Countries slide by. Border patrol officers come and go and convince me that only the sweetest and kindest gentlemen are allowed to guard the interior borders of the former republic of Yugoslavia. Bill and I walk hand in hand through Tomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Cherry filled bonbons keep finding their way into my mouth. Snow begins to fall.
“Let’s go to Italy,” she says slowly when she looks up from her book, realizing I’ve been staring at her for the last hour.
“Okay,” I say, knowing very well I will never be able to say anything else to this woman.
You might not have guessed it but Serbia is becoming a tourist destination of note in Europe. From the website of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/axd/en/) I learn that on average 2 million people visit Serbia every year, and stay an average 3.5 nights. There are 7.3 million people living in Serbia, so the ratio of guest per resident would be about 0.3 per year. Compare this to the United States, where 60 million tourists visit 300 million residents, which is 0.2 tourists per resident per year (source: US Census Bureau at http://www.census.gov/). The Netherlands hosts a whopping 11 million annual guests and counts 17 million residents, which comes down to a ratio of 0.6 (source: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek at http://www.cbs.nl/).
Zladnik Hotel, Belgrade, Serbia
The average disposable income in Serbia is about 290 euro per month. In the United States this is a little less than 2700 euro, and in the Netherlands it’s a little more than 2700 euro, but in both cases it comes down to more than nine times as much as in Serbia. This is of course entirely unfair, but also quite convenient to foreign investors, and although it creates understandable envy, it also provides Serbia with an excellent momentum to establish a platform of international trade and tourism.
Serbia’s capital Belgrade alone has close to a hundred hotels, ranging in price from 120 euro per night for a suite and 70 for a double room at either the five star hotel Zlatnik or the five star President Hotel, to the 10 euro per bed per night Hostel Belgrade and the 5 euro per bed per night Chilton (which, coincidentally offers a free fifth night after a stay of four).
Hostel Belgrade
Food is such an important element of Serbian life that almost the entire ground floor of the inner city seems to consist of restaurants. Meals are invariable inexpensive - I never paid more than 25 euro for two but usually the graditi (bill) is more in the vicinity of 15 euro for two. It’s also a sheer miracle that Serbians are without exception slim as tent poles. Traditional Serbian meals consist mostly of meat and preparations for dinner usually follow doing the lunch dishes without much ado.
Chilton Hostel, Belgrade
Public transportation is excellent in Belgrade. Trams and buses go everywhere, although a bus only gets replaced by a shiny new one after a hundred years of faithful service, and I’ve personally suffered a trip or two in a screaming coffin chauffeured by Belgrade’s most death-defying drivers. Tickets are 40 euro cents when purchased at a kiosk, or 80 cents when bought on the bus, and are valid as long as you stay in the same bus or tram.
Since Belgrade has more cars than streets, it is perpetually cluttered, and a tourist may sit in a bus for an hour and a half and still be smack in the middle of town. The avid sight-seer is better off walking for more than one reason, but after an evening out in the town, a taxi will bring you anywhere for less than 10 euro. Of course, your chances are excellent that your taxi is a 1983 Renault and the taxi driver spends much of the trip trying to pry his Metallica tape from the deck, whilst huffing Marlboro‘s, which go for a euro and a half per pack.
Cevapcici, a traditional
Serbian dish
Tourist information centers can be found all over the city. The one most central is on Republic Square. You can find it by following the aim of Prince Michael on the horse, and then veering off to the right. Most bars will offer wireless internet, but for the light traveler there’s an excellent Internet café with computers on the fourth floor of the pleasant Vulcan bookstore just off the pedestrian shopping street Knez Mihajlova, five minutes away from the horse.
Belgradians are invariably courteous and most speak English. Their town offers excitement in all seasons and is home to countless museums, churches, shops, bars and restaurants. This combined with low prices leads Belgrade’s star as a favorite European tourist destination on a well deserved rise.
“This temple of God elevates out entire nation through the awareness that is has someone to elevate.”
- Pavle, Patriarch of Serbia.
Facing the enormous front of the Church of Saint Sava, I’m reminded of the parable Jesus tells, about a merchant who sells everything he has in order to be able to purchase a pearl of great value. The people of this struggling city, still marred by the latest war, invest the surplus of their slowly waxing economic momentum in the manifestation of a magnificent church devoted to Serbia’s arch-father Saint Sava, and in effect a shrine devoted to the identity of Serbia.
We walk from downtown south along Kralja Milana, approaching the enormous gleaming dome that’s enthroned at the far end of it. So approaching the church I think of Mount McKinley in the heart of Alaska, which sits on the horizon for half a day, slowly rising while we drive towards it and become smaller with each passing mile.
The exterior and surrounding complex of the Cathedral of Saint Sava was completed in 2004, and marked more than the finishing of a building.
Saint Sava (1169-1236) is venerated for composing much of Serbia’s legislation and initiating Serbian Orthodoxy. When in the 16th century the Turks overran Serbia they desecrated the Serbian national identity by ceremoniously digging up the bones of Sava and setting them on fire on the Vracar hill in Belgrade.
The Turkish occupation ceased three hundred years later. Plans for a Sava monument were forwarded in 1895, but the actual building had to wait until after the First World War and subsequent global crisis. When in 1939 the foundation was finally put down, the Second World War started and the building was put on hold again.
After WWII, Tito rose to power, and he didn’t see the need for a national church. Permission to continue the building was granted only in 1984. The central dome was lifted in place in 1989. And in 2004 the exterior and surrounding park was completed.
Now, even though the interior is still quite incomplete, the Cathedral of Saint Sava is rapidly becoming one of Belgrade’s most popular tourist destinations, and that rightly so. Travelers to this fair city will see the imposing edifice from all angles loom over the skyline, like a great white shepherd standing watch over his flock.
Some Cathedral of Saint Sava facts:
- The Cathedral of Saint Sava was partially inspired by the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
- It has a surface area of 7431 square meters and a volume of 170,000 cubic meters. When finished, the Cathedral of Saint Sava will be the largest working orthodox church in the world.
- The cathedral is equipped with 49 bells, 13 domes and 18 crosses. The main cross on the central dome is 10.5 meters high, weights 4 tonnes and rises 81 meters over the ground.
- The central dome is 27 meters high, 39.5 meters in diameter (inside diameter is 30.5 meters) and weighs 4,000 tonnes. It took 20 days to hoist it in place.
- 15,000 square meters of the interior will be covered in mosaics made from stones sizing about 1.3 square centimeters. That’ll come down to more than 11 million stones.
- The floor area of the Cathedral of Saint Sava is 3,850 square meters, enough to accommodate 10,000 worshippers.
- The surrounding park has an area of almost 60,000 square meters.
(Source: The Cathedral of Saint Sava, published by TV Studio “Beckerek”, Novi Sad. ISBN: 978-86-6103-000-0).
Like the hero with a thousand faces, Dragan Jovanovich - a charming and energetic fellow and Serbia’s most noted comic actor - transforms from dusty professor to country bumpkin to soccer hooligan, and presents a kaleidoscope of brave Serbian self-mockery.
“Welcome to Serbia,” he cheers, and shows in an endearing string of sketches, clips and songs the underbelly of the Serbian national feel.
It’s a Monday evening and the Zvezdara theatre in Belgrade is crammed to the rafters. All roar with laughter as Dragan Jovanovic turns into Tito and six budding belle’s hail him like a Beatle, or Einstein who swipes the formulas of his Serbian wife, Mileva Marić, and bikes off to academic glory. He shows silly superstitions that still govern the Serbian country side (all laugh), and immediately after, the madness of believing the demagogues that have ruined this country (laughter again, but darker, more quiet).
One of several running gags revolves around Dragan’s kum. In Serbia everyone has a kum (godfather) and kuma (godmother), who originally serve as witnesses to a person’s baptism but will remain lifelong protectors. The relationship with the kum(a) is the most sacred relationship outside the family or marital realm.
During the finale of the play Dragan’s kum raises an arsenal of guns and shoots Dragan in every possible way. Dragan, flopping about the stage like a dying fish, then screams, “Now I refuse to die simply to spite you!” The curtain closes while Dragan’s dying pose slowly transforms into an obscene gesture. The crowd stands on their feet and toll a standing ovation. I stand too, and clap mesmerized.
Backstage is an open lounge with a bar and soft, square couches. The walls are covered with posters of famous plays. The Tito-hailing girls are hoisting Jelen beers, locked with their boyfriends in tensed poses. The star emerges. I ask him if he speaks English.
“How can you watch my play if you don’t speak Serbian?” says Dragan Jovanovic.
“It’s a bit like watching a soccer match, with the goals just out of sight,” I explain, “I recognize the dynamics from what I see, and the crowd’s reactions tell me if there’s a goal scored.”
“I see,” he says.
“What was your motivation to write this play?”
He’s been at this show for years. I’m not the first who asks this question. But perhaps I’m the first Dutchman who does. At some point in the show the flags of the NATO nations flashed by. The flag of the Netherlands was projected extra large and lingered extra long. Because who could have expected those nice Dutch… (laughter).
“It gives me great pleasure to show my people that we’re not as perfect as we sometimes think,” he says.
“It looks like you did a fine job.”
“It’s good to look in a mirror every now and then,” says one of the girls. She can’t be more than twenty years old, and in her eyes I see that same glow I’ve seen in so many young Serbs on my short stay here. The economical situation in Serbia is grim at best. Wages are low, unemployment is rampant and an air of morose impatience prevails everywhere. This girl lives in a world that has inherited Tito’s party bill and Milosevic’ bad international rap, but what I have found uniquely in Serbia is an undeterred spirit of hope; a strong belief that they’re on the eve of some Great Awakening that will bring honor and wealth back to the Balkans.
Dragan thanks me for my interest. The girl takes her coat off the rack, walks towards the exit and halts at the full length mirror near the door. She strokes her hair, corrects her make up, takes a deep breath and enters the windy world with lengthy strides and her head held high.
Struck by a bold lack of ceremony, our savage journey to the heart of Serbia leads us into the invasive opulence I’m strenuously familiar with and have learned to avoid. The marble floors reflect glistening chrome and neon signs and the stretch of a huge Christmas tree that hurts my eyes.
“I thought you had no Christmas in Serbia,” I blurt out. I’ve never been able to properly explain myself in this kind of climate, Raoul Duke would have said.
“We have Christmas,” says Draga, lustfully eyeing a pair of fur boots in the window of a shop that tries to lure customers in by expelling House at an enormous volume, “But it’s on January 7. On New Year’s Eve you can give me those boots. What do you prefer, Benetton or Zara?”
“I don’t know. What do you prefer, Fuerst or Brown, Driver and Briggs?”
She grabs my ear, drags me into a noisy joint full of jeans so ragged that anyone with any sense at all would have thrown them out, not pay for them.
“Get me out of here, you idiot!” I yell and off we run. Next door is a store that sells attire for the more aspiring gentle sirs. I take an immediately liking to the silent mannequins, whose faces seem trained on the timid Creedence trickling from the ceiling. Draga pulls three pairs of pants from the stock and hoists me into one. Then she notices something that requires her to call an attendant. I’m told to stand there and not move, and I stand there, feeling one hand on each buttock, one cupping my crotch and one on my forehead (mine).
I suffer from what experts call a proneness to sensory overload. I have concluded that it has to do with my rich inner life, but it also makes me a social cripple. Sensory overload occurs when my senses pick up more information than my brain can process, and I see everything; items that puzzle me, goods that defy definition, dazzling details, patterns, patterns of patterns, a woman on a Rolex billboard whose eyes are dreamy but whose nipples give me a piercing stare.
Sensory overload usually kicks in ten minutes after entering a mall, five minutes after entering a supermarket and six seconds after entering a disco, which I therefore never enter. When it happens, I become virtually blind and deaf, and stagger around like a drunk searching for the exit, snarling at anyone who starts explaining things or gives me good advice. Shopping for clothing, therefore, can only be achieved with a trusted page, who has to literally lead me along and take care of everything.
Draga drags me from Benetton to Marc & Spencer, Gant and Fox, until my last kernel of resistance succumbs and I start casting Dinars like breadcrumbs on a lost road, learning quickly that men’s clothes are bought not out of taste but exasperation. In brief breaths of lucidity I find myself posing in duds whose maker’s passions are lost on my inclinations, but I buy whatever Draga points at. We gallop by Samsung wide screens, Sony monitors, Woman’s Secret (“Hey, what happened to Victoria?” I pant; “None of your business,” Draga growls back), Avanguardia, Bottega Verde, Jasmin, until I scream, “Who are all these people?” and start running for Knjižare Vulcan - offering the Latest in Literature.
“They’re on the second floor! I’m sure I saw them!” I shout, and this while the edicts of my usual composure dictate that the merits of quiet desperation can not be overstated. I don’t care anymore! I run over some children, shove their mothers out of the way and flutter like batman up the stairs, with fresh leather flopping and flannel flying, and Draga behind me hurling bloody Serbian curses to anyone who stands in our way.
Bil Brajson, the Serbian transliteration of Bill Bryson
At the Vulcan bookstore, pinching my eyes, hands on my ears, I throw myself on a nervous under-read nerd and demand to be taken to the Bill Bryson section, post haste! Seconds later I’m curled up against the back wall, semi-comatose and clutching an armful of Brajsons against my chest. Draga kneels beside me but as she tucks the tails of my new flannel shirt into my ears, I’m on the Appalachian Trail, with a mild drizzle kissing my face and not a single human soul in sight.
