Mono

Belgrade author and painter Momo Kapor has spent

many years studying the mentality of his countrymen. The
fruit of this literary research is this Guide to the Serbian
Mentality, a book that will help you grasp the essence of
SL Quite to
the Serbian people and their way of life. This longtime
columnist for the distinguished Serbian daily Politika and
the monthly magazine Jat Review, published by Jat
Serbian o
M
Airways, has compiled the best and most interesting of his Illustrated by the Author
articles for this book, which is richly illustrated with his
own drawings. This book’s readers will learn, through a
self-ironic and humorous tone typical of books by George
Mikesh, Efraim Kishon and Art Buchwald, what Serbs
like and dislike, whom they admire and despise, what they
eat and what they drink, how they spend their free time,
what they dream about and what they believe; in a word,
Guide to the Serbian Mentality is a book about what
constitutes a Serb from the inside.

ISBN 970-86.7345-951.5
' 1 1 !1'I f
seventh edition

1^7 8 B 6 7 3^4 6 6 51

www.dereta.rs dereta
 Belgrade writer Momo Kapor
(bom in Sarajevo, 1937) is the author
of 30 books, including novels, short
stories, travel logs and essays.
He is a painter by training; he
graduated from the Academy of
Figurative Art in Belgrade in 1961.
He has exhibited in New York,
Boston, Geneva, Frankfurt, London
and other cities, and has illustrated
many of his own and other authors' i
books. ii
Kapor’s literary career began in the
early 1960s as a writer of radio,
television and theatre dramas.
His novels were and still are found
on domestic bestseller lists. Among
them, the most well known include
Foliranti, Una, Zelena čoja Montenegra,
Konte, and the most recent El Dorado.
Kapor has been translated into 20
languages.
He is also the author of a number of
screenplays, and numerous films have
been made based on his works.
In the year 2010., Momo Kapor died in
Belgrade.

www.dcrcta.rs

/
© ovog izdanja dela Dereta
Momo Kapor
Translator
John and Ružica White
Branimir Bakić
Danira Parenta
Goran Kričković
Nevenka Kojić
Ana Selić
A Guide to the
Mirjana Dragovič
Serbian Mentality
Illustrated by the A uthor

Seventh edition

dereta
Belgrade, 2014
 t
•?I}

Contents

To Travel, to Travel / 7
“Belgrade is Belgrade13/ ‫״‬
The Mouth at the crossroads o f Winds and History / 18
Made in Serbia 122 •
SajkaCa - the Serbian Folk Cap / 27
The Mystique of Belgrade Cuisine / 33
As Simple as Beans / 38
Serbia among Plum Trees / 44
S u m ad ijaT ea/5 1
The Nectar of the God Dionysus / 58
Jars o f Sunshine / 63
A Café Named Nostalgia / 68
Male Sunday / 73
The Business Lunch / 76
Having a Bad Dream / 79
The W riter’s Club / 83
Pljeskavica Strikes Back / 88
Skadarlija - the Younger Sister o f Monmartre / 91
Skadarlija ‫ ־־‬a Nostalgic Trip / 96
Hospitality Galore / 103
Thanks for Your Visit / 106
The Belgrade Lifestyle /1 0 9
The Flea Market / 115
Com on the Cob Blues /1 2 0
Skipping Centuries / 124
t A Glance at the Sky / 127
\ Balkan S tre e t/131

i
1I
 Belgrade in Half an Hour / 134
Great Waters /1 4 0
A Floating City /1 4 5
A d a /151
The Metro / 157
Belgrade Girls /1 6 0
A Handbook for Gentlemen / 165
Explosion of Beauty / 170
East and West in a Sandwich / 174
Belgrade - Paris / 177
The Odyssey of an Art Collection / 182
You Look Terrific! / 189
Gray People /192
Legends of Belgrade / 195
Belgrade Blues / 201
Crazy Time / 206
Nobody’s Perfect / 208
Room with a View / 210
Food for the Body and Soul / 215
Yesterday’s World / 220
A Flight Called Nostalgia 226
Fear of Flying / 233
Could You Live H e re ? /237
A Strange Country / 240
Life is a Fairy Tale / 243
A Country of Intimacy / 247
Yule Logs and Christmas Trees / 2 5 1
To Travel, to Travel
Happy Patron Saints’s Day / 256
Life along Roads / 261
Serbia - Vronsky’s Last Love / 264
Last Post: Serbia / 270
urs is a small country, but our desire for what lies
In the Wonderland / 281
Mezze / 286
Garden Party / 292
O beyond our borders is just as great as that of larg­
er countries - and even continents. The outside world
North and South / 298 has always come to us more often than we have ven­
E a s t- W e s t/302
Improving Image / 307
tured into the world. In fact, we were conquered from
the outside some five hundred years ago - and as

7
 J

recently as seven years ago. Some have come with

weapons, some by way of influence, and some were
just passing through. Nevertheless, our desire for this
outside world is continually on the rise.
For my generation, the first encounter with the out­
side world occurred in Italy, because that was the first
foreign country we visited. More precisely, Italy -
and its Villa Opicina - was the first place one arrived
after crossing the border of what was then Yugo­
slavia. In lovely Italy, no one snoozed in sleeping
bags or laid on suitcases on deserted rail station plat­
forms, as was the case in our socialist country. No
one ran from the train to fill his empty bottle at the
station’s fountain - there was only a dark-complex­
ioned man in an impeccable white jacket and black
bowtie who pushed his cart filled with western assort­
ments. There were all sorts of things in it: pralines,
ham sandwiches with cheese, a pile of tangerines, and
a dozen bottles of San Pelegrino mineral water. We
stared at this consumers’ paradise through the grimy
windowpane of our Yugoslav State Railroad coach
without daring to ask the vendor how much any of the
items might cost. The first Italian words we learned
were troppo caro (too expensive).
Year in and year out, we poured abroad, both to the
Hast and to the West, which were forever wrangling.
We became so used to their quarrels that we virtually
forgot all about the South and the North, and this divi­
sion of the world was so commonplace that it became
devoid of all meaning.
Having traveled to the West, I discovered there
was something even more Western than the West. I

8
CCAXXV&
 went to the East - there were always more Eastern
countries and nations...
But where is the East? Where is the West?
I found the answer in an old essay by Tin Ujevid,
from 1923. “Neither East nor West exist at all in a
geographical sense, because the Earth is round...”
wrote the good old, drunken, wise Tin. “The East and
the West, two colossal fictions and phantasmagorias,
and the impenetrable gap of the future that will, so we
believe, belong to all of us...”
And because we live between the East and the
West, we believe that truth and human measure are
somewhere in the middle.
We have come to know both sides of the world.
When the Germans occupied Serbia in 1941, we
could not travel anywhere - except to concentration
camps.
Then, in 1944, the Russians “liberated” us - that is,
occupied Serbia - with the result that the most loyal
could travel to an Athletes’ Jamboree in Prague or to
attend a military school in Moscow.
In 1948, when we fell out with the Russians and the
West had not yet taken us under its wing, we essen­
tially locked ourselves in. We lived this way until the
early 1960s, when the first of us left to work abroad.
Until that time, the bravest fled to the West across
mountain ranges or by hiding between the wheels of
a railroad coach heading west. Some chose to remain
in the West following an appearance with a touring
symphony orchestra or ballet troupe. Some fled
across the sea... People would flee in the most imag­
inative ways until the regime finally became so fed up
10
that it began issuing passports to anyone who asked.
The borders were opened and our entire little country
rushed to buy clothes, footwear, and to see the world.
Only then did our country become even smaller
than before. The outside world became weary of
watching us travel to far-off lands like drunken mil­
lionaires, especially at a time when the only Ameri­
cans who toured Europe were old and retired and
when people on the West Coast rarely got a chance to
tour the East Coast
Be that as it may, due to wars, rows, and a general
breakdown of the system, today’s twenty-five-year
olds have not only missed the world, they haven’t
even seen Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Zagreb or Ljublja­
na... True, today they can see Toronto or Wellington,
New Zealand - but this ticket is one-way: to reach
their work post as a computer programmer or baby­
sitter. And when they reach that coveted paradise,
they find themselves more shut-off than ever, because
the average Westerner finally travels, as I said before,
just before they die. Only then do they see the planet
on which they have spent their life working from
morning to nightfall.
Serbs have recently begun to travel again.
Traveling in groups has become popular, as the
tourist package sidesteps the difficulties of obtaining
foreign visas for individuals.. When I travel with
them, I watch their eyes full of inquisitive radiance.
Most touching are the older ladies from the provinces,
retired doctors or teachers whose sons paid travel
agencies so their parents could see Greek temples, the
Pyramids, or stand before the .Wailing Wall in
11
 Jerusalem. I have met newly-weds on their honey­
moons, chewing gum and appearing bored - they’ve
already seen this on TV. Nowadays, for the most part,
no one remains behind in a foreign country - as was
the case many years ago. Perhaps this is because it is
easy enough to find work washing café glasses or
sweeping the streets here at home; there is no need to
go abroad for that.
After each trip we grow more aware of our pre­
cious little garden, our own neighborhood, and the
streets where we grew up. But we will never compre­
hend this fully until we have traveled the world.
“Belgrade is Belgrade”
othing describes Belgrade like the three words
N “Belgrade is Belgrade” that we utter at the air­
port after coming home from abroad. Belgrade
abounds in love, warmth and wonderment; we feel
safe here and we’re happy to live in this city. If we
haven’t made much of our lives, it is enough to say
that we have managed to live in such a fine place as
Belgrade - the unfulfilled dream of many provincials.
Belgrade does not like having its picture taken. It
hates to pose. It will not keep still. It does not do well
in photographs - it always looks like some place else.
It is not Paris, which likes to cuddle with artists.
It is not London, which ingratiates itself to photog­
raphers.
It is not Rome, which bedecks itself with sou­
venirs.
It is not Vienna, the perfect place for an engraving
on an ashtray.
It is not Moscow, which looks nice in a glass globe
with drifting snowflakes.
It is not Berlin, the golden bear, which can be
turned into a beautiful key ring.
It is not Budapest, which likes to have itself paint­
ed on the bottom of bowls of hot fish stew.
13
 It is not Istanbul with its gold teeth.
It is not Athens, a stone paperweight for old manu­
scripts...
There are few things in Belgrade that I have not
seen elsewhere. Perhaps only three: its rivers, its sky
and its people. Of these three ancient elements the
unique spirit of Belgrade is bom.
Clouds scud across the sky where the Sava gives
itself to the Danube, combining mists with eastern
and western winds - that dramatic Belgrade sky that
resembles a huge celestial battleground. The spiritual
state of its inhabitants is portrayed in this sky at any
moment of the day.
People who grew up on a stone hill beneath such an
. exciting panorama cannot be but broad of gesture,
stormy of temperament and of changing 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 settle­
ments 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 pro­
portions. It is as comfortable as a friendly pub; the
town does not put fear in the hearts of visitors with its
enormity, but binds its visitors forever with a hundred
invisible threads.
An aerial picture of Belgrade shows —as clear as
the palm of your hand - its past, present and future.
Belgrade’s palm has calluses and scars: it gives a
firm, friendly handshake; it has the strength of a dan­
gerous fist, the softness of a caress.

14
 Its fingers are roads leading into the wider world -
ancient roads, imperial roads, rural paths and tracks,
highways - and long white streams that cut across the
sky.
Lines of character: the contours of ravaged
Kalemegdan fortress.
Mounts of . Venus: Banovo, PaSino, Julino,
Labudovo, Petlovo, Topcidersko...
Life-line: long and frequently intersected with the
scars of wars...
The line of the heart: the banks of the river islands
Ada Huja, Ratno Ostrvo, Ada Ciganlija and Mala
Ada...
Line of exceptional fortune: the course of its rivers.
Where is the heart of Belgrade?
It is everywhere and nowhere.
It hides in the refined nonchalance of shoe cleaners
on the streets, who say “Give me as much as you
want!”, in the philosophically balanced relaxation of
old men who have lived through so many wars; in the
morning joke that breaks the gloomy mood of office-
bound workers in trolley bus 11; in the friendship of
waiters who happily sit down for a glass of beer with
their guests at the “Cubura” restaurant; in the hustle
and bustle of streets in which you rarely feel like a
stranger, regardless of where you come from; in the
beauty of the graffiti on walls that no one ever paints,
graffiti that resembles a touching fresco of street des­
tinies, loves, swear words, insults, witticisms, foot­
ball results, names...
The spirit of Belgrade lies concealed in the unique
chaos of its fruit and vegetable markets, and, above
16
all, in the supple walk of Belgrade women. Watching
these women on the city streets is like seeing a fan­
tastic modem ballet with no other sound than striking
heels! Pale city girls who grow up suddenly, accus­
tomed to city life and the yearning looks of passers-
by; independent, cynical, audacious and polite at the
same time, with the innate elegance of millionaires
behind cunningly concealed poverty - it is upon them
that newcomers feast their eyes until they disappear
from sight, as if upon some secret signal, leaving the
. streets inconsolably barren and bare. ‫׳‬
The spirit of Belgrade gives birth to daring vertical
lines, out of which spring new city quarters and old
quarters fall into ruin; it bridges rivers and clears away
the rusted tangle of railway lines overgrown with grass
to secure a better view of the rivers and the sky. It toys
with architecture and the laws of town planning.
This city will never attract the inquisitive collector
of beauty, but it will do something completely differ­
ent: it will arouse an almost physical pain of longing
in those who have spent any time on its streets, even
a few days, just as a photograph of a long lost love
can inflict mortal pain.
The plan of its streets becomes something akin to a
topographical map of our hearts. This city of ours will
bewitch us with its charm, but it will never reveal the
secret of that strange love, a love that is beyond com­
prehension. We shall remain its willing prisoners for­
ever, having chosen Belgrade for this one life from
among the innumerable magnificent cities of the
world.

The Mouth at the Crossroads
of Winds and History
iewed from the water, from where the Sava
V enters the Danube, Belgrade resembles a ship
that has embarked on a long cruise across the van­
ished Pannonian Sea. Its stony prow ~ Kalemegdan
Fortress - cuts the waves of these two rivers. Water,
fog, time and history crash against the city. Rare are
the cities with the fortune of having two large and
mighty rivers into which nature has cast green river
islets, like bridal bouquets.
Whenever I sail across the mouth of the Sava it
reminds me of a passionate embrace seething with the
deep excitement of meeting. The Sava is feminine.
Like a great seductress she nestles to the sides of
boats and rolls in the shadows of willow groves. She
is a true feminine river. Her twilights seem to hide the
gaze of a young woman yearning for love. She cud­
dles, coddles and giggles, whispering tenderly into a
swimmer’s ears... Yet, the gloomy cloud-covered
days she wraps herself in for weeks and months at a
19
 time are an expression of her innate melancholy. She
can be sickly pale and shine with an unhealthy sulfu­
ric light. On such days boredom is mirrored on her
surface, her trees’ coiffures are sloppy, her banks
muddy and broken branches flow down her stream
like betrayed expectations.
The Danube, on the other hand, is masculine.
Compared to the Sava he is serious and resembles the
Great Master of Waters. It is as though he never learnt
to correctly pronounce the Serbian language; as
though he maintained, all the way to the Black Sea,
the hard German accent o f his homeland source,
beneath the Schwarzwald. The Danube foams like
Swabian beer. He drinks like a Russian, “bottoms
up!”, and with pangs of conscience; amidst merri­
ment he is capable of secretly drawing a knife like a
Bulgarian; he can utter a curse in Hungarian. His
waves are nostalgic like Romanian shepherds’ songs
and his treacherous sand isles insidiously await their
prey: incautious boatmen and their barges that, once
stranded, have to wait for months for the water to rise
and for the river to set them free. During this time the
Danube lolls about in a ragged housedress of clouds,
smoking: smuggled tobacco, drinking smuggled
“Stolichnaya” vodka from Russian barges, along with
Kadovo’s caviar from Romanian barges.
The Sava and the Danube live differently, each for
itself, but when they meet, hey foam with the joy of
meeting, and from a height, with a philosophical
peace, the White Town observes them...
•• The witnesses to the rivers* meeting, beneath the
Belgrade Fortress, are the witnesses of history. In
20
Nebojsa’s Tower, built in 1460, the famous Greek
poet Rigas of Ferre was imprisoned and killed. At the
top of this stone tower, the last Turkish dahias, star­
ing in earthenware jugs, deciphered the reflection of
stars that predicted doom and death.
Not far from the tower, the Karl VI Triumphal
Gate, built in 1736, stands pompously, under which
children ride their bikes. Not far from there is a mon­
umental Turkish hamam (bath) from the 18th * centu­
ry, from which hot steam and softened Ottoman
bathers disappeared long ago. Above the hamam, on
the hill, at the foothill of the Fortress ramparts, there
is a church dedicated to St. Petka, the patron of unfor­
tunate women, where even today, it is said, miracles
occur.
History has chosen the confluence of Belgrade’s
rivers as a perfect place to shuffle its tarot cards and
mix fates, races, civilisations and cultures. This is a
great book for those able to read it. It contains chap­
ters on Roman foundations and wells, remnants of
Hun and Avar walls, Turkish fortifications, Austro-
Hungarian loopholes and sentry-boxes, and finally
the chapter on the leafy tree tops of Slav linden trees
that have with great pains managed to calm the
storms under the city walls. Today, on the top o f
Kalemegdan Fortress, on the grass and in the alleys of
the most beautiful city park, young Belgraders laugh,
love and nibble at seeds. Indeed, Belgrade youth have
always outlived evil times, including the last one:
they giggle in the face of history, not‘caring a hoot for
the bones of long dead conquerors.
Made in Serbia

“ ‫׳‬T^his cannot be found anywhere else!” is the most

Jl frequent comment Serbs level at their foreign
guests while poring over piles of food. If you happen
to be in their hospitable home, do not be surprised by
their culinary aggressiveness; Serbs sincerely believe
there is no place with such sumptuous food as in their
home, and that you - being lean - have just barely
escaped hunger. This is why they will do their utmost
to serve you food and demonstrate the originality of
Serbian cuisine, which, in point of fact, does not
exist.
The grill, for instance, comes from Arab countries,
while ćevapčići (a cylindrical-shaped piece of grilled
meat) from Turkey, and further back from Persia.
Njeguška smoked ham is a close relative of ham from
Parma, but here it is not eaten with melon (Serbs are
terrified by the mere prospect) as is done in Italy. As
regards lamb, it is roasted on a spit and is as good as
or perhaps even better in Greece. Spaniards and
Italians have claimed young pork meat barbecued in
this way to be their own specialty. Beans came to us
from America, and the famed Dragačevo trumpet

22
 players are a younger offshoot o f Mexico’s mariachi
players. What, then, is it that makes Serbian cuisine
special?
Surely the fact that in just two-three hours* drive,
or even less, you depart from the domain o f Levantine
and Oriental cuisine to enter a region known for its
Central European gastronomy - Vojvodina. After a
mere twenty-minute drive across the Sava River, in
Zemun and Pancevo you may be offered dumplings,
šufnudle, štrukle, mlinci, ćušpajz, melšpajz, goulash
and Hungarian perkelt, as well as strudel with poppy
seeds, ground walnuts or raisins - a cuisine we inher­
ited from the Austro-Hungarian empire. Instead of
the Serbian spritzer (wine and soda water), here they
drink gemischt (wine and mineral water) and in
Montenegro - bevanda (wine and tap water). Going
southward, in just a few hours we reach Mediterra­
nean culinary waters with fish, seashells, olive oil,
intensely-flavoured and scented goat cheeses, in
short, all the culinary characteristics of neighbouring
Mediterranean countries.
.... What, then, is the Serbian brand? Slivovitz'l Hardly
‫ ׳‬so» it is also made - albeit not as well - by Hungari­
ans, Bulgarians and other nations, while Germans still
- - hold the old license to export prepečenica (high-grade
plum brandy) throughout Europe.
: There are just two things that no one else in the
\ world has: kajmak and another item I will disclose at
‘‫’״‬the end of this little treatise on brands. Just as I was
never able to find - neither in New York, Paris, nor in
Rome — seashells called prstaci (found stuck to
underwater rocks), the same is true for kajmak, which
24
is skimmed from freshly boiled milk, and which bears
no resemblance to young cheeses such as mozzarella
or sour cream. I cannot imagine why, but even cattle
breeders from the most remote areas of Georgia, the
Caucasus and Tibet have not thought of kajmak. Why
Serbs invented it still remains a secret. Also a secret
is the international kajmak smuggling ring conducted
by Serbs who risk everything to bring this dairy prod‫״‬
uct to their countrymen around the world. The long­
ing for this dairy product is such that friends and rel­
atives are beseeched to bring kajmak to the most dis­
tant cities of the world. Like some drug smuggler, I,
too, have carried kajmak, this precious foodstuff,
through the strict customs control at New York’s
Kennedy Airport. As it is strictly forbidden to bring in
any type of food products to the United States, I
packed kajmak in circular tins of “Nivea” cosmetic
cream, which prompted contemptuous glances from
US customs officers. Ah, but what indescribable joy
when my friends spread kajmak from Cadak on slices
of New York bread!
Another thing we could certainly get rich on if we
could export it is - inat. Although Serbs don’t have a
corresponding word for spleen, I don’t think Anglo-
Saxons have an adequate term for inat, something
that is, of course, bound to make things harder on my
translator. To assist him, I go to the Great Dictionary,
where it explains: “Deliberate, provocative behavior
against someone’s will; defiance, quarrel, wran­
gling”. Most interesting is the fact that it was the
Turks, whose term this is, who first observed this trait
among Serbs. Later, the rest of the world - due to this
: 25
 inat - either hated or loved and admired us to excess. ]
In brief, this word is at the very quick o f our being; it {
was responsible for rebellions and uprisings, and \
explains why we went to war more often than other •j
nations; inat was the reason we quarreled not only j
with others, but also with ourselves. j
It was sheer inat that spurred me to write this little \
. text because a friend from Geneva had claimed that *
Serbs have no internationally recognisable brand j
names. • '

Sajkaca - the Serbian

Folk Cap

egardless of how informed a foreigner is, if he

R doesn’t know the origin and essence of the
Serbian folk cap ‫ ־־‬the SajkaÔa - he will never under­
stand the locals. Namely, the Sajkaâa is much more
than a cap; it is a form of defiance, courage, tender­
ness and spite. For several centuries it has protected
the heads of Serbian people from natural disasters and
defeats in war. It presents a holy tie to the past and a
bond to life.
During dangerous and hard times, the Serbian folk
cap regains its fashionable status while hats, baseball
caps and French berets sink into oblivion. The
sajkaca, an unavoidable part of folk costumes during
times of peace, is the only cap in the world that
becomes a part of military uniforms in times of war.
And this is why Serbs, even in times of peace, always
tend to look a bit like they’re at war.
The character of this cap is best witnessed by the
fact that the sajkada is never taken off, except before
Our Lord in church! People eat and work with this
cap on their heads, and when sleeping men keep it
pulled over their faces to protect themselves from
flies and to create an artificial night.
The cap originates from the 15th century when it
was worn by boatmen who moved in rowboats with
sharp iron bows to intercept Turkish ships on the
Danube and Tisa rivers, a practice that continued for
centuries. Though the homemade fajak-coja, a type
of heavy cloth similar to coarse woolen fabric, origi­
nates from a Turkish word, the word Zajka means
seagull in Russian and it is no surprise that the
sajkada represents, in fact, the stylised shape of this
most poetic bird.
' No cap in the world so readily reveals the charac­
ter of the man who wears it on his head! Pulled down
to the eyebrows, the Sajkada sends a signal of danger
and the necessity of being on guard; also, it can reveal
the hot-tempered character of its owner. Tilted side-

28
 ways towards the ear, it discloses its owner’s bache-
lor mood and a tendency to drink and make merry; a
readiness to surrender to exaggerated feelings, recal-
citrance and grief.
Should the owner tilt it towards the back of his
head, then we see a hidden ruffian or a confused man
who is getting ready to do very hard work,
The oversized sajkaca, which falls over the ears,
tells us that its owner is negligent, that he gave up and
reconciled to poverty and approaching misfortune.
God, how many varieties o f sajkaca there are in
Serbia! Wrinkled, sweaty, greasy, faded from rain
and wind, heat and snow; brand new Sajkadas (worn
on patron saint’s-day feasts or just for spite), insolent
and straight ones, as if inflammatory, and there are
those collapsed from grief and sadness which cover
the head like a dejected bird.
Freshly laid eggs and picked pears are carried in it
for guests from the city. When there is nothing else,
the sajkaca is used for scooping water from a spring.
Beads of sweat on the forehead are wiped with the
Sajkaca in the field.
This cap with its double sides, which can be pulled
down over the ears in winter, is also convenient for
holding things; a flower in summer or a cigarette that
will be smoked later.
A long awaited letter from a son in the army is
stuck into it, to be seen by the whole village. Also,
court summonses.
During war, a needle and a ball of thread are placed
in the sajkaZa should a button fall off one’s overcoat.
Where should a lottery ticket be but in the SajkaSal
]
When we are making merry, we put large bills into
1
{ the Dragafevo trumpeters’ Sajkadasl
j Of course we put coins into it for beggars in front
l of church.
\ Anyhow, the SajkaZa is the most tolerant cap on the
j globe; it tranquilly puts up with other caps that con­
\ spire against the head it covers.
1 Regardless of the badges that are put on it —cock­
\ ades, skull and crossbones or five-pointed stars ~ it is
most beautiful without any emblem.
This is because the Sajkada is far older than poli­
tics.
j And wiser. And more durable. More lasting...
\ It does not fit with an urban suit and does not go
j well with sunglasses.
\ It is a sad thing to see in a souvenir shop.
j For a half century the Sajkada patiently put up with
j the terrorism of Tito’s caps, whose shapes resembled
caps from foreign armies and police forces.
Those caps are so unnatural and so ugly on the
heads of our soldiers that they would take them off at
the first available opportunity so as not to ruin their
hair; they were usually seen stuck under the belt.
There was also the famous three-homed cap - about
j which there is a song:
! I am Anka a partisan ■ , ‫ ־ ־‬,■
I wear a three-homed cap
j And I fight against God!
In contrast to this blasphemous cap and its kin, the
Sajkada can only be Orthodox.
31
 . It is not even taken off before the king, with whom
the Serbian yeomen were on per tu from time imme­
morial!
The only bad trait o f the Sajkaca is that during
times of peace and prosperity it turns into a hat and
easily forgets itself.
Those who wear it consistently are the salt of this
country...
The Mystique of Belgrade
Cuisine

ny foreigner who is inclined to stay up with his

A or her Belgrade host(s) deep into the night is
bound to hear, after several litres of wine and ample
snacks, an old Serbian legend about how it was cus­
tomary in the Serbian medieval court to eat with gold­
en forks, while Western nobles of that period ate meat
with their bare hands. As much as this sounds like a
myth, it is, in fact, true - not because Serbs were fur­
ther along the road towards civilisation during the
Middle Ages, but for an entirely different reason.
Until the seventeenth century it was deemed a
transgression of religious regulations to pierce meat
with a fork. The papal injunction against the fork was
explained by the view that only fingers should be
used on God’s creatures, and never metal forks. Such
use of the fork could bring years of punishment in a
dungeon, or even a horrendous death (this should
make you think twice about your table manners). As
early as the eleventh century Cardinal and Bishop of
Ostia Peter Damien was reciting terrifying sermons
against the fork in Venice; he threatened with Hell all
those who dared use it. When a Byzantine princess
who had married into the French court was found
using her small fork, she was burnt at the stake as a
witch. The Serbs, who were at the time under the
political sphere of Byzantium, refused to acknowl­
edge the papal ban and very much enjoyed their cut­
lery.
Belgraders do not always use forks, especially in
Chinese restaurants where food is eaten with chop­
sticks. In recent years, Belgrade has gained a
Chinatown of its own, and more than a dozen Chinese
restaurants have opened - in spite of initial skepti­
cism towards this cuisine.
In addition to numerous Italian pizza joints, a Thai
restaurant, ten or so M cDonald’s establishments,
Japanese, Indian, Mexican and Arab restaurants, one
can Find French cuisine in Belgrade that is just as
good as one gets in France. The Hyatt and
Intercontinental hotels both offer an international
menu that one expects to Find in any international lux­
ury hotel.
You may, at any time, freely eat the famed Njegid
smoked ham and cheese with your Fingers, and con­
vince your hosts that you are indeed a Westerner and
that, as a matter of tradition, you do not use the fork
because it is the devil’s instrument.
The taste of this smoked ham is much more intense
than Parma ham or its Spanish counterpart, but it is
not served with melon, as w e’ve previously men­
tioned is customary in the West, because Serbs think
these two things simply do not go together - just as

34
 they believe milk is fundamentally incompatible with
tea. It is an established fact that Serbs drink milk only
when they are being breast-fed, and tea only when
they are ill. Regarding chicken, our peasants say it is
to be eaten only under two circumstances: either
when the chicken is sick or when we are!
As far as cuisine goes, in Belgrade you can find
almost anything you would find in any major city of
the world, and some things you would hardly find
anywhere else in one city and at one establishment
Let us take, for example, traditional barbecue.
Everyone would say that the Turks, Iranians or
Lebanese have similar barbecue, and this is quite true,
but very few would offer Viennese sacher cake or so-
called pagan cooked wheat with Central European
whipped cream after an entree of grilled meat. And
nobody eats goulash soup, a typical Central European
dish, before grilled meat. As for drinks, all in the spi­
rit of bruderschaft, one may find all kinds of coffee­
houses, cafés and restaurants in Belgrade that serve
whisky, vodka, tequila, and French cognac. In con­
trast to the Arabic world, our religion allows us to
drink as much as we wish, but our wives won’t stand
for that, which ultimately boils down to the same
thing.
Be that as it may, the many civilizations, great
powers, religions, different nations and their armies
that have captured and ruled Belgrade throughout its
two-thousand-year history, no m atter how difficult
they proved to be for Belgraders, (who have lived
under many occupations) they fortunately had some
advantages too. Each of these civilization and cul­
tures left its own permanent mark on Belgrade cui­
sine. I believe that McDonald’s hamburgers and
Viennese hot dogs, with mustard and Coca-Cola,
could leave a similar influence five hundred years from
now. Nevertheless, the greatest impact has come from
harmonious culinary marriages between the Orient,
Levant and Central Europe, and is reflected in dishes
eaten with a spoon and not only with the banned fork,
as set out at the beginning of this text These include the
Hungarian fish paprikash, Austro-Hungarian goulash
with noodles, jarnia (sauerkraut leaves stuffed with
minced meat, cooked with smoked pork ribs), stewed
chopped sauerkraut with pig’s legs, (closely related
to the Alsatian choucroute), cooked young beef with
vegetables, Greek meat-balls in tomato sauce and a
whole range of different mousakas.
It goes without saying that the best meals are those
your Belgrade host(s) offers you - provided their
mothers and grandmothers are still alive to do the
cooking. They are prone to using one of the scarcest
spices in the world to prepare their dishes —love.
As Simple as Beans

hen Europe betrays and abandons us, when the

W table is laid without English roast beef, Italian
spaghetti, French cheeses and German sauces, then
we return to Serbian beans as our last reliable retreat,
to the national dish that has never failed us.
We munch the beans and complain to each other:
“Until we’ve got in into our beans, they’ve left us
in the lurch!”
Interestingly, I’ve never managed to cook beans
for two: at a minimum for six! Fortunately, an old
rule says that beans are more delicious the following
day, after they have been left to stand awhile...
This is actually a dish that one can hardly eat alone.
It is more than mere food, it’s practically a national
metaphor - an invitation to socialise at the table or
around the cauldron, to renew closeness. Or it can be
a symbol of spite; “Come what may, I‫׳‬d rather eat
lean beans then go along w ith...”
“Silk you wear - beans you eat!” goes an old
proverb.
When doomsayers frighten me with stories of
approaching hardship, I go to the Kalenic green mar-

38
ket, wander between stands and look at the heaps of
dry beans. You have the white-coloured beans known
as Tetovac, beans known as Gradistanac, mottled
cranberry ovals - dark and small beans that return
hope that we shall overcome. After all, we’ve grown
up on beans and there is no reason not to grow old
with them!
The Great National Cook Book that records some
thirty dishes made of dry beans (old Belgraders even
used to make bean-based face masks) claims that the
bean, in addition to Vitamin A, contains some 24
organic elements of which ten are vital for the human
body.
Serbs naively believe that they invented the bean
(like everything else)! True, Vienna’s menus have for
centuries offered bean soup with smoked meat under
the showy name Serbische Bohnensoupe, and until the
latest wars Serbian-style beans were a specialty of the
“Gradski Podrum” in Zagreb. Though it was the
writer Krleza’s favorite dish, they removed it from with com kernels and bananas, the Tunisian couscous
the menu when they got sick of everything. with mutton and corn flour, Sajkaski cooked by
The bean, Phaseolus vulgaris in Latin, belongs to Danube fishermen, not to mention janija broths and
the genus Papilionaceous, and arrived to our region salads, even the Latin American turnovers with beans
from Peru in the late sixteenth and the beginning of called empanadal There is also the Dalmatian
the seventeenth centuries. Almost every nation has pastafagioli with macaroni and an old bone, a rem­
several bean dishes in its national cuisine. The French nant of the prosciutto consumed long ago, cooked for
cassoulet with its many variations, the Basque bowl, who knows how long just to give a trace of flavour to
beans with lamb in Braitainy, the Catalonian or Greek this dish of the poor. The Istrian maneschtra is cooked
shepherd's beans, the Israeli pot with onion, barley with potatoes, peral barley and young com: the jota
and beef, the Mexican chili con came, Tuscany beans bean with smoked mutton and the famed Kordun
with young courgettes (zucchini), potatoes and leek, beans with smoked pork legs and potatoes!
the Romanian dish with French beans, the Columbian

40
 Old chroniclers mention that the Vozd Kardorde joints, they longingly claim that they have never tast­
who didn’t like to eat in whichever household he hajv ed such good beans as were served in the army! This
pened to be visiting, always carried with him papula is probably because they were cooked without brown
(mashed beans) in a wooden bowl with a cover called sauce, because they were eaten in the flower of youth
zpstruga, which he only had to re-fry with pork fat and because they contained the taste of friendship,
and onion. danger and risk.
When I’m abroad I dream about fatless lean Elin Pelin’s Jack used the long green bean plant to
monastery beans that elevate one to spirituality and reach the moon. Perhaps the bean will help us, too,
asceticism. After this dish one drinks cool spring reach the stars.
water in a frosty glass. And however hard I’ve tried In these hard times, old women tell fortunes from
while traveling, I’ve never managed to cook baked the kernels of ,beans. What does the future hold for
beans gravce na tavce, which are cooked in an earth­ us?
I don't know, but the matter is as simple as beans!
en pot. For my nostalgic compatriots I’ve even smug­
gled a string of Leskovac dry peppers to America on
numerous occasions, which are stuffed with golden
‘ beans. '.‫״‬
The taste of bean dishes prepared by our grandmas
remains out of reach to us, as they would let beans
soak for up to 24 hours before putting them to cook
with the obligatory bay leaf and some chopped car­
rots, along with the unavoidable HorgoS paprika.
The late actor Paja Vujisid, together with his broth­
er Duja, used to cook the celebrated beans in a caul­
dron at his river house at Ada Ciganlija, where he
would offer them to people boating by his river
dwelling. The salad was fresh cabbage, or in autumn,
roast peppers with plenty o f garlic. The wine, the
cheapest.
Serbs, it seems, are the only people in the world
who crave, of all beans, army beans! When you pre­
pare the richest bean dish for your closest friends,
complete with smoked ribs, bacon and smoked pork

42
Serbia among Plum Trees

erbs are people who have from time immemorial

S made rakija (brandy) from anything they could
lay their hands on. From m ulberry fruit, apricots,
cherries, peaches, and sour cherries. They make it
from a special type of pear, named after an
Englishman, W illiam, after whom the brandy
received its name Vilijamovka. W hen the fruit of
these pear trees is still small, they are pressed through
the bottleneck into bottles, then hung on the trees. As
the pears grow in the sun, they can no longer be
removed from the bottles. That is when rakija is
poured into the bottles, each containing a pear, and
they gradually acquire their special aroma and taste.
There are also, of course, lozovača and komovica,
both made from komina, which is a by-product of
wine making. A special place is taken by different
types of klekovača (juniper brandy) and other rakijas
made from different salubrious and fragrant herbs
that produce an exquisite, magical taste.
The Serb jabukovača (distilled from apple cider) is
none the worse than the renowned Calvados, just as
the quality of vinjak is as good as cognac, but cognac

44
 is the trade name of a brandy made in the French city
of Cognac.
It is quite impossible to enumerate all the fruits that
have been used to make rakijal In addition to skill
and resourcefulness, all o f these brandies demonstrate
the boundless ingenuity of Serb imagination as com­
pared, for example, to Anglo-Saxons, who brew their
whiskies from grain alone, and from other Slav peo­
ples who make vodka from potatoes.
What makes Serbs unique in the world o f spirits is
lljivovica - slivovitz (plum brandy). This rakija is
made from a special type o f plum - pozegafa - that is
rife in the regions of Valjevo, Kraljevo and Cafiak,
although it can also be found around Gomji
Milanovac and in the Drina River area around Sabac,
but not as good. This type o f plum is also called
madzarka because it was brought from Hungary to
Serbia at the beginning o f the last century. The
renowned philanthropist and tradesman Sava Tekelija
brought the seedlings aboard ships crossing the Sava ‫־‬
River. This type of plum made it to Hungary from
Asia; from far-off Turkmenistan. Its final destination
was decreed by fate to Serbia. As if by some miracle,
this plum seems to have at long last found the most
favourable conditions to fully develop its hitherto
hidden values; its dark blue fruit contains much more
meat and sweet juice than other plum varieties, as
well as a specific aroma derived from its skin and pit
(its smell resembles almonds), all o f which gives this
rakija a rich bouquet. To put it in a nutshell, it is
impossible to make rakija as good as is found in
Serbia from plums grown in Hungary.
46
Apparently no one else in the world, aside from
Serbs, makes brandy from plums, and if they do, it is
a bleak copy of the original, whose name - slivovitz -
has made it into the Larousse Encyclopedia, along
with the names of five other historical personages, as
things that make this small nation specific.
Why plum brandy and not something else?
Probably because with each sip of this drink one dis­
covers the singular taste of the pozegaca fruit. The
sun, rain and wind, the beauty of the plum trees'
white flowers in the spring; they are all there. It may
also be said that its strength is reflective of the char­
acter of the people who make i t Slav sombemess and
melancholia, not to mention explosive emotional
states - the way, for example, in which a Serb is giv­
en to explosive rage, like fireworks, only seconds lat­
er to be replaced by tears of remorse. Šljivovica con­
tains something purely Orthodox, which makes it
stand apart from other drinks of the world. Apart from
Russian vodka, šljivovica is the only drink that
prompts Serb farmers to piously cross themselves
before drinking.
The very process of turning plums into brandy is
something of a magical ritual. Many folk songs have
been composed by the brandy still, and the emana­
tions of rakija odors have given birth to a special nar­
rative style of story-telling.
There is no reliable historical record as to when
Serbs began making rakija, but it must date back to
those remote times when they arrived as Old Slavs to
this region from their original homeland - slightly
drunk on medovina (mead), which they learned to
‫׳‬
47
make behind the Carpathian Mountains. Upon arrival
to these parts, they came across vineyards that were
planted by ancient Greeks and Romans, and which
the Byzantines continued to cultivate. In 1354, a
Serbian medieval legal codex, known as DuSan’s
Code, decreed strict punishment for drunkenness in
paragraph 166.
No one knows exactly who brought the First copper
still for making brandy, nor when it was brought, but
Turkish laws from 1389 to 1878 stated that a total of
12 asprae (type o f coin) be paid in taxes for each still.
When the Turks began to withdraw from these
regions, and the great Ottoman empire was dying like
a sick man on his deathbed, raftija became the symbol
of freedom and victory over Islam, which prohibited
alcohol. Serbs have always appreciated rakija more w
than wine, because drinking rakija enabled one to
reach a state of bliss much faster. It is not in vain that
an old saying states: “Wine takes a servant, and raki­ The Serbian language, being a language of peas­
ants, still has no words for some urban concepts.
ja a master!” The saying remains delightfully
When it comes to words related to rakija, however,
ambiguous: does it refer to the tedious work deman­
the ingenuity is boundless. For instance, the glass
ded in vineyards as compared to the ease of growing vessel for drinking rakija, which has a wide bottom
plum trees, or does it mean that wine takes over the and a narrow neck to prevent the alcohol from going
man who drinks it, but that it takes a master to con­ flat, has a number of names: fid or fićok, čokanj, .
quer rakijal Serbs apparently grew weary of being čokanjčić, unuče, šiš, šiša orpolić... Rakija, though, is
under Turkish rule for 500 years, but if they couldn’t also drunk from canteens and jugs, and sometimes
rule themselves - they could at least rule over rakija. directly from the barrel.
As far as consequences go, the hangover from raki­ One cannot even come into this world without rak­
ja is, of course, much worse than from refined French ija; without celebrating birth with rakija from a barrel
wines, but then again, life here has always been much that was buried only to be dug up and drunk for this
more difficult than in the country of wines.
49
48
special occasion. Without rakija one does not go to
war, join the army, enter a church, visit friends, or hit
the road, as the flask is often one’s only luggage. The
poor peasant can only offer rakija as a gift to the vil­
lage doctor, policeman, judge, forest ranger, tax col­
lector or minister, sometimes even to the king him­
self, in a flask plugged with a piece of kocanj- corn­
cob.
. Finally, custom demands that a bottle of rakija be
left on the grave of the deceased who liked to drink it,
or to sprinkle a drop or two during the funeral or
memorial service for the peace of one’s soul.

Sumadija Tea

f they perchance happen to be in our city, Anglo-

Saxons are most surprised that their invariable ritual
tea at five is not served with milk, as it is elsewhere
round the world!
51
 I try to explain to them that we Serbs drink tea only
. when we are taken ill and m ilk only when being
breastfed! '
An American who has been living in Belgrade for
some time carries pocketfuls o f the small milk pack­
ages that are served onboard air-planes, just in case.
In an effort to become refined myself, I have been
trying for years to accustom m yself to taking milk in
my tea, in vain I should say, but somehow it just does
not work; the two simply do not go together... Lemon
or rum ‫ ־‬OK, but milk - what’s milk doing in tea?
When someone orders tea in one o f our restaurants,
it’s as if he had ordered pancakes for one person ‫ ־‬the
chef and the waitress begin fuming with rage!
But this does not mean we are a nation without
refinement! We, too, sometimes drink tea at five
o ’clock in the afternoon... Sumadija tea! And while
the English sip their tea in the silence o f their well-
padded drawing rooms, where nothing is heard
except the clanking of silver spoons against porcelain
cups, we, on the other hand, clink our cups of
Sumadija tea, and this can last a long time, especially
if Dragacevo trumpet players are around.
And while the Englishmen nibble on their biscuits
(the reason they’re so pale), we takepihtije and kavur-
ma, and often there’s a serving of glava u skembetu, a
little snack lest we go hungry.
Although the Boston Tea Party is much more
famous, the advantage o f Sumadija tea is that one
heed not wait until five in the afternoon to have it:
we drink it in the morning, in the afternoon, after
midnight or at dawn for clearing heads and dealing
52
with hangovers. Sumadija tea is made by boiling
diluted plum brandy or from low-proof plum brandy
to which cloves and a pinch of sugar are added. In the
old days, when we used firewood to get warm, cubes
of sugar were added to the Sumadija tea with hot iron
tongs, which would sizzle as they melted in the boiled
brandy. Many are unaware that our national tea i^
very close to the family of English grog; it is also
related to punch, and has a distant relative in Japan
because their rice brandy - sake - is also drunk warm.
As is known, grog was named after British
Admiral Bemon - whose nickname was ‘Old Grog’ ‫־‬
for in the eighteenth century he used to give his sea­
men a drink made of warm water, sugar, rum or
cognac to invigorate them before battles. Punch is
similar ‫ ־‬a drink made of five ingredients (arrack,
rum, cognac, lemon juice and cinnamon); it is then
boiled in sugared water or wine. Both grog and
punch are drunk from silver platedglasses. In this
respect we are much more modest: instead of the sil­
ver ring around the glass with a handle, we wrap our
glasses with paper napkins (if and where available),
which only goes to show that we are much more con­
cerned with substance than with form!
Nevertheless, it will forever remain a secret how an
ordinary Serbian peasant, having discovered Sumadi-
ja tea such a long time ago, came by this epoch-mak­
ing discovery in the same way as the most decadent
lords and admirals of the British fleet...
Drinking heated brandy (as opposed to drinking it
cold) entails a certain effort to evade the sense of guilt:
a man drinking Sumadija tea is not seen as a drunkard.
53
 This d rin k /a t times unjustly suppressed by the
imperialistic tendencies o f whiskey and French
cognac, makes its come-back in times of want, when
all other drinks become much too expensive, or dur­
ing winter flu epidemics, when antibiotics are power­
less against viruses. I have yet to fun into someone
who drinks Sumadija tea and eats garlic on a regular
basis that has caught the flu.. The germs simply drop
dead at the entrance to the coffeehouse!
By the way, I have never truly understood why gar­
lic bears the odium of stink and that a man giving off
this odor is thought rude! In my view, this is just a
matter of convention. Why, for instance, would men­
thol have a nice smell and garlic, which grows so near
to us, smell foul! If we were to agree that it is a plea­
sant and refined scent (perhaps, by way of holding a
nation-wide referendum), we would even be in a posi­
tion to make even perfumes from garlic, which would
at the same time do away with all manner of diseases,
not to mention magic spells, something that highly
over-priced perfumes of today are utterly incapable of
doing. If lovers agree to eat garlic in the evening, they
will have no problems with smell, because the two
will neutralize each other! If those who find it offen­
sive do not eat any garlic - they have only themselves
to blame! Interestingly enough, after their five
o ’clock tea, the English cooly part company without
even a handshake, with just a barely-visible bow;
after having Sumadija tea, on the other hand, every­
one very enthusiastically kisses each other! Perhaps
this is because drinking Sumadija tea is a discovery of

54
 one’s long buried peasant roots, of a missing link with for a third time, gently reproaching us for possibly
the past, of the fraternising o f hajduks and much entertaining doubts regarding Serbdom and for not
more... Indeed, nowhere in the world do men kiss being good enough Serbs.
each other as much as in Belgrade! Kiss. Kiss. Kiss!
Anglo-Saxons, who even avoid shaking hands Oh, the pride o f that sound!
(except when it is really necessary) watch with
amazement as we enthusiastically kiss each other on
the street, when we receive awards, when we express
our condolences, after a goal is scored at stadiums,
after concluding and signing a contract or simply
after not seeing each other for a long period of time...
say two full days.
They are quite unaware that we kiss each other to
more easily bear being apart and alone in the world
and because everyone is against us. We kiss to
encourage one another!
' And while others in the civilised world kiss only
twice, when they must, and in fact kiss the air above
one’s shoulders, we indeed kiss one another, the
- beard and moustache and all. There is no bluffing
there. For a full fifty years we kissed only twice, and
’ then imperceptibly, conspiratorially, something
sacred and somewhat pathetic made its way into our
kisses,'something redolent of Orthodoxy... In that
third kiss there is also something of Slavophilism and
tacit complicity. Does not the saying go: God helps
thrice! . y. . .
. But like all other rituals revived *overnight’, this
third kiss has in a way become a show of force! When
we forget ourselves after the second kiss and tiy to
move away from the embrace, our friends ‫ ־‬newly-
bom converts to the Orthodox faith - strongly pull us

56 :
The Nectar of the God
Dionysus

he age in which we live has disrupted the natural

T sequence of seasons and piled them up in a hap­
hazard fashion. Supermarkets offer melons in Febru­
ary, bananas in all seasons, and grapes in midwinter!
This has robbed modem man of sweet anticipation, of
waiting for fruit to ripen so he can enjoy it in its pro­
per season, and none of our contemporary riches can
possibly compensate for this loss. A wise man once
said that it is a privilege in this day and age to watch
a drama in the theatre, and not on television; to drink
pure spring water and eat grapes that one has picked
oneself.. .
Autumn in Serbia - an excellent opportunity to go
grape picking. And grape picking is more than just
harvesting fruit; it is a ritual rooted deep in the past
Grape fossils dating back to distant geological peri­
ods have confirmed that the grape vine appeared on
Earth before man. The fossil of the oldest graft vine
has been found in a cretaceous rock formation.
When he appeared on planet Earth, man had only
to tame the vine and bottle the wine.

58 J
 The vine was cultivated in our lands by its aborio
inal inhabitants - Illyrians, Trachians and Celts
Ancient Greeks brought the cultivation of this regal
plant to near perfection, and the Romans continued to
celebrate grapes and wine, which were under the pro­
tection of the God Bacchus. In the 3rd century A.D
Emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus planted vineyards
on the slopes of what is today Serbia. Records show
that he greatly cared for his grapes, and that this even­
tually proved his undoing: he was killed by his own
guards in the year A.D. 282, in a rebellion triggered
when he denied them wine.
In the 13th century, Serbian ruler Stephen the First
Crowned passed the first law decreeing severe punish­
ment for diluting wine with water. Tsar Dusan the
Mighty had vineyards around his capital Prizren,
which grow to this day. Prince Lazar cultivated grapes
in Krusevac, which remains a famous wine-growing
region. W ithdrawing before the Turkish onslaught,
Serbian rulers Despot Stephen Lazarevid and Djuradj
Brankovid moved their vineyards to the north - to
Smederevo, Vrsac and the slopes of Mt. FruSka Gora.
During the five hundred years of Turkish rule that
followed, vineyards in Serbia and M o n te n e g ro
slipped into disuse and grew wild, as the Koran for­
bids the enjoyment of wine. When the vineyards in
these lands began bearing fruit again, they w ere
stricken by a dangerous parasite that was b ro u g h t
from America in the 19th century - phylloxera. The
cure for this scourge also came from America - m e
way of a grape vine resistant to phylloxera. H ow ever,
not all wine-growing regions were smitten by the is
 ease. The highest quality vineyards on the slopes of
the Deliblatska Pescara desert and around HorgoS and
Subotica escaped unhurt, because phylloxera cannot
live on sandy soil. In Serbia today, there are about
100,000 hectares o f vineyards, while grape and wine
exports bring annual revenue in excess of one hun­
dred million dollars.
Being on the crossroads o f nations, in a geograph­
ical region where climates and traditions meet and
mix - from central European plantations in the north
to Mediterranean in the south - Serbia grows nearly
all varieties of grape - including varieties that prosper
in Italy, France and the United States.
Some of the varieties that produce the best Serbian
white wines are Riesling, Sauvignon, Burgundy,.
Tramin, M uscat Otonel, and GraSevina (Italian
Riesling), and the red wine varieties include Cabernet
Sauvignon, Burgundy, Merlot, Vranac, Gamay and
. Muscat Hambourg.
And, lest we forget, grapes are good to eat, too.
The most well known varieties are classified on the
basis o f the season in which they ripen, and of inter­
nationally recognised geographical origin. These
include the Queen o f the V ineyard, July Muscat,
Cardinal, white and red Plemenka, the Belgrade Early
Variety, Muscat Hambourg and Italian M uscat
The author of this guide to grapes and wines
prefers white wines to red, and subscribes to the inim-
. itable rules laid down by a great connoisseur: in order
for a white wine to be perfect, it must meet three basic
requirements: first, it must be chilled: second, there
must be a lot of it: and third, it must be free!.
62
Jars of Sunshine
W hat sets Serbs apart from other western peoples
is well-hidden from the sight of strangers - the
winter store and household hording which originates
from the primeval fear of going hungry in winter.
Regardless of how long we have lived in cities in
which we notice the changing seasons mostly by
watching televised weather forecasts, the approach of
winter still awakes in us the deeply ingrained angst of
our ancestors. It is no longer stoked by the sheer
dread of insecurity, but by a nostalgia for the com­
fortable security of the home as it was once conceived
- a bastion.
However much their make-up and education have
estranged them from the archetypes of their grand­
mothers, women are the first to feel the disturbing
hint of winter amidst the dying summer. They
descend from their apartment buildings to the city’s
green markets to feel the excitement of late-summer
abundance, which they offer to their fingers and
palates. The ancient fear of winter hunger arises
despite women’s conviction that they live in a time of
plenty, in a time when people have triumphed over
63
nature, a time when greenhouses m ake it possible to
eat melons in January and pick roses in December.
The Great People's Cookbook, the most reliable
text in the domestic cuisine, offers 269 different dishes
for winter storage: wine leaves, sorrel, red and green
peppers, autumn peas, pickles and green tomatoes, as
well as preserves made of rose, white locust, black­
berry and orange peek Within its pages, you will also
find numerous jam s made o f plums and figs, cor­
nelian cherries, apricots and currant jelly, not to men­
tion compotes like a perverse one made of grapes.
In childhood, the only place we were forbidden to
enter was the pantry - die secret place of our grand­
mas.
. In this semi-dark space, peppers stuffed with cab­
bage glistened like gold, juicy cucumbers turned
green, dark-violet sour cherries matured and noble
ajvar (Serbian caviar) aged in jars covered with cel­
lophane... And in each of this jars (there were never
enough of them in autumn) - also preserved in vinegar
and salt w ater - was the love o f the housewife
who for days on end had selected fresh fruits at the
market, discarding the pieces that were even slightly
rotten or those that were damaged during picking.
Aside from the primeval fear of winter hunger, her
hand was led by love: every picked fruit was intend­
ed for the mouth of those she loved! That’s why our
mothers - the last true prisoners of their families -
don’t restrain their contempt for “store-bought” pre­
serves, prepared by unknown, indifferent hands on an
assembly line at a food factory. However, there are
fewer and fewer women who know how to fry an egg

64
 sunny-side up! And there are fewer and fewer houses we may be, they, will not believe that we take life se­
with pantries. Modem architects of residential build­ riously if we haven’t cast a glance into the storeroom
ings forget about this sacred place, which has in to observe neatly arranged jars with preserves.
apartment blocks been replaced by a narrow white I shall never understand why our country’s writers,
sideboard with poor ventilation where the winter stor­ when interviewed, always pose before a library full of
age is a collection of tins. encyclopedias and not in the storeroom before a row
Belgrade, however, will not give in. At the end of of jars, which they devour more often than many o f‫״‬
September and during the thirty days of October, their books.
from nearly every Belgrade dwelling there rises a co­
lumn of smoke as if tribes of Indians were busy com­
municating amongst themselves: peppers are roasted
for ajvar. Even the greatest intellectuals carry a sack
of blood-red sweet peppers on their backs, hauling
them to relatives who are lucky enough to own an old
wood stove, commonly known as the fiacre, which is
placed in the yard under the linden tree, and where
families gather and take shifts in a ritual of pepper-
roasting bliss. Can anyone imagine a similar scene on
Manhattan Island in New York, or anywhere in Paris,
not to mention the industriously-tidy Switzerland,
where firemen would rush into a yard to extinguish
roasting peppers and eggplants - trailed by teams
from environmental boards and committees.
Indeed, a visitor from abroad, regardless of where
he comes from, will discover the true soul of
Belgrade and the silent love of its housewives only
when, in the middle of winter, he is served ten sour
salads of pickles, cauliflower, green tomatoes and
• sour cabbage.
Though we have entered the twenty-first century,
our grandmas and great-grandmas watch us with
reproach from bygone times, and however successful

66
 / ; . V • ! / ‫־‬. •‫׳‬.‫׳‬ •• •
•"i• ■ .• '

A Café Named Nostalgia

n old legend has it that a Belgrader once showed

A his guest the city and all its miracles. When the
guest collapsed from fatigue and sat in a café to take
rest and have a beer, the host sighed deeply and said:
‫״‬Pity you weren’t here thirty years ago...**
“Is that when Belgrade was the real Belgrade?” -
the guest asked. .
“No! That was when I was really myself!” - said
the host
I don’t belong to the nostalgic camp: on the con­
trary, I have always found them funny and a bit sad.
Not Even Nostalgia is What it Used to Be is the title of
Simone Signoret’s memoirs.
For those who are now 18-years-old, Belgrade is
the most beautiful place in the world and a place
where miracles can happen; they discover the words
“I love you” as if they were being pronounced for the
first time.
It’s a pity that the years mercilessly remove us —
some sooner, some later - from beauty.
Belgrade at midnight, for instance, with its traffic
and glances of pedestrians, looks like it does at mid­
day and is incomparably more vivid than many

68
 European capitals. Belgrade’s youth are only begin­
ning their evenings when my generation had to return
home to strict mothers and fathers. •
‫ ־‬Sometimes I feel as though I’ve awoken from a long
dream in yesterday’s world, when only two cafés (not
counting the buffet at the railway Station) were open at
night in my hometown: the Tabor at Kalenié market
and The Last Chance at Tasmajdan, which was named
after a poem by American poet Langston Hughes. The
Tabor Inn, built who knows when, used to stand in the
middle of the Kalenié market like a ghostly sailboat
grounded among market stalls. The same place is today
home to a tall building in which the elevator frequent­
ly gets stuck. This is because it is now home to ghosts
of drunkards, somnambulists, mythmakers and
vagabonds from the old Tabor. A drunken homeless had been at receptions would fill the Tabor to have a
poet in the seventies used to collect doormats in the last drink, just like people once did at Parisian Halles,
newly constructed building and pile them up in the ele­ before the unidentified object called the Beaubourg
vator where he would spend the night stuck between (Center Georges Pompidou) landed there.
two floors. It seems that the magical site was attractive The question is how to find such places today -
. to him. where Belgrade hides its soul, café customs and, most
The Tabor was actually the prototype of the typical importantly, its cuisine. Any written guide is useless
Belgrade café, which is today hardly possible to find in and incomplete because cafés die quickly; legendary
the capital, but which still exists in provincial towns places disappear and new ones are bom, still waiting
across Serbia; they have survived despite the for their chroniclers.
omnipresent snack bars, pizzerias and cafés. In the Hence, you have to use your instincts or, better
middle stood a giant ‫״‬drum” stove, heated with saw­ still, to follow plump people who don’t scrimp on
dust, around which huddled peasants who slept on bags food, who know where to go for lunch or dinner, and
waiting for the market to open. V agrants, ragamuffins, house painters from a building site who prefer culi­
poets, drunkards, fortune-tellers, prophets, homeless nary content to form and elegant service. When you
people and night birds made up the rest of the gathered enter a café with them, you don’t need to know our
bunch until dawn, when concert-goers or people who
71
70 ' ‫־‬ ‫־‬
 . language; just point at their plate and bottle and you
will not fail in your choice.
A foreigner who has visited Belgrade several times
will notice that its restaurants are governed by a tyran­
ny of grilled specialties. After some time however, the
visitor has enough of the legendary ćevapčići, pljeskav­
ice, ražnjići and vešalice and wishes to eat something
cooked, preferably with a spoon. You’ll easyly recog-
nise such a place by the red-faced gourmands sitting at
joined tables and tablecloths with red and white check­
ers and not of white damask. There you will taste dishes
that you’ll never find in luxurious hotels. I recommend
piquant veal’s head in tripe, pork stew, potato moussaka,
■‘.j meat and vegetable stew, beans with smoked ribs,
: - sweet cabbage with mutton, stuffed green leaves, and
in spring, a true miracle dish: lamb kapama with sour
milk, a combination o f cooked and roasted lamb-meat
with spinach and fried scallions.
Just how much Serbs love this type o f café is con­
firmed by a story about a Belgrader who for years
used to sit with his friend at a table in the old café
Zora. Every day he would praise his wife’s stew,
made of veal hearts and kidneys, as the best in the
world. Finally, one Saturday, he consented to bring
this superb dish to the café: they tasted it, but some­
thing, they all agreed, was missing from its flavour.
What it was nobody could say for sure until one of
them got an idea and cried: “Pass it through the wait­
er’s window!” Only when they pushed a pot of stew
trough the kitchen window, where waiters receive
orders, did the stew really get its true flavour - the
café flavour.
72
Male Sunday
he last few .decades have seen all that was once
T sacred destroyed; places once occupied by
famous Belgrade restaurants are now home to glass
snack bars and bistros. Nothing is what it once was.
Only the Sunday male kafana, it seems, is eternal:
rarely will you find a female face in the morning
hours.
Respectable paterfamilias march along the streets
and sit in their kafanas at noon, always at the same
table, and order a stiff drink, a coffee and a mineral
water. They pour down the brandy with a grimace, as
if it were a bitter medicine; that is the rule of good
behaviour (so that no one might think they are drunk­
ards). Soon, others arrive. Chairs are pulled closer
and tables joined. Arguments begin about who should
pay: “My round!” “No, it’s not, it’s mine!” “Over my
dead body!”
The respectable sit with the respectable, pensioners
with pensioners, veterans with their wartime com­
rades, and at every table there is a young apprentice,
still not sure of his position, but proud to be a mem­
ber of male society and willing to listen attentively
‫־‬ 73
 with all ears. A time will come when others will lis. rants and the lobbies of great hotels. They have lunch
ten to him and younger men will sit at the bottom of or drink coffee with them, but that is quite a different
the table. matter. When the seventh day arrives, an old, immova­
A happy Sunday mid-day o f true male brother­ ble obtuseness falls on Belgrade, turning it suddenly
hood! They are as similar as peas in a pod, in every into a market town.
city, town, village or hamlet under our skies. Perhaps Then, as they stretch out after Sunday breakfast,
because it is difficult to find anyone in Belgrade with­ . not knowing what to do with themselves, the spirit of ‫״‬
out at least a grandfather from some other place, the .. their grandfathers, those household tyrants of olden
whiff of the market town penetrates the environment . days, takes them by the arm and leads them to the
of the magnificent Hotel M etropol; grandfather’s male table that has not changed in centuries... "
patriarchal attitudes grin from the mirrors of the old But that is precisely what is.so attractive about
Majestic hotel; there is not a single woman (apart Belgrade. It is a great metropolis and a market town
from the waitresses) in the splendid Moskva; nor the at one and the same time!
Excelsior, whose very name shines of nobility; not to
mention the Greek Queen or the Kolarac, in which
pensioners fill out their sports forecasts.
At this time on a Sunday women are preparing din­
ner and hanging the laundry.
It cannot be said that their husbands never take
them out, but it happens once a week, usually in the
company of another married couple. They will never
be introduced to that male Sunday clique whose cen­
turies-old unwritten rule is: women are strictly for­
bidden.
A woman will make it to the moon before any of
their kind turn up in a Belgrade kafana on a Sunday
morning. During the week, the pace of modem living
has forced Belgrade men to break with the habits of
their fathers and forget their warning that the kafana
is a sinful place full of various dangers, where the
only women to be found are likafana women”. For six
days a week they meet women in kafanas and restau­
 twenty-two people, and with being sick in the john.
You can’t fail to notice how Serbian hosts loosen
their trouser-belts several times in the course of a din­
ner, and undo the top button of their flies towards the
end of dinner. While locals loosen their ties and fling
their jackets over the backs of their chairs, foreigners
remain buttoned up to the neck. They mostly nibble at
the green salad, like rabbits. The hosts treat them as if
they had just fled a famine, as if people in Serbia are
the only ones who eat and the rest of the world goes
hungry! They resort to Belgrade’s famous food terror,
which reaches its climax when the host, usually a
general manager or someone equally important,
The Business Lunch offers a pig kidney or a lamb’s tail to his distin­
guished guest, using his fingers of course.
After some twenty bottles of wine, begins the
choral part of the business lunch. The hosts, eyes
sparkling with love for their country, look at each other
egardless of whether or not you have any success with melancholy and break into some folk song in
R on your business trips to Serbia, there’s one thing
you can’t avoid - the business lunch.
unison, off-key of course. The guests think that they
have come on an official visit to the Don Cossacks
In order to be a success, the business lunch in choir - especially when it’s time to sing the obligato­
Serbia has to present our national cuisine in all its ry Russian song - and not to sell computers or textile
variety to foreign guests. After opening with cheese, machines.
salami, ham, olives, cheese pie, spinach pie, boiled Finally, when all this ends to everyone's pleasure,
pit-heads with horse radish and veal broth, which is the distinguished foreign guests are presented with
expected to expand our guests’ stomachs so they can gifts which will forever remind them of this succes­
continue eating, comes the main dish, the crown of sful business lunch and Serbian cordiality and hospi­
tality. They usually get one of our national musical
the meal - a roast pig with an apple in its mouth and
instruments that make no sound because they were
small green peppers in its ears.
bought in a souvenir shop. Other possibilities include
As a rule, the business lunch ends with crepe a carved, wood flask which leaks plum brandy, a
suzettesflambées with a wine-sauce topping served for
77
 peasant cap and all manner of useful little thinguma­
jigs...
Americans invariably receive a huge coffee-table
book entitled The Beauty o f Serbia, always in a
German translation, while Germans receive books
about Belgrade in Russian. Like Santa Claus, the
marketing director presents foreigners with ballpoint
pens with dry refills, key rings and last year’s calen­
dars. Businessmen show an amazing, almost infan­
tile, love for diaries, paperweights, plastic portfolios,
coasters and other bits of stationery. This is especial­
ly true of badges dedicated to important anniversaries
of the Serbian company in question, which symbolise
the stepped-up development that has turned a small
workshop into an industrial giant whose products are
exported to six continents...all in a matter of fifty
years! . .
Then, there’s the piercing cry! A tipsy general
manager, in his eagerness to pin a badge on the lapel
of his business partner from Manchester, has pierced
him with the badge’s needle. When blood has been
spilt, the Serb insists on a toast and calling each other
by first names!
Evening is falling, the business lunch is over, and a
‫ ׳‬line of black cars slithers towards downtown. And
while our crapulous businessmen sleep like babies on
the back seats of cars, the distinguished guests have
their fill of chatting with drivers who speak foreign
languages impeccably, as they usually have degrees
in languages or a master’s degree in economics, but
haven’t managed to land a better job.
78
Having a Bad Dream
ollowing a Western example, Belgrade restaurants
F are now adorned. with bar counters and high
barstools. Alas, life is never trouble-free! According
to some unwritten rule, the bars are always presided
over by a wrinkled, scowling, middle-aged frump, an
obvious import from the hinterland, wearing a white
babushka-style scarf knotted dowdily below her chin,
her body wrapped in a pale blue apron, her big toes
and heels sticking out of open footwear, and she’s
mad as hell that she has to look at drunks the whole
day long. When she at long last deigns to take note of
you, instead of pleasant chatter, she spits out the terse,
“What will it be?” When you state your request, she
cuts you off with the snap retort, “We don’t serve at
the bar! Sit down at a table like everyone else.”
Dear God! They don’t serve at the bar! .Where
then? ‫־‬
• Next, your blasé, naïve notion of sipping your
drink and chatting with the barman is dissolving in
the sour Balkan stench of a “public-sector communal
feeding establishment” in which some obscure sani­
tary commission has imposed a rigid ban on drinking
—at the bar! Although the bar, like all others the
79
 world over, is designed for drinking, you begin to feel
like you’re having a bad dream...
Harry’s Bar in Venice where Hemingway tried for
years to drown his nostalgia in rum cocktails, or New
York’s Gino’s on Lexington Avenue, eternally
besieged by European newspaper correspondents, the
bars round St Germain des Pres with chatty, adroit
barman - there’s nothing they don’t know... My tipsy
countenance has been reflected by many bar coun­
ters in Italy, polished to a blinding glaze, particularly
the counter of Café Greco in Rome, where the famous
Giorgio de Chirico paid for his croissant and cappuc­
cino with his matchless signature on the cuff of the
maitre d’... These are bars where bartenders know
exactly the sort of coffee you like, be it serre, machi-
ata., medium sweet or whatever. I have drunk
Calvados at the bar of the Brussels Chez Moi with a
Great Dane slumbering under a barstool. Then there
are the counters o f the dingy bars in Bangkok,
Singapour or Venezuela - run by Cuban immi­
grants... What should I call my memoirs? “A Pub
Crawl!”
And now, in my good old Belgrade: “We don’t
serve at the bar!”
Where do they serve? In the library? The observa-
, tory? The laboratory? The toilet? The cloak-room? Or
the League of Reformed Alcoholics? Where?
Just remember the world’s virtuoso barmen who
don’t stand still for a minute and chatter in five or six
languages with their guests, discreetly keeping all
kinds of secrets... Then look at our bar tending
“ladies”, who are probably offended by the simple
SO
fact that they can’t be at home in their village, where
at that moment a com harvest is in progress or their
nephew is being given a send-off to the army, while
they have to be here in a smoky Belgrade establish­
ment behind a bar counter they hate with all the fer­
vour of their pastoral souls! Just look at them, gathe­
red beneath an educational poster that vividly
depicts the origins of cancer in cigarette smoking, or
exhorts against alcohol as the ruin of family cohe­
siveness. Look at them, loudly cackling about top­
pling the restaurant’s manager, or watch how they
spend hours on end changing shifts and passing the
till while guests wait patiently for this historic swap
of personnel to end... I once happened upon a group
of waitresses holding a trade union meeting. I turned
to the one that looked most senior and asked for a
drink. The café band was wailing in the depths of the
hall.
“I don’t dance!” she hissed coldly through
clenched teeth.
“Where is the nearest bar that is still open?” I once
asked a receptionist in Leningrad.
“In Helsinki.” he retorted placidly.
The inexhaustible imaginativeness of our system
cannot tire of putting semi-qualified, female cooks
from village canteens behind bars, instead of trained
bar tenders.
It may be due to nervous Belgrade posteriors, their
proverbial traditional bulk, or the manner of sitting,
or whatever, but the fact is that Belgrade bars can
rarely offer one an intact bar stool! They are either
rickety and the seat keeps falling off or there are no
81
round leather seat-tops at all, only a metal stump on
which one can try to assume a tolerable position, an
act that is reminiscent of the mediaeval Turkish prac­
tice of impalement. Why don’t they repair them?
Either they have no money (or time or sense), or
they’ve knocked off the seats so as to discourage
gathering at a bar where, in any case, “no drinks are
served!” The infrequent urge to repair them is invari­
ably stalled by the subconscious hatred of bars -
those new-fangled imports.
I admit I no longer have the strength to struggle
against this! Defeated, I slouch back at the traditio­
nal Belgrade café table with its filthy tablecloth.
From sheer nostalgia for European and American
bars I tend to drink more and more, alone at a table...
Instead of being seated on a high stool at the bar, I am
more and more often found lying under the table!

The Writer’s Club

riters in the West live a solitary life, each in

W their own world. For the most part, they don’t
know each other personally. By contrast, you can find
the densest concentration o f writers in Europe, per
square metre, at the Writer’s Club in Belgrade.

83
 Standing apart from Eastern European.countries
during the era of widespread socialist grayness -
when writer’s clubs were rigorously monitored and
guarded by fat, frowning militia men (as was the case
in Moscow, Sofia and Bucharest) - the Belgrade
Writer’s Club at Francuska 7 was the most open and
democratic place in the entire city. Even during the
most tumultuous times, famous international jouna-
lists would drop in fresh from the airport to mingle
with crowned royals and Nobel Prize winners who
came to dine - along with numerous suspicious
characters who made their living by gathering
information. Lovely women and future movie stars
began their careers at the Club in the company of
intoxicated poets and movie directors.
Still, the famous gastronomic guide Michelin was
never as amiss as when it unjustly omitted the
Belgrade W riter’s Club from its hallowed pages,
revered by gourmands across the world, because to
many the Club is the best restaurant in the world.
When my friends from abroad mention the
Belgrade Writer’s Club, I always notice their voices
quiver with a certain gastronomically induced night-
owl yearning for places where one can eat, chatter
and quarrel until the early hours. Indeed, the Club
serves excellent food, probably the best in the
country. I don’t believe, however, that the Club’s
guests are so gastronomically inclined that they love
the place simply due to the subtle difference of
quality of the Club’s beefsteak versus that of another
restaurant.
84
It is rather difficlt to speak of the three rooms in the
basement, which every night provide enough material
for at least three sagas and three voluminous novels.
Figuratively speaking, the three rooms of the Club at
Francuska 7, eternally smoky from a blend of cheap
tobacco, Holland pipe tobacco, the most expensive
cigarillos from Havana and perfumed cigarettes,
represent, in miniature, purgatory, hell and heaven.
Famished, thin and perplexed young poets enter
the middle room for the first time, only to exit two or
three decades later from the best lit dining room on
the left as tired, heavy laureats.
How much time it would take to describe this
meeting of worlds and generations, which can be met
face to face only here, in this Belgrade basement and
nowhere else; how much time to discover the secret
of why diplomats and politicians leave their
comfortable, private clubs to expose themselves to
smoke, noise and drunk recitals by poets who lose
their temper! I will never believe they do this only
because “the food’s really good here!”
Among this vivacious crowd - in which art,
passion, ambition, politics and cunning intertwine
with gastronomy, where fresh news from reliable
sources mingle with guesses and forecasts, intrigues
with lucid revelations, gastritis with hunger for
success - a calm and legendary figure circulated for
years until his death. This was the most celebrated
Serbian restaurant manager Ivo KuSalid, from £ilipi,
near Dubrovnik, who served with equal courtesy and
serenity poets who drank on a tab, esteemed
academics and amateurs, the talented and their
. 85
admirers, the powerful and the ostracized, gluttons Hence, dear foreigner, if you arrive at the Surčin •
and ascetics ‫ ־‬a dizzying panoply of Figures who Airport when all the restaurants in Belgrade have
already closed, instruct your taxi driver to take you to
would emerge from a fog, strut for some time on
Francuska 7, and treat him to a drink at the bar. He
stage, and disappear again into nothingness, neglect
or fame. . . will have been there many times before.
His partner and successor, M r Buda, mysterious
and smiling like a true Serbian Buddha, continues to
foster the tradition of the Club, having changed
neither its menu nor manners. b ‫ ׳‬V. 4
This is, by the way, the only menu I know by heart,
like a love song not intended for the heart but for the
stomach, from the first cold antipasti to Mr. Buda’s
signature. At the same time, it is an excellent guide to
what is called Serbian cuisine. In short, a guest at the
Club can enjoy a perfect foie gras, better than one
served in Paris, Anglo-Saxon beefsteaks and rump
steaks or choucroute alsaciene prepared with
sausages, as well as lamb from distant mountainous
regions prepared in a number o f ways - roasted,
boiled, breaded or what Americans call lamb chops
and the Greeks paidakia. Representative of national
cuisine are several sorts of sarmas (dolmas), which
can either be rolled with sour cabbage leaves, dock
leaves or, a la Mediterranean, grape leaves. Interes­
tingly, I’ve noticed that the first strawberries don’t
reach Belgrade’s green markets before they’re served
in the W riter’s Club, where they are eaten with
cream. It is sufficient for a foreigner to spend a single
evening in the Writer’s Club basement to complete a
short, one-night course on Belgrade and the mentality
of the Serb people - through the dishes, drinks and
conversation.

86

Pljeskavica Strikes Back
o, I really didn’t believe Me Donald’s would
N thrive in Belgrade, but it has! O f course, I wished
it all the best, but I just didn’t believe it would take
root in a land traditionally dominated by the spicy
pljeskavica, with more onion than can be tolerated by
the fastidious American palate.
Nor do I really have anything against McDonald’s
hamburgers, on one condition - that I don’t have to
eat them myself. I can still feel their mushy plastic
taste in the moist split buns, with fried potatoes that
don’t really resemble fried potatoes at all - all this
sprayed with the obligatory redeeming ketchup - in
New York’s Canal Street where down-and-outs like
me ate out with three and a half dollars in their pock­
ets. Plastic tables, plastic coasters, plastic utensils,
Coca-Cola in plastic glasses, plastic chairs, plastic
floors, plastic commercials, plastic-looking girls.
behind counters, everything plastic... When I’m
forced to eat at a McDonald’s, I pinch myself now
and then just to make sure I haven’t turned into plas­
tic.
88
The craziest thing is that for years I used to dribble
at the mouth when reading Popeye comic books,
which had a character called “Peter the Eater” who
devoured piles of hamburgers. What bliss it was for
me when I first tasted this manna in the States!
Today I no longer have to travel that far to eat what
I don’t like! McDonald’s is in Belgrade, but if every
American were to try, at least once in his lifetime, the"
pljeskavica in a hot split bun, especially one served by
my friend Žika Pljeskavica, from Leskovac, at his
kiosk next to the Moskva hotel, McDonald’s would
have to shut all of its hamburger outlets, and the line
in front of Žika’s kiosk would stretch down
Balkanska street as far as the American military bases
in the Mediterranean!
I’m personally very pleased that two superpowers
are vying for Serbs stomachs.
Americans imported Coca-Cola to Belgrade and it
passed muster.
Then some over enthusiastic Slavophil tried to
import Russian kvass, which did not pass muster.
Piroshki, however, went down quite well.
In addition to the l^-century classics, I would cite
Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya vodka as the most
powerful Russian influences on me, although in one
period of my literary career I felt a profound attach­
ment to Pertsovka - not to mention a Polish influence
in the form of Wiborova vodka, or a more recent pe­
riod in which the new Gorbachev vodka, produced by
the Germans, simply knocked me over.
The Italians assaulted us with pizzas, and Greeks
with their gyros and kebabs.
89
 Only Viennese and Parisian steaks have remained
on the battlefield.
Americans have now taken up positions at a few
McDonald’s restaurants in Belgrade.
Our unqualified love for American civilisation and
the American way o f life is now backfiring in the
shape of a huge overpowering hamburger that
McDonald’s has slapped on the face of our glorious
Skadarlija - the Younger
grill cuisine.
But Žika Pljeskavica*s empire is striking back!
Sister of Monmartre
McDonald’s has won a few battles, but the war is
not yet over. Just wait and m iw i! «»‫• ״‬

f Parisian painters discovered Montmartre, where

I Toulouse-Lautrec first moved followed by
Modigliani, Soutine and Picasso, then actors were the
first to discover Belgrade’s Skadarlija,' which was
near the National Theatre and provided cheap room
and board. ‫■־‬jr\ ‫״;'■׳‬
Only a few dozen metres downhill from the small
Kingdom of Serbia’s National Theatre, where Shake­
speare, Moliere and Racine were staged nightly, the
poor quarter called Skadarlija, forgotten by God and
people alike, eked out its bare existence in the dark­
ness of the late 19th century. Once actors had taken
off their costumes of princes, kings and court jesters,
they walked down to this cobbled street, down which
water flowed in its eroded middle during spring and
autumn rains. The houses were ground-floor hovels
with rooms that were entered by crossing muddy
yards. The only way to find any shelter and warmth
was to go to one of the small, sooty cafés. ..‫■־‬

91
 After the actresses and actors had discovered
Skadarlija, and they were inclined to stay up all night,
the writers soon followed - first poets, then prose
writers. Right up to the end of the 19th century, a
plethora of great literary figures, who now live in
textbooks, made their appearance there. Stevan
Srem ac/Janko Veselinovié, Milovan GliSié, Bora
Stankovié, Branislav Nusié, are only some of the le­
gendary local figures who lived and wrote in Skadar­
lija. When a provincial teacher had to give a lesson on
Romanticism, he brought the whole class to the Three
Hats café, gave his lecture, and treated them all to a
beer. Actually, there is no other place in Belgrade that
has been frequented by so many great writers as this
particular café with its low ceiling and washed-out
walls. Every table in this café was once used as the
editorial office of a newspaper or magazine. Procla­
mations, petitions, feuilletons, poems and stories
were written on them. Literary fame was achieved at
Skadarlija’s cafés, where money and love were bor­
rowed. Meals and beverages were on tab - as was
overnight shelter when one had been deprived of Jp■***p
one’s small rented room.
However, times change... Once poor actors ;
became stars and doomed poets renowned figures, all
they left in Skadarlija were memorial plaques and
debts, though tavern owners had long since deceased.
In the 1950’s, Skadarlija again fell into deep oblivion,
turning into a shabby cobblestone street with broken
lanterns. In the seventies, a group of Belgrade artists,
who used to meet at the neglected Three Hats café,
decided to renovate this old Bohemian quarter. First,

92
 order warm com bread with cold salted skin milk or
kajmak at My Hat, where a splendid band of dark-.
skinned tamburitza players from Backa play splen­
didly. Then we would enjoy delicious veal soup at the
Golden Bowl. At the Three Hats I would treat you to
Serbian grill with sour cabbage sprinkled with
crushed red paprika, and then to a sweet walnut pie
across the way, at the Two Stags. On this street
,almost every restaurant has live music and all its
musicians can play folk dances and any Viennese
waltz. ‫ ״‬.
I couldn’t promise that while visiting the numerous
restaurants, cafés, taverns and coffee bars, we would
remain sober enough to go down to the last café,
Skadarlija, to greet the morning, but what I could
promise is that you would leave Skadarlija in love -
if not with the quarter, then surely with your beautiful
lady companion as, without her company, none of the
above would be worth trying.
In Skadarlija, love is as obligatory as dinner!

architect Ugljesa Bogunovié persuaded the City of

Belgrade to proclaim Skadarlija the first pedestrian
zone in the city. An illustrator at Politika and travel
writer, Zuko Dzumhur, restored and renovated the old
café, and painter Mario Maskareli renewed the tavern
by painting portraits of Skadarlija celebrities in its
niches.
If I were to take you on a guided tour of Skadarlija,
I would first invite you for a coffee on the terrace of
the Two White Doves. Then, as a snack, I w o u ld

Skadarlija —a Nostalgic Trip
"P e e lin g tired from an era of punctuated growth,
X Belgrade in the mid-1950s suddenly embarked on
a quest for its spiritual identity, or in old-fashioned
poetic parlance, its soul, which it discovered in the
forgotten lanes and byways of Skadarlija. The run­
down taverns that were the haunts of impecunious
poets, the chipped chandeliers, the bumpy cobble­
stones laid during Turkish rule and the proud trees
that miraculously still line sharply sloping Skadarska
Street are enough of a setting for the first act of a play
that will take old sentimental city dwellers into the
promised land of Nostalgia.
Every self-respecting city in the world has its sen­
timental retreat: however much a city may love
modernity and the fast life, it will have a quiet comer
tucked away where it can give rein to its sentiments.
As a rule, too, this is invariably the artists’ quarter.
The most famous of these are certainly the Paris
Montmartre and New York’s Greenwich Village;
Vienna has its Gruenzig, Athens - its songful Plaka...
Come to think of it, the intrinsic attraction of
Belgrade's Skadarlija lies in its having been home to
artists, who lived in its houses and drank in its ta­
verns; it lies in the legend of artists* camaraderie,
which has survived untouched and unsurpassed as a
unique lesson in friendship - possibly the only true
meaning of life, whatever the age.
The taverns, pubs and small cafés where they spent
their nights during “the best days of their lives” have
become a kind of shrine to artists. It is no exaggera­
tion to say that Serbian Romantic literature of the sec­
ond half of the XIXth century was played out in tav­
erns such as Skadarlija’s Tri Šešira (Three Hats) and
Dva Jelena (Two Deers). Today, Skadarlija is a gas­
tronomic paradise for gourmands intent on sampling
Serbian cuisine. There are elite restaurants such as
Ima Dana (There is Time) and Dva Bela Goluba
(Two White doves), and a brewery once owned by the
famous brewer Bajloni that is popular for its excellent
97
beer as much as for its prices. The same informality
of style and taste prevails among Skadarlija’s artists-
there is something for everybody, from pricey mas­
terpieces that any museum would be proud to display,
to street art, souvenirs and amateurishly painted
dreams. It is no wonder that Skadarlija and
Montmartre' were twinned a score of years ago, kin­
dred districts sharing an attitude to life and a way of
life.
I often sit on the comer of Zetska and Skadarska
Streets that frame Skadarlija, in what used to be an
old and dilapidated optician’s shop and is now an art
gallery known as Montmartre. The name was chosen
by its owner, one Pierre Bojovic, who spent a large
part of his colourful life in France. A nostalgia for
those days prompted him to name his gallery after the
famous Parisian painters’ colony. Interestingly, old
Skadarlija was never known for its painters, but rather
for its actors and poets. Painters prefer the high
ground, attics and lofts where light is at its best and
rent at its lowest. Skadarlija never had many tall
buildings; rather, it was a street of cottages, where a
man the worse for drink was never in any danger of
stumbling down stairs.
I had the rare privilege to have my painting cele­
brating Toulouse-Lautrec become something of a
hallmark of the gallery. I once painted a portrait of
Toulouse-Lautrec on an old dishcloth bought at the
Paris Clignacourt flea market some twenty years earli­
er, featuring Toulouse-Lautrec’s Aristide Briand. At
night, when Pierre and his guests leave, Toulouse-
Lautrec, who is quite at home in Skadarlija, gets out

98
 of his framed dishcloth and walks across the street to
the Spasojevid bakery for a kidney goulash and loaf,
and then, sitting well back in the darkest comer of
Dva Jelena, sips his grape brandy until morning,
when he can be seen tottering up Skadarska street and
creeping through, the keyhole into Pierre’s Gallery
and back into his frame.
Going down cobbled Skadarlija Street to Bajloni’s
Market, I pass the bronze statue of Dura JakSid, the
great Serbian poet, sculpted and mounted outside
house No. 34 by the brilliant sculptor Jovan
Soldatovid. With his usual cape over his shoulders
and his hat pushed back high on his forehead, my
neighbour Dura sits outside the house where he died
in 1878; returning home at dawn rather intoxicated,
Dura decided to sit down on the steps and have a
breather before turning in.
As for big city life, it ju st passes us by in
Skadarlija, set apart as we are in a metropolis of two
million people. For one thing, we all know each other
there and everybody knows everybody else’s busi­
ness, as if we were in the remotest backwater in the
XIXth century. Everybody knows what others are
having for dinner, because we all meet at Bajloni’s
Market every morning and exchange greetings
unimaginable in Paris or New York: “Hallo there,
having stuffed capsicums again, I see!” a conclusion
drawn, o f course, from observing our neighbour’s
purchases sticking from his special market bag.
Everybody knows the honest peddler Nevzet from
the corner of Skadarska and Gospodar-Jovanova
Streets. For thirty years he has been wheeling his cart
100
on which he sells roasted sun-flower and pumpkin
seeds, peanuts, sesame seeds and a whole array of
salty delicacies. His wares are great favourites among
poorer couples - his seeds soon sprout into a tender
plant of love that may, in the fullness of time, bear
fruit in the shape of a pink-cheeked and blue-eyed
baby. Nevzet learned his trade from his elders, who
owned a well-known pastry shop in Belgrade. If you
want to find anybody in Skadarlija* s crowd, all you
have to do is ask Nevzet: he always knows where
everybody is.
To enter Skadarlija by car, you pass through a huge
wrought-iron gate where Gospodar Jevremova Street
ends and Skadarska Street begins. The gate is guard-.
ed at night by one Mida, a passionate chess player and
voracious reader. Had he been a writer, Mida might
have written endless stories about those entering
Skadarlija at dusk and leaving at dawn. Couples come
at about eight, the man dressed to the nines with a
lady on his arm who went to a great deal of trouble to
look her best. The uneven cobblestones are the bane
of her high heels, which always lose in the battle with
Turkish age. Full of expectations and wreathed in
smiles, the happy couples scatter into the taverns that
flank the road to have a marvelous time. They are
liable to have some unforgettable experiences -
someone may propose, another may break off a rela­
tionship of years. Mida sees some women run off with
tears in their eyes and make-up running down cheeks,
while others leave hand-in-hand after having arrived
alone. In the early evening he ushers in freshly-
shaved musicians, and ushers them out just before
101
dawn, their ties by then askew, hanging limply from
no-lonser-white co llars.
As the city wakes up and prepares for another
day’s serious business, Skadarlija yawns and prepares
to turn in for a well-earned rest, trading day for night
and night for day, very much like the proverbial black
sheep in the respectable family of Belgrade’s central Hospitality Galore
districts. ‫׳‬

ou must have noticed that Serbia is the only

Y country in the world that advertises itself as hos­
pitable in tourist brochures - just below the hotel
prices, residence taxes, beach and bus tickets. What
modesty! Foreigners know best how hospitable we
are! We charge for everything - from water to park­
ing. The only thing we don’t charge for is air, which
is plentiful. But if the quality of the air depended on
us, I don’t think anyone would breathe! The air would
simply disappear. We regularly run out of all kinds of
things, anything you can think of - but what we’re
really rich in is our proverbial hospitality!
Hospitality, which our tourist resorts provide in
large amounts, is a natural treasure that we’ll never
lose, even if every foreign tourist desert us.
Foreigners certainly don’t come to our country
because of our blue sea. The sea is clearer in Hawaii.
Is it because of the mountains? They’re higher and
more beautiful in Switzerland.
Do they come to have a good time? Well, in the
summer months singing is not allowed on the coast .

103
after eleven o’clock. Police punish tenors and sopra­
nos equally.
Nor do foreigners come here to eat. They all have
trouble losing weight during summer holidays!
Nor do they come to gamble. They can do that to
their heart’s content on the Cote d’Azur, in Atlantic
City and Las V egas.
As for our wines - everyone knows that French
wines are much more drinkable.
Time deprives us of illusions: the only reason fo­
reigners come here is for our hospitality, which is
time-honoured and which has no counterpart any­
where else in the world! ■. .
So let’s start charging for our hospitality, and our
country will become prosperous overnight! ‫_ ׳‬
I suggest that we set up a Ministry for Hospitality
and Tourism. I’ll make a sacrifice and become its first
minister. I’ve read so many brochures that extol our
hospitality that it has actually affected my speech.
The language of tourist brochures and reports is so
deep in my brain that when someone asks me how my
wife is doing, I proudly say: *T love my wife - she is
so hospitable - about 35 percent more than in same
period in 1980, when we had the largest number of
guest nights.”

Thanks for Your Visit
e can work miracles while in creative ecstasy.
W We leap across centuries in only two steps. We
have this one shortcoming, though - the day after the
grand opening of a new super-modem motel, some­
one nicks the handles from the toilet doors. Why he
needs them will forever remain a mystery. Someone
else stabs the expensive leather o f the overstuffed
armchairs with a penknife. And yet someone else
nicks the telephone receiver. Why on Earth does he
need an amputated telephone receiver? The waiters
have new tuxedos, but they haven’t shaved for three
days. The house painter has painted over an abstract
fresco on the central wall of the hall. Of all the gor­
geous entrances to the motel, only a tiny back door is
unlocked, and the guests squeeze their way in. Who’s
got the key to the main door? Nobody knows. The
escalator works only on red-letter days. Just like the
fountain in front o f the entrance. The grill works
instead of the lift. They have installed an air-condi­
tioner, but there’s a mistake: it warms the rooms in
the summer and cools them in winter. The menu has
huge, leather-bound covers - it looks more like an
106
encyclopedia volume - but within its covers there’s
only one thin sheet of paper with barely visible typed
letters, the so-called sixth copy.
On hills and in clearings, close to by-roads and on
the banks of wild mountain streams, amidst drowsy
villages and small towns, the new motels shine in
glass, aluminum, concrete, wood and copper... As if
they had landed from another, happier planet. They
look like spacecraft, reminiscent of futuristic dreams,
the wildest ideas of Gropius... From these meadows,
where indifferent cows graze peacefully, these motels
are ready to fly straight into the history of modem
architecture.
“That’s a pretty motel you’ve got there! When was
it built?’’
“Last year. The guy who built it got some impor­
tant award, you know.”
“Marvellous! Give me a whisky on the rocks. And
no soda, please.”
“There’s no ice. The fridge doesn’t work.”
“And what about whisky?”
“We don’t have any.”
“How come?”
“How should I know? No one drinks it, I guess.”
“Beer?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it!”
“Why not?”
“It’s lukewarm. The fridge is out of order, I told
you.”
“Well, give me a glass of wine then.”
“We don’t serve wine in glasses. We only sell it
bottled.”
107
 “Coffee?”
“The hot plate is out.”
“What about tea?”
“I just told you the hot plate is broken.”
“What should I order then?”
“Why don’t you have a brandy, man? And have a
glass o f water, like other folks. You won’t find such
water anywhere else in the world... It’s cold. Look!
You can’t hold your finger in it for more than a
minute.”
W hile I sip the brandy, I suddenly remember a
wise old man who told me long ago:
“Run from places where they praise their air and
urotorl TW---------------» ‫־‬ ’
The Belgrade Lifestyle
growing number of seniors who spent time living
A abroad are returning to the city of their birth. At
first, it seemed as though they had easily forgotten
Belgrade and had quickly adapted to their new
environments, but that was merely an illusion. At the
twilight of life, when accounts must be settled,
Belgrade pulls them back with an irresistible force.
As it turns out, they wasted the best years of their
lives - so here they are, once again, sitting with sur­
viving peers in their favorite coffeehouses, just as
they did before leaving. It is as though they had never
left; they are the same now as when they sat dream­
ing of the wide world. Where did you go? Nowhere.
What did you do? Nothing. Somewhere far across the
ocean, or on the banks of the river Seine, Thames or
Main, they left behind their previous lives like worn-
out overcoats, along with their children, who find the
idea of returning to the crazy country of their ances­
tors quite preposterous.
“Merry Christmas. From your son and his family”.
This is all they get from their children - once a year.
The greeting is sent at Christmas, calculated accord­
ing to the Gregorian, not the Julian, calendar.
The older they get the more they grow aware of the
advantages of the so-called Belgrade lifestyle, where
everything is seemingly topsy-turvy compared to the
world outside. The pillars that hold Western civilisa­
tion are lacking in Belgrade. There is neither authori­
ty nor a hierarchy of values. This is because everyone
here knows “somebody”, usually from an early age,
when that “somebody” was a “nobody” - because
Belgrade is one big family. Also, there is no inclina­
tion here to turn “saving money” into a lifestyle
because every generation has seen the dinar lose value,
which has rendered saving absurd.
“How do Belgraders subsist?”, asks the returnee
from the outside world. Neither the returnee nor even
the Belgrader has a plausible answer because it’s a
true wonder. And despite the city’s meagre means,
Belgrade’s coffeehouses are always full and new ones
are opened by the day.
This is one of the rare cities of the world where
“time is not money”; everyone has more than enough
of it, and this constitutes the essential underlying
quality of life. Time is defined as the time we set
aside for ourselves and our loved ones, always steer­
ing clear of the snares set by the money-making tt|
machine.
There is also the closeness, which gets on the
nerves of those who aren’t used to it. One of the
unavoidable exchanges when encountering an
acquaintance is: “Where are you going?” This baffles
westerners because they think that where they are

110
going is nobody’s business but their own. There is
also the ease with which friends, and even strangers
like taxi drivers, ask, “Tell me, how much do writers
- botanists - musicians - elevator technicians earn
nowadays?” To the Westerner, such questions seem
highly intrusive.
Belgraders are also the biggest dreamers I’ve
known in my life. They’re always dreaming of being
someone else; of being more charming, attractive,
bigger, stronger, better known, more elegant and
famous. In my youth, many strollers along Knez
Mihailova made every effort to look like someone
famous. There were two “Clark Gables”, three
“Humphrey Bogarts”, replete with the cigar hanging
from the left corner of the mouth, wearing a
Montgomery raincoat with a turned-up collar, one
“Marlon Brando” and a dozen “James Deans” look-
alikes. Unfortunately, I haven’t a clue whom young
Belgraders imitate today, but I’m sure every genera­
tion has its idols, even those with shaved heads.
The secret of the Belgrade lifestyle lies primarily in
the fact that Belgraders refuse to grow up. Many live
an extended stage of kindergarten, in a state of arrest­
ed development, still protected by the devoted care of
their mothers even as they enter middle age. This is
most adequately illustrated by the Belgrade graffito:
OEDIPUS, CALL MOMMY! No wife can ever hope
to match the unsurpassed taste of a mother-in-law’s
sanna (sauerkraut leaves stuffed with boiled rice and
minced meat), nor the perfection and art of the moth­
er-in-law’s ironing the trouser crease, let alone the
thriftiness, neatness and breakfast she served in bed.

112
 To prolong their youth and maintain slim waist­
lines, middle-aged Belgraders passionately take up
sport in their leisure time, most often indoor football.
They continue to play despite the frequent injuries: a
broken leg here, a dislocated shoulder there. They
expose themselves to these very real risks to lose per­
haps 300 grams of body weight. After the game, they
invariably go to the nearest eating establishment to
make up for the lost weight, usually gaining a kilo or
so following a true feast.
- I feel bad - admits an ‘4eternally young”
Belgrader - when my wife tells me to pull in my
stomack and I already have!

Ij^cn^Lchc^&rt*****-

The Flea Market

A foreigner who doesn’t visit a flea market will

x V n ev er become familiar with or understand the
essence of the city in which he or she resides. I have
learnt more about some cities by roaming through its
flea markets than by visiting museums and staring at
monuments. To me, Rome’s flea market at Porta

115
 Portese is still a symbol of Italian neo-realism (De
Sica’s The Bicycle Thief) and London’s Portobello
Road (the site o f Carol Reed’s A Kid fo r Two
Farthings) is a monumental image of the long and
slow decline of the British Empire. At the Parisian
Marche aux Pus at Clignancourt I listened to dark-
skinned guitarists from the .tribe of Manouche, the
descendents of Django Reinhardt, playing “Clouds”.
At New York’s flea market in Delaney Street, in the
southern part o f M anhattan, one finds all that the
dwellers of this happy Babylon have discarded.
Belgrade differs somewhat from these cities in that
its flea markets no longer have tradition; they appear
overnight and disappear in the same quick and unex­
pected way, only to emerge in a new location. They
neither possess the elegance o f Brussels* Sablone
Square nor resemble Geneva’s orderly flea market,
which is more like an expensive antique fair than a
place intended for the poor. A typical Belgrade flea
market usually begins as a barren patch of ground,
partly asphalted, where there suddenly appear, as if
having fallen from the sky, a creaking merry-go-
round, a shooting gallery, rows of counters and a
huge mass of people. This is not by any means a dilet­
tante’s playground.
Here, the poorest buy clothes and footwear, try on
the winter coats of unknown deceased persons, pur­
chase spare parts for old cars, furniture that has been
left standing uncovered in the rain, and bird cages.
Here one eats and drinks - corncobs are cooked and
sausages grilled - and finds emblems, stamps, old
money, glasses with no glass, telephones without

116
receivers, transistors, knives, icons, models and va­ chandise has emerged. This is where the city gathers
rious tools... all its open-air vendors, many of whom formerly used
To many, the flea market is the village fair that was their car hoods and the pavements of King
lost upon arrival to the city and re-created from Aleksandar Boulevard as stands. Flea markets, how­
poverty and peasant misery! For others, it is the end ever, are stronger than city plans! They are tenacious
of a dangerous chain of smugglers whose paths lead and indestructible like life itself. You can close one
across Romanian villages and Hungarian wastelands, flea market, but it appears like a weed the following
through Italian warehouses and on Thessalonica’s week in another location, bigger and more chaotic.
mules. So it happens that amidst the Kalenić green market,
The flea market is a morning cocktail for those among stands with blood-red radishes, scallions, pas­
who never send or receive such invitations! It is the tries and apples, you can now also find old candle­
business space of the unemployed, a last exit for those sticks, Art Deco clocks, dance shoes and old binocu­
without an exit cue, a polygon for young thieves, a lars - marking the birth of a new flea market.
springboard for future millionaires, the promised land I went to Belgrade’s flea market to find something
for collectors of nonsense, a homeland for those who for you and, after a long search, I found this inex­
have lost their birthplaces, a tonic against loneliness haustible theme.
for the solitary, and hope for the hopeless...
In contrast to happier cities, Belgrade’s middle
class in the late 20th century almost disappeared, and
in their struggle to survive they were forced to sell
family valuables and antique items. Surrounded by
the poverty of flea markets, antiques scornfully with­
drew from their miserable surroundings and moved,
on Saturdays and Sundays, to the halls of the Slavija
and Yugoslavia Hotels; a splendid chance for fo­
reigners staying in these hotels to descend to the lob­
by and skim the remaining wealth of middle-class
treasures of old Belgrade families.
For those who prefer the unsanitised version of the
flea market, its inexhaustible energy and vitality, it
will suffice to go to New Belgrade. Here, in recent
years, an endless outdoor market of all sorts of mer­
Com on the Cob Blues

n autumn Belgrade seems like the most lovely city

I in the world. W rapped in a mantle of tattered
clouds, the city nostalgically gnaws on a cob of roast
com and reminisces about the country-side it hails
from. It is as though the city re-discovers its lost ori­
gins, its' roots, in the ancient, honest and dependable
taste of a hot corncob. These same corncobs, to a
greater or lesser extent, were part of our up-bringing.
In war time we snaffle it up because there is nothing
else to be had, and we swear by anything that comes
to mind that we will never touch it again once the war
ends. Polenta and combread make your stomach turn!
When prosperity returns, we eat it with a smile, just
to remind ourselves of the hard times we survived.
Autumn begins in Belgrade’s streets with com on the
cob and ends with the flickering glow of chestnut
vendors. Three hot roasted chestnuts in a pocket and
two hands with fingers entwined around them are
often the only love nest of courting couples who can’t
find a room to borrow.
There is something exciting about these street fires,
with their subdued glow and periodically crackling

120
 sparks, evocative of pirates or robbers... as though entered in some book ... Until veiy recently, all this
with a touch of the poker we returned to a primeval was done in the name of a tidy city.
fire to the heart of a colder city. From the above point of view, Moscow was the
Whatever measures city authorities take to rid the tidiest city in the world and New York the filthiest, as
streets of them, the unlicensed vendors of corncobs residents of the Big Apple are prone to dumping piles
and chestnuts again sprout from the pavement to of mattresses, TV sets, bottles, old chairs, dishes and
stoke their magical fires. Like life itself, the street is other items that people in the East would continue to
indestructible: supple, tough, lithe, resisting all con­ use for at least another ten years.
straints, ever ready to make a run for it, always on the Let’s not forget: the only really tidy cities are those
lookout, a quick sideways glance forestalling danger, where people have nothing left to throw away.
it is cunning, warmhearted, cheeky, imaginative. This
is where the warm fabric of life pulses, along with
fantasy, bravura, an indigenous sense of beauty and
humour... When the street with its simple wares is
chased off, it dodges into a passageway only to
appear in another street - they can’t ever quite get a
hold of it because the street refuses to be pinned
down.
The foreign reader may well wonder why authori­
ties frown on this quaint and touching street trade. A
difficult question. The answer would involve a whole
study of the mentality of local powers, whose ideal,
until recently, were the clean, almost disinfected,
streets of East European capitals. The ideal living
space of such people is a city resembling an army bar­
racks. To sell com on the cob, for instance, a person
should have to run a gauntlet of special committees
that include agriculture experts, medical and hygiene
specialists who proscribe that an official corncob ven­
dor of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
must don white overalls and a white cap, while every
cob must be weighed and examined and the data
Stripping Centuries

ver the course of its difficult history, Belgrade

O has been razed to the ground some forty times.
This does not include the number of times it was
demolished by pretentious architects eager to wipe
out all traces of antiquity.
Grandiose, modem town quarters have sprung up
with no chimneys, cafés, shops, public toilets and
with no pantry apartments, even though they are clus­
tered along the motorway that leads high-ranking for­
eign guests from the airport to the town centre. One
might say that a new version of the old Potemkin vil­
lage has been created.
Turkish cobble roads gave way to asphalt, only to
be restored in old town districts some thirty years lat­ give Belgrade a touch of patina whenever possible.
The love of cars has given way to an unnatural senti­
er; tourists wanted history and this meant Turkish
mentality towards pedestrian zones; even the main
cobblestones!
The historic Doréol section of the city, the old street is regularly converted into a completely useless
pedestrian promenade on the first Saturday of the
Jewish quarter, was tom down years ago to recapture
month. Add to all this frequent bicycle rallies and
the irreplaceable atmosphere of Old Dorcol in a new
marathons, during which the entire city is closed to
Dorcol! traffic, and it becomes clear that Belgrade residents
Following this onslaught by megalomaniac archi­
tects, a generation of nostalgic architects emerged to can seldom get anywhere by car.

125
124
 Genetically adjusted to the fact that their city is
every now and again completely destroyed, Belgrade
residents have an innate yearning to see their old
buildings tom down so they can get more comfortable
apartments in newly erected buildings.
The luxuriant greenery of Belgrade’s summer
forms a natural night gown of fluttering tree crowns,
providing cover for the uncomely facades with their
tufty secessionist ornaments that are disintegrating
into powder and ash. W hat is the reason for such neg­
lect? Is it, perhaps, reflective of our subconscious
withdrawal into an amnesia of sorts, whereby we seek
to forget the days when idyllic, one-storey Belgrade
really took care o f itself and its comfortable urban
homes? Does it mark an inferiority complex we have
towards our fathers and grandfathers? Is it an
Orwellian method of striking out at the past?
Carried away by our successes, skipping centuries,
we have managed to erect modem edifices practical­
ly overnight, and yet we have failed to retain the
knobs on toilet doors in luxurious hotels and airports.
The persistent stench of pickled cabbage mingled
with redolent barbecue fumes spreads unrestrained,
into the most magnificent architectural creations that
are intended to, once and for all, claim victory over
•time and mentality.
One must not forget, however, that more people in
Belgrade are allergic to linden tree blossoms than to
calf heads cooked with tripe.
Bravely skipping the centuries we seem to have
managed to neglect ourselves as well.
126
A Glance at the Sky
ulled by everyday habits, we walk the streets of
L our town staring straight ahead; we pass walls,
store windows and passersby, rarely casting a glance
towards the sky and the roofs. And up there, above
everyday affairs, exists a whole wonderful world full
of beauty and touching attempts to create a cozy pri­
vate heaven out of ubiquitous grayness, a place where
someone might find temporary asylum, a retreat from
the cruelties of life.
These are small hanging gardens of Cimmerians
amidst Belgrade - luxurious bouquets hurled upwards
from the streets, hooked on balconies and terraces,
nursed by the diligent and attentive hands of Belgrade
housewives, watered by the devotion of love and rain.
Instead of staring before your feet, cast a glance
upwards from time to time and discover a little
charming world hanging just above our heads.
Television is not called ‫ ״‬a window to the world”
without reason - windows and balconies were to o u r.
grandmothers the only fun in often monotonous lives.
They would stare through windows at dusk, with
cushions under their elbows, looking at passersby,
127
 guessing at their destinations and whom they were
going to visit. That was before the almighty television
riveted us in front of its screen - when gossip was still
a pastime and the street a window onto a unique stage
where fashion and faces were on display; where
secret relations could be discerned and the first signs
of min seen in worn-out suits and on the faces of once
respectable people - in short, the exciting life of the
town.
Looking at these windows, gates and balconies one
can read the history of Belgrade and its architects, and
realise that the town is not without its roots and that it
has many layers of civilisation. On the roofs of its
buildings one finds a forest of sculptures - Atlantis
holding a Globe, the goddesses of Industry, Justice
and Trade, graceful classic pairs with harmonious
bodies that were stopped by Time; silhouettes aspir­
ing after the sky and eternity. There are the ornate
double and triple-arched windows with neo-classic
decorative garlands and wreaths, antique pillars and
stained-glass windows and the works of forgotten [A Æ y
Russian, French, Hungarian and Austrian architects
who taught Belgrade builders. All these details speak
of a forgotten world of harmony and craftmanship
that has disappeared in favour of the concrete ram­
parts of the new architecture, uniform Corbusieresque
dwellings deprived of any beauty and any desire to
build a house as a work of art.
And while the basements of these buildings have
turned gray and are covered in graffiti, and though
cafés, boutiques, aluminum-and-glass agencies have
moved into once ornate shops, this old noble world

128
has retreated upwards, as if aspiring to the sky and
towards Belgrade’s exciting clouds, as if it has noth­
ing in common with the consumer society down
below.
There exist on the same foundation two different
worlds that have no contact, in the same city and on
the same soil. .
Who knows, one day they might meet.

Balkan Street

^ T e w ly arrived visitors to Belgrade must climb

I N Balkan Street to conquer it. Those who leave
Belgrade defeated descend down Balkan Street to the
railway station. ,
To Belgraders, this steep hill, which figures so
largely to the newcomer, begins with the lights of

131
 Terazije, next to the large windows of the Hotel
Moskva and the newspaper stands that sell three-day-
old copies of Le Monde. At the beginning of the street
there is also a cinema with a ground floor and gallery.
Bom and bred Belgraders still call it “The Luxor",
while newcomers refer to it as “The Twentieth of
October". As you go down Balkan Street, the houses
become smaller and more dilapidated, the shop win­
dows shabbier. Everything the newcomers remember
from their home towns and villages is squeezed inside
Balkan Street’s shop windows: checkered shirts, rab­
bit-fur caps, cheap tin jewelry, fake rings and army
boots. There is also a workshop that makes folk cos­
tumes - peasant tunics and breeches. In the windows
of pastry shops, saccharine cakes of provincial allure
melt quietly under the dusty grime of the nearby sta­
tion, next to the gleam of sweetmeats. Everything is
sticky from boza - that nectar of the Orient, and pink
fairies sprawled on the bank of an Alpine lake gaze
down at you from the walls. Women who have lost
their way, suitcases at their feet, soldiers, house­
maids, schoolchildren cutting class and pickpockets
comfort themselves at small tables made from imita­
tion marble, gobbling cake after cake. Continuing the
descent, you come across a candle-maker’s shop who
plies his wares on patron saint days or for the repose
of souls, a cobbler’s, where worn-out shoes are
patched, and at the very end of the street, at the last
house on the comer, there is a leather shop, which
until the end of the sixties made saddles and harness­
es and now manufactures handbags and holsters.
132
For the newcomer, the journey begins from the
other direction. Hauling his overweight suitcase that
contains all his earthly possessions, he ascends
Balkan Street from the bottom, climbing to the indif­
ferent metropolis that awaits him. There he soon
melts into the crowd and the absentminded glances of
people well aware that they will never see him again.
A descent down Balkan Street is a return to one's
own self, a plunge into the throbbing heart of the city,
where life is dusty and sweaty, grubby and bloody,
greasy and shabbily clad. All dialects are spoken
there; bread and bacon are cut into slices with the
same knife; and your peasant forefathers, forgotten
by God and the railway alike, are drowsing on sacks
in sour-smelling second-class waiting rooms. This is
where the elegant city above is bom. The agony of its
birth is accompanied by the wailing of sirens,
announcing that the umbilical cord between the fresh­
ly-mown hay and these concrete platforms has been
cut once and for all.
It is interesting to note that the railway stations of
Europe and America usually epitomise comfortable
travel. They lead to major streets and avenues with .
expensive shops and sidewalks, upon which elegant
pedestrians tread. Only here does the train station
seem hidden from the city hovering over it. As if
Belgrade were still nursing a secret anguish that will
give birth to a new, brighter and richer life...
As I can't afford to wait for this because I have
only one life, I myself travel only by plane.

Belgrade in Half an Hour
f I had only a half hour to show a visitor Serbia -
I what we are and what we’re made of ~ I would take
him to Kralja Petra street. Like a rainbow, this street
connects two civilizations, two cultures and two
rivers - the Sava and the Danube; it’s as if a saddle
134
_ *• . i • . • ,
had been thrown across the back of Belgrade, which,
seen from this perspective, resembles the back of a
bull. This area along the Sava River used to be known
as the Serbian (or Sava) City because Serbian mer­
chants were located there while the section along the
Danube was called the German (or Danube) City.
This “mini-Babylon” was also home to Dubrovnik,
Boka Kotorska, Armenian and Jewish merchants, as
well as Greeks, Italians, and no small number of
 Austrians who remained after the Austrian occupa­
tion.
Kralja Petra Street is also unique in the world for
hosting a Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, a Turkish
mosque and a Jewish Community Center. Let’s pro­
ceed with one site at a time: the Cathedral Church,
built in 1840,’was an endowment of Prince Miloš who
commissioned a German architect named Wehrfeld
for its construction (quite ironic, no?). Just across the
street is Belgrade’s most ancient coffeehouse.
Formerly called “At the Cathedral’s”, Church fathers
were scandalised and insisted that the blasphemous
name be removed. At a loss for a new name, the ownr
er simply put up a question mark - which remains to
this day - instead of a name.
Some fifty or so metres from Kralja Petra street, at
the end of Gospodar Jevremova street, stands the
Bajrakli Mosque, which was built in 1690 with funds
provided by cloth merchant Hadži Alia. In old records
it was also known as the Čohadži mosque. Next to it
is the Turkish-style tombstone of the famous Sheikh
Mustafa, dating back to 1783.
Going further along this unique street, we come
upon the magnificent Jewish Community Centre
building, which is still used for the same purpose,
serving the descendants of Belgrade’s Sephardic Jews
from distinguished families; Alkalaj, Medina, Amar,
Levi and Kalderon, to name a few. This city section,
called Dorćol, is where many prominent figures grew
up, including painter and politician Moša Pijade,
remarkable artist Leonard Koen, the renowned Baruh
brothers and fine arts collector Erih Šlomović. The
136
impeccable reputation and considerable wealth of
these merchant families is reflected today in the beau­
tiful homes of the late Baroque and early Secession
styles. This part of the city used to be called Zerek, as
Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent received
the Jews whom Isabelle of Spain expelled in the late
15* and early 16th centuries. Many settled in Sarajevo
and Belgrade where their descendents remain to the
present day.
Kralja Petra was once called Dubrovacka, and its
extension which leads to the bank of the Danube still
bears the same name. It was named in 1872 when the
streets in Belgrade were renamed. Previously, many
streets bore the names of the type of craftsmen who
owned shops there - Tiller street, Silversmith street,
Tailor street and so forth. After World War Two, it
was renamed 7 July (after the day of the uprising
against the Germans in 1941), while in recent times
its old name, King Petar I (Karadordevid the
Liberator), was reinstated. In the immediate vicinity
of this street, on the Sava River side, are two
embassies: the French and Austrian - representing the
two states that for many years had a decisive role
regarding the fate of little Serbia.
To depart from the realm of history for a moment,
we lead the interested foreigner to Belgrade’s Aero
Club, on the corner of Uzun-Mirkova Street and
Kralja Petra, a most elite pre-WWII establishment
that has retained the exclusivity of a luxurious
Baroque lounge and which serves excellent Central
European cuisine. Nearby is the glass-plated Zepter
building, a masterpiece of modem architecture that
137
 hosts one of Belgrade’s best-stocked bookshops and a quality that is served at Harry’s Bar in Venice, where
renowned gallery. On a side street is the Vuk Karadzié the famous Cipriani first introduced it as a specialty.
Museum as well as the Theatre Museum. My guest could also take a one-hundred-metre
To what extent this street, like many others, lives in walk to the oriental pastry shop to sample any of the
the hearts of Belgraders is best seen by the fact that fine assortment of baklava, tulumba, kadaif; sudzuk,
one of its comers, where it crosses Knez Mihailova tufahija and ćeten-alva, and all this accompanied by
street, was the location of a genuine little revolution bozfl- The pastry shop is now owned by one of the
against the grayness of post-war socialist eateries - descendants of the famous pastry-maker family - the
the first dairy restaurant with a poetic name, Snezana Pelivan family, originally from mountain Šara.
(Snow White), opened here. This eatery was the first One must not overlook the Hotel Royal, near the end
place where croissants appeared - which was an of the street, formerly called Toplice, where guests
from Eastern European countries used to stay. The
unprecedented miracle. Croissants, which take their
hotel has retained a distinct charm and character.
crescent shape as a reminder of the Turkish siege of
Finally, this street testifies to Milan Grol’s words
Vienna, heralded in 1950s Belgrade the beginning of in the 1930s, when he said that Belgrade was the “last
the end of dreary socialist cuisine. And what irony! stop and resting place on the caravan route, the last of
Snow White is today a rather ordinary Belgrade café Constantinople’s bazaars and the first Viennese shop
and few remember the once important role it played on the Sava river customs house.”
in the city.
Kralja Petra street has one shortcoming. It has vir­
tually no trees; an indication that this street, one of the
most urban, has from the outset tended to avoid an
overgrown image. This is neither a street where
lovers’ embraces decorate entranceways nor where
people take leisurely strolls. The street is far too
important for such matters. This does not mean that
lovers don’t hold hands, especially in Que Pasa?, the
classy restaurant that specialises in Mexican food,
and which is also a small luxury five-star hotel.
There’s also the Italian restaurant with a Serbian
name, KoSava, where my guest can enjoy the best
carpaccio in town, indeed, of the same delectable

138

Great Waters
efore our eyes the fog lifts over the Sava-Danube
B confluence.
The Pannonian plain appears - a boundless space
which tempts the onlooker to take bird-like flight: in
front of this vanished sea we become conscious of our
own puniness and the insignificance of human life.
On top of former pools and islets, on sandy dunes
and a sea of reeds, Belgrade raised its new city on the
other side of the river.
And all in less than fifty years!
It seems like yesterday that we, as boys, went look­
ing for reeds to make fishing rods where now a con­
stant river of cars roars along spacious boulevards,
beneath concrete, neon and glass.
Port
Below the old Fortress is the port, formerly the
main link with the western world.* And although the
time when dredgers with gypsies or orchestras play­
ing on board has long past, as has the charm of broad-
brimmed hats decorated with flowers, of redingotes,
140
fezes, and wicker picnic baskets on the beautiful blue
Danube, this port is still very much alive and there’s
plenty of interesting traffic on the rivers. From giant
pushers, long barges, small, quick tugboats to those
elegant floating hotels, the Mozart or Volga, life runs
with the river, much as before.
A fleet of several thousand small boats, hydrofoils,
yachts, two-masters, skiffs, rowing eights and the
strangest floating structures lashed together by imag­
ination and a kaleidoscope of materials carries an
entire floating nation up and down the banks of the
Sava and Danube,
Fishermen
Their punts are long, narrow and dark, like pike.
They float out at dawn and cast small nets, called
satmaricas.
They supply a hundred floating restaurants with
river fish.
Nothing has changed. They fish like their grandfa­
thers and great-grandfathers before them.
Good eating on the Sava and Danube are pike-
perch, carp, sturgeon or bream, prepared in the fish­
erman’s way, which means either grilled or as a fish
stew with a lot of hot paprika.
This is usually washed down with the most ordi­
nary white wine - Banatski Riesling - chilled until the
bottle mists over.
Potato salad and red onions.
Music: old-time ballads about the Danube,
141

Lullaby: the murmur of the river which lightly
rocks the fishing fleet.
W ar Island
At the very point where the Sava and Danube meet,
lying like a beached green raft, is the War Island -
home to local seagulls.
When the water levels rise in spring and autumn,
this island sometimes disappears in a mysterious way,
only to reappear again in a week or two, shaking off
drops of water, more beautiful than before.
It’s a real miracle that nothing has been built on it
' - Belgrade, it seems, is preserving its wilderness in
memory of the days when nature was virginaUy pure
and untouched.
In addition to the seagulls, the island is visited by
fishermen, bathers and hidden lovers.
If you push your boat off from the banks below
Kalemegdan fortress, a voyage of only ten minutes
brings you to a wildreness like that found in Amazon
or Mississippi swamps.
To reach a handful of nature in any other world
metropolis, one must motor for hours to reach the first
patch of grass!
The willows and green fields within a stone’s
throw of Belgrade resemble a huge green carpet that
nature has laid out like a gift on the treshold of its
143
 favourite city.
Confluence
When you are at Ušće Park (ušće means conflu­
ence), don’t miss the opportunity of strolling the spa­
cious grounds around the Museum of Contemporary
Art - a ‫״‬building that landed from the future on the
. banks of the Sava.
This museum preserves Belgrade’s soul, embodied
in form, line and colour.
Youngsters cycle and roller skate along the quays
- creating a parade of youth and fashion; it’s also a
daily pedigree dog show, whose owners bring their
pets here so they don’t forget what grass looks like.
You should have a coffee in the garden of the
“Ušće” restaurant, enjoy pancakes on the “Dijalog”
raft-restaurant in dialogue with the waiters, feel the
wind ruffling the surface of the Sava on the deck of
the “Eol”, and the most pleasant place to quaff a
digestive is the deck of the “Mag”
Why bother to send postcards?
Wouldn’t it be better to remember the ridge of
Belgrade from which the Cathedral, the Victor statue
and the dark silhouette of the Beogradjanka tower rise
like landmarks?
He who has once glimpsed Belgrade from Ušće
Park, which from this vantage point at twilight resem­
bles a giant fish grounded above the river, will always
return to this town as if returning to an old love. .
A Floating City
visitor to Belgrade who doesn’t come down the
A city’s ridge to its two rivers, the Sava and
Danube, will never understand the character of its res­
idents. From Kalemegdan Fortress, he or she will see
these rivers as nothing more than floating metaphors
at the edge of the disappeared Pannonian Sea; life on
these rivers will remain forever hidden, screened by a
pompous distance.
When creating this part of the world, the Lord
tossed out little islands on the rivers: Ada Ciganlija,
Little Ada, and the War Island. On the banks of Ada
Ciganlija, who knows when, someone decided to
make the first floating house. The idea was simple
really: someone put a raft on empty oil barrels, creat­
ing a small summerhouse of several square metres.
The rafts are fixed to the mainland by iron cables.
And though nobody knows who built the first raft
at Ada, their number today has reached several thou­
sand, forming a veritable floating city. That first pio­
neering fisherman who built himself a small
Robinson Crusoe-like home as a storm shelter proba­
bly never imagined scores of restaurants, discothe-
145
 ques and coffee bars that would one day follow and
that many of them (and it’s a real miracle) would
even have upper floors. When the pompous owner of
a raft with a luxurious one-story house asked me if I
liked it, I replied that I didn’t understand why he hadn’t
made a basement.
Today, taking a boat ride along Sava’s riverbanks
resembles a tour of marginal architecture. A foreign­
er who opts for one of the rare river tours around
Belgrade will see the fantasies of poor people
wrapped in the construction of anonymous builders.
He or she will see floating log cabins, houses that
resemble Chinese pagodas, kitschy small houses with
curtains on the windows and potted flowers, fisher­
men’s huts, roughly hammered boxes made of drift-
materials discarded by the city - in short, everybody
has built their river house according to their own pat­
tern of micro-architectural beauty.
The first floating watering holes on Ada were the
sisters of similar joints that appeared in America dur­
ing prohibition. They were secret and operated with­
out permits and sanitary licenses. Beyond doubt, the
most famous belonged to “Dule the Big-Headed”.
After lunching at Dule’s, customers left as much
money on the table as they happened to have on them,
while Dule was happily snoozing. In order to visit
such places, which still exist, you have to be taken by
somebody who is well-versed in the secret life of Ada «•‫»־<״‬
Ciganlija.
‫־‬3*^0
Over the last two decades, however, deluxe restau­
rants have cropped up on the riverbanks, and every
taxi driver will take you to one if you trust his choice,

148
 which is always unfailing. The owners of these
restaurants have turned old barges and discarded river
ships into gastronomic shrines - mostly fish restau­
rants. If none of the restaurants catches your eye
while strolling along the rivers, this author - a recog­
nised expert in river-loafing - warmly recommends
the floating restaurants Argument, Dijalog, Mag, Ada
or Savski Galeb, the last of which is the oldest of its
kind on the Sava.
More or less all of these restaurants offer a rich
menu that includes seafood specialties like salt-water
fish, crab or seashells - but ordering that kind of
seafood is like ordering champagne in Scotland,
whisky in Champagne or carp at the seaside. Hence I
recommend the specialties from the Sava: piquant
fish chowder cooked with several sorts of fish, fish-
stew and grilled perch with a simple salad consisting
of cooked potatoes and onion. With these dishes you
will drink, naturally, dry white wine from the plains
and listen to gypsy music; the best band is to be found
on the already legendary Black Panthers musicians*
floating restaurant.
For dessert: fresh watermelon accompanied by the
murmur of the river under a starry sky, best eaten
while gently rocking to and fro and holding hands
with someone you love.
Ada
"
I
hides its soul, seemingly indifferent whether it enters
the pages of famous guidebooks. Perhaps this is bad,
but it undoubtedly has a good side: mass tourism
quickly destroys every interesting place. When a fo­
reign traveler discovers, on his own or with the help of
friends, a place like Ada Ciganlija, he will remain in
love with it forever! In a world of mass tourism, Ada
has succeeded in retaining its autonomy, resisting the
mass hypnosis of making money from nature’s beauty.
For over a century, this green island on the river
Sava has cunningly evaded city plans that tried to sew
it into a formal urbanistic dress. At its largest, i.e.
when it isn’t flooded, Ada covers almost 286
hectares, two-thirds of which are under dense wood­
land where one can see pheasants, quails, rabbits,
deer, and a few crafty foxes that have survived all the
traps.
Intractable and untamed, cunning and capricious,
secretive and coy, pliant, tender, and at the same time
wild and dangerous, this wily river seducer and con-
151
 jurer has served as the last refuge of wild animals,
fugitives, river smugglers and poachers, outcasts of all
. kinds, clandestine lovers, drunkards and visionaries..
History records that Ada was given to Mladen
Milovanovid, president of the Serbian Soviet, and the
donor was none other than celebrated Serbian leader
Void Karadorde. In the deed, dated 1809, Karadjordje
bestowed Ada Ciganlija with these words:
“Let it be known to everyone from me, leader of
the Serbian nation, that I hereby donate Ada
Ciganlija, in the waters of the Sava, to Mladen
Milovanovid Esquire, and that it shall remain in his
possession and possession of his heirs who may hold
it forever or sell it...”
In 1821, Ada Ciganlija passed into the ownership
of the state, or better to say, it remained itself, every­
body’s and nobody’s.
Perhaps because they were justifiably scared that
Sava fishermen might one night fasten Ada Ciganlija
to ropes and cables and row it somewhere upstream,
thereby leaving Belgrade without its legal inheri­
tance, the city father’s in 1959 began joining Ada to
the shore with two strong embankments. Between
these, a lake of 86 hectares was later created.
Volunteer youth brigades built a high 1,250-metre-
long levee around the island. Today experts are divid­
ed on an important point; some say that Ada Ciganlija
/Yk pt*/'
should stay as it has always been, a natural piece of
turf that the river has placed on the threshold of
Belgrade like a gift; the second group say that exten­
sive defences should be built against frequent flood-

152
 ing; arid the third, that luxury yacht clubs, hotels,
casinos and funfairs should be constructed...
Ada Ciganlija continues resisting plans and lives
its own life, becoming a unique floating town! A spe­
cial kind of “marginal” architecture has sprouted on
its green shores, which is rivaled in the world only by
Thailand’s “Floating Market”, located near Bangkok.
Namely, many Belgraders who would rather spend
summer on the river than at the seaside, and those
who don’t have money to build a real house, have crea­
ted a particular architectural style - rafts moored to
the shore by beams and cables. How do you make a
floating home like this? First you find old empty oil
drums; then join them together and place a wooden
platform on top. On the resulting raft, build the kind
of house that suits your taste with whatever materials
you have. Some make log cabins, others small villas,
yet others Chinese pagodas or boathouses. But all of
them have one thing in common: when they get bored
with the place they are moored at, they can untie their
little house and sail off to some other spot. The thou­
sands of such houses on the water reveal the architec­
tural fantasies of their owners. Here, on the river,
there are no building, laws - everyone follows the
dreams of their childhood.
In the beginning, there was not a single restaurant,
on Ada Ciganlija; there were only secret little inns on
the water where owners cooked meals for relatives
and close friends. Over time, the lower part of Ada
Ciganlija turned into a gastronomic centre. Restau­
rants have been built on large rafts and converted pas­
154 ..
senger boats, where waiters serve in dinner jackets
and orchestras play through the night.
The River Sava has turned into something similar to
the Mississippi at New Orleans! A person can redis­
cover his lost childhood here and transform himself
into Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. What makes
this floating town especially beautiful is its hospitality
and exceptional cordiality, which does not allow a
stranger to be alone at a table for longer than five min­
utes. With a ten-minute ride from the city centre,
where there is unfortunately more and more alien­
ation, a taxi will bring you to a forgotten world where
spontaneous friendship and love are still possible.
Finally, here are some instructions on How to Use
Ada Ciganlija, for those coming for the first time:
The first thing you need to do is to take a walk
along the shore, along the narrow track under the wil­
lows. Stare at the river, which has flowed for thou­
sands of years before we arrived, flows now and will
still be flowing when we are no more... In this way, a
person can be something of an amateur philosopher!
Choose the smallest possible raft-inn, greet those
present and knock back a shot of the local brandy.
Ask the owner which fish is the freshest or wait for
the Sava fishermen to take them out of their small
nets. . ' ‫■■־‬.‫■■־‬ •
Menu: the obligatory spicy fish broth; pike-perch
grilled on charcoal; potato salad, white sheep’s milk
cheese. Wine: the local rose, or whatever the owner
of the raft is drinking.
Music you should listen for: old town ballads about
the Sava and Danube, accompanied by an out-of-tune
: . 155
guitar and a choir of chance guests. If you’re in luck,
you’ll find a brass band or gypsy music with violins
and basses.
Desert: pancakes or sour-cherry strudel.
Digestive: buy a round of drinks for all present;
one of them will take you back to the city on his boat,
across the quiet waters which reflect the full moon... The Metro

t__________
where you can buy tomorrow’s issue of Politika.
That’s probably why I still live in Belgrade, of all
places.
The farther I go from my homeland, the later
Serbian papers arrive at the newsstands. I have to go
to airports and beseech Serbian pilots and air host­
esses to get me copies of Serbian papers from the
plane. In a word, I’m crazy about Serbian papers!
Now you’ll probably ask me: why the heck do you
need Serbian papers in a foreign land?
Why the heck do I need foreign papers?
I’m just not myself without Serbian papers. I read
them during long rides in the subway to find out
what’s happening back home.
I always have trouble explaining to fellow passen­
gers what newspaper I’m reading. They ask me: What
language is that? What country does this come from?
What strange letters are these? They’re obviously not
Chinese ideograms, but they’re not letters of the Latin
alphabet either, they say. To a foreigner, the paper

157
 guys wearing earrings and nose rings, just like in the
movies. In the Brussels subway you feel as though
you have one foot in the afterlife because you have to
listen to Bach fugues all the time. Serbian gypsies
pickpocket in the Rome subway. In the Paris subway
there are still first and second classes because France
is still a class society. And the Moscow subway
always brings to my mind a beautiful poem by Bulat
Okudzhava: “Those who want to go far in life must
always keep to the left, and those forever standing
always stand on the right.‫״‬
As I stare into the darkness and listen to the names
of stations enunciated in a foreign tongue, I vainly try
to visualise Belgraders in a subway of their own.
We are made for the streets and daylight. If we had
a subway, I’m afraid we would become depressive,
like citizens of enlightened nations descending into
their subways. They stare ahead in complete silence,
eschewing conversation because danger lurks every­
where. (The Russians read books for the same pur-
pose.)
Anyway, what do we need a subway for? As it is,
, looks quite normal from afar, but it becomes a real there are many more Serbs under the ground than
mind boggier upon closer inspection. above!
When I explain the situation to them, they start
asking me about Belgrade.
‫׳‬ One of their questions is: “Do you have a subway
j in Belgrade?‫ ״‬.
I “Of course we do‫״‬, I lie, as the subway rumbles
I under New York, below the city’s invisible skyscrap-
9 ers. The walls of the New York subway are scribbled
I over with graffiti, and there is always a fair number of

158
Belgrade Girls

A foreigner who happens to be visiting Belgrade

x x f o r the first time will notice that this city certai­
nly doesn’t number among the most beautiful in the
world, but that the women in its streets are more
attractive than those seen on the catwalks of the
world’s metropolises. More specifically, Belgrade’s
daughters are the most beautiful ‫ ־־‬they are prettier
than those of previous generations. What is it that sets
them apart from their mothers and grandmothers?
First of all, girls are not alone any more: they are
always in company - with a nomadic tribe with its
own language, style, lifestyle and rules of the game.
They grew up together with boys, sharing the same
bench with them from the first grade, wearing the
same jeans and T-shirts, playing in the same basket-.
ball teams. The walls that hid the secrets of the sexes
were tom down long ago: the Men’s Third High
School, the Women’s Seventh... Glimpses in passing,
the mystery of the first touch at a New Year’s Eve
Party when there still existed a “ladies’ turn”, and the
English waltz was danced at midnight.

160
 Indeed, things have changed... especially the
Belgrade girl. She is no longer a somewhat plump lit­
tle woman, whose appeal was in being unprotected
and helpless - with large dark eyes shaded with sen­
suality. Today’s Belgrade girls are marked by an
often slender, tall figure: long legs, narrow hips and
broad shoulders, a free leisurely step, but the last
thing one notices are their eyes. Today's young
Belgrade girl smokes in the street but not in the pres­
ence of her father at home (the last remains of her
patriarchal upbringing): she is free, independent,
aware of the merciless advantage of her age. She is
not embarrassed when her mates swear in her pres­
ence. Sex is no secret for her and the masculine city
doesn’t present a threat: she is able to control the
street.
Her everyday vocabulary is practical, reduced to
about a hundred words. Everything that looks like
some sort of sentimental rubbish is eliminated.
Their clothes and makeup - a fantastic painting
without any rules - are a true display of the world of
fashion. (Mind the absurd: despite its poverty over the
last decades, Belgrade boasts boutiques and shops In this they resemble the Turkish cavalry - all their
that sell the most famous fashion brands in the property is invested into equipment for the campaign!
world.) They have no fear of being eye-catching: on Their mothers’ revenge on men is channeled in
the contrary, they want to captivate but not to be cap­
piano lessons, ballet and English, basketball and, no
tured. There is no comfy life behind their showy ele­
gance, but rather a deeply hidden desire to make an longer uncommon, mastery of the art of karate! They
impression in passing, an amazing tendency to dis­ are preparing their daughters for a happier life that
guise, a yearning for beautiful things. Often, every­ was out of reach for them, hardly aware that whatev­
thing they posses is on them, on these poor daughters er kind of life it is, the price is always the same. These
of the periphery who come downtown every evening. rosy girls are actually their mothers’ secret weapons

162
 against a once unhappy life full of deprivation and
misery - a time when beautiful things were so scarce.
When observing them I wonder: will they be able
to make a sacrifice in the name of love as their mo­
thers did? How will they grow old and what kind of old
women will they become? Will they be like our mo­
thers and grandmas, or different women, who will have
difficulty saying goodbye to the beauty of youth?
Should you scratch their self-confidence, disrupt
their habits or puncture their chewing gum bubble,
behind their urban splendour you will discover a gen­
tle and vulnerable little girl unaware of her inner value.
Every year, many Belgrade girls depart for the
wide world: to study, to find a job or to marry a for­
eigner who left his heart in this city. Many of them
number among the world’s famous fashion models,
some are actresses, but the majority of them are those
who taught their husbands and children to speak
Serbian.
Has destiny decreed for you, dear unknown pas­
senger on this flight, a marvelous experience to meet
a Belgrade girl who is to change your life? I cannot
anticipate the future course of your wedlock, but I am
certain that should you go down this road you will be
loved in this city because Belgrade adores its foreign
sons-in-Iaw.
Be that as it may, just in case, obtain a copy of
Serbian in 100 Lessons'.
A Handbook for Gentlemen
entleman is an Anglo-Saxon word that has never
G taken hold in Serbia. Here, someone who is well-
mannered and decent is called a man of breeding.
This definition, mind you, doesn’t refer to the social
origin of the person in question. It may be clearly stat­
ed that we can meet many more true gentlemen in
Serbian villages than in towns, and the least number
of them in the suburbs.
Hence, one can most easily recognise who is a gen­
tleman and who is a beggar while on a organized tour.
This is an interesting game during a ten-day tour with
people you haven’t met before.
Let’s start from exterior characteristics which,
according to Canadian sociologist McLuhan, are
extended messages that are conveyed through clothes
and other markers. Naturally, we shall first eliminate
from the league of gentlemen men with white socks
and black moccasins or those with brand new shoes
filthy with native mud. In making this selection, stew­
ardesses are the most competent. Just observe them
passing along the aisle while counting passengers;
they never look at their faces but keep their eyes
165
 focused on shoes. Genuine gentlemen wear old shoes
polished to excellence. Then we shall eliminate from
the genre of gentlemen the rich rowdies (an expres­
sion that was introduced into our language by the
famous movie director Emir Kusturica).
They, naturally, wear very thick Cartier chains
with crosses (though they are not religious) or medal­
lions, loose black shirts with white suits and heavy
gold watches weighing at least half a kilogram.
-Upon arriving at the hotel of the organized tour, the
tour guide encounters the greatest problems with
those who have seldom been accommodated in a bet­
ter hotel. They will insist, always loudly, on the price
of this arrangement and ask for a room with a view of
the sea, even though there is no sea in the city. They
will argue that they were robbed when changing cur­
rency and grumble that they didn’t get a wink of sleep
the whole night, and will lodge hundreds of com­
plaints about the food of the country they are visiting,
and they will order beefsteak with fried potatoes in
the Far East, pork cutlet in Arab countries and beef
soup in India.
Here is a short test on how to recognise a genuine
gentleman.
When you take your seats at the joint table in the
hotel restaurant, a genuine gentleman will instantly ©Z)*
place a napkin on his lap while others will continue to pwu>'‫־‬
sit with pyramids of folded napkins on their plates.
Placing and unfolding a napkin onto the lap is a com­ a J
monly known sign to the waiter that the guest is ready
to be served.

166
 Genuine gentlemen are always discreetly dressed
Naturally, we shall not mention sophisticated ges- and behave in a similar fashion. When one of my
. tures like holding a chair for a lady, pouring drinks (a acquaintances once complimented British foreign
lady never ever handles a bottle however thirsty she minister Anthony Eden on his fine suit, the minister
might be), lighting cigarettes, holding a coat or a immediately went home and changed into his old suit,
jacket, opening and closing car doors, as genuine instructing his butler to wear his new suit for some
ladies actually don’t know where the handle is. time before he put it on again.
In contrast to a genuine gentleman, those others There is another way to recognise a genuine gen­
will avoid group excursions to famous ancient sites tleman.
and will instead prefer visiting jewelry shops and A genuine gentleman will never write about who is
boutiques that sell famous brands of clothing. and who is not a gentleman.
Their Vuitton bags always have new bright yellow
straps, even when they are original and not fake.
Their cell phones have the loudest rings and it seems
that, apart from using them to take snapshots, one can
also watch TV programmes on them and even use
them as electric shavers, like a Braun. What is sur­
prising is that their owners haven’t grown used to this
technical miracle, and the moment they take their seat
at a table they place them where everyone can see
them.
Naturally, they have no idea that the three first dra­
matic rings of their mobile telephones were taken
from the fateful Fifth Symphony by Beethoven. Pour
Ludwig van Beethoven: where his music ended up -
that’s fate.
Rich rowdies are most economical when it comes
to tipping bellhops and waiters and, as a rule, they
always take the restaurant bill to scrutinise the prices
and compare them with prices at home. The famous
sentence is: “I’m not going to allow anybody to make
a fool of me for my own money.”

168
Explosion of Beauty

onsider yourself lucky if you happen to be in

C Belgrade in May.
In spring this really is the most beautiful city in the
world. In winter we are less beautiful than many
countries and cities, but when the mink coats finally
come off on Fifth Avenue, when Roman make-up
begins to melt under the burning May sun, when peo­
ple at last emerge from London homes and Bentleys,
which clearly state who is who, and the glorious hats
of Paris are neatly packed away, that is when we get
our five minutes of glory.
In the sunshine a poor mother needs nothing more
than a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and her body is
enough to trump pale English refinement, the tradi­
tions of Rome and the beauty of Paris, which is full of
artificiality and has too long been served frozen meat
and vegetables. Where you live, what you drive,
where you shop and what you own is no longer
important, because spring has grabbed everything
that is beautiful by the hair and dragged it onto the
street. The city turns into a great arena of love, full of
/
170
 expectation and the promise of struggle. Everything heads, looking ahead to the bright socialist future.
is on offer to hungry eyes and impatient skin. The only jewelry they wore were symbols of progress,
A young body trembles above a pair of jeans on fixed on their lapels.
long legs that devour the pavement. The cotton strains The girls I am talking about have in their walk
over taut thighs... something from all these eras, but they are head and
I noticed that more and more girls smoke in the shoulders above their predecessors. In any event, they
streets. You might say that this is uncouth and I fully have gone the furthest: they smoke in the streets and
agree with you, but do not expect me to be disgusted. no one is even shocked! And why should they be?
I would even dare to say that I like the way women Or perhaps you would prefer to see young
gracefully hold lighted cigarettes in their thin fingers Belgrade women with baking trays of burek on their
as they sway along the street. I don’t quite know why, heads instead of hats?
but watching them I am reminded of Georges Sands Beauty has exploded in Belgrade!
portraits, who shocked a whole era with her long cig­ Bringing your wife to Belgrade in May is like tak­
arette holder and her short hair. Decades later, we can ing rice to China - and sleeping with her is pure
view the result of her magnificent, crazy rebellion! incest!
In this respect at least, it seems to me that we have
at last caught up with the rest of the world. We are no
longer a Balkan province, and the lighted cigarettes in
the hands of young women in the streets are one of
countless little signs that something fundamental has
changed, without our ever having really noticed it.
Until just half a century ago, the rules of good behav­
iour impelled young Belgrade women to look neither
left nor right as they walked along the street, but to
gaze straight ahead with their eyes humbly lowered.
According to the precepts of old Belgrade, young
women should walk with small oriental steps and car­
ry pies for their in-laws or parents. In between the
wars, of course, they should know how to devotedly
push baby carriages, full of reserved pride that they
have managed to prolong their species. Their post­
war progeny walked along with arrogantly raised

172
 East and West in a
Sandwich
y elder daughter, Ana, studies art in Rome.
M My younger daughter, Jelena, studies piano at
the Conservatory in Sofia.
I live in Belgrade, if you call this living.
Both my daughters come home on holidays, and
we sometimes sit around and discuss their problems.
"It’s very nice in Sofia,” says the younger daugh­
ter, “But I go to the Conservatory hungry because les­
sons begin at eight and I don’t have time for break­
fast.”
Why not buy bread and butter the day before, make
a sandwich and eat it during the break, I suggest.
“Butter?” she asks in astonishment. “The grocer
had butter a month and a half ago, but the queue was
too long and I didn’t manage to buy any.”
“What do you mean, the grocer HAD butter?” asks
my older daughter, the one in Rome. “Why was there
a queue?”
She cannot comprehend, you see, that there is a
country where one cannot always buy butter. Her gro-
eery store in Rome stocks thirty different kinds of
butter: salted, unsalted, dietary, Caucasian, with wal­
nuts, almonds, sesame seeds and cinnamon, and mild
or hot peppers. They even have Bulgarian butter, i
which, of course, cannot be found in Bulgaria!
I listen to them and smile to myself. I have daugh­
ters in the East and in the West. Whoever wins, lam
in Belgrade... waiting...
Yet, even Ana, who lives in that western heaven,
also has problems with breakfast! Like her younger
sister, she too does not find time to eat before classes
begin at the Academy, and she remains hungry all
morning.
Why, I ask, when there are so many kinds of butter
in Rome, do you not buy everything you need the day
before and make a sandwich to take to the Academy
and eat during the break?
“In a handbag?” she asks in astonishment. “I’m not
so mad as to carry a handbag in Rome.” “Why not?” j
asks her younger sister. ‫ ׳‬j
 “Because some guy will drive by on a motorbike
and grab it, that’s why!”
“What do you mean, grabV asks the younger.
. daughter, who lives in the most secure of all secure
worlds; in socialist Sofia where no one dares grab
anything from anyone, but where, unfortunately,
there is nothing worth grabbing. She simply cannot
believe that anyone would steal a handbag in the
street!
Two sisters, two worlds; one Eastern, the other
Western; but neither of them eat breakfast for quite
different reasons!
‫ ־‬That morning I realised I live in the best country in
the world.
“Here in Belgrade”, I said, “We have all the butter
you want, and no one grabs handbags in the street.
But today, unfortunately, we don’t have money to
buy butter.”
Tomorrow, perhaps?

Belgrade - Paris

A ccording to a modem saying, there is no writer

^ "^w ho wouldn’t be thrilled to be awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature. We can freely add: nor is
there a painter who doesn’t harbor secret dreams
about achieving success in Paris.

177
 If, by chance, you have acquired a collection of
paintings by local artists who achieved fame in
Europe (which is neither a bad nor an inexpensive
idea) this short guide will serve as an introduction to
our artists’ love for the world at large, where for
decades, they have gone, struggled and, finally,
returned home, more or less defeated.
The story begins immediately at the end of World
War One, when many young people went to study in
friendly, allied France. Paris was at that time still the
capital of the world and the greatest figures of mo­
dem art, whose works now safely hang in museums,
could be seen sipping drinks in cafés at Montmartre,
Montparnasse and Saint-Germain-des-Pres.
“The most beautiful things come to Paris from the
provinces” - says Jacques Prevert - “The Seine, for
example!” Paris, indeed, generously receives new­
comers from the Balkans, but the influence it exerts is
far too strong, and these young, healthy and ambi­
tious men can hardly resist it. In short, truth be told,
each of them has an idol he follows until death, in
spite of occasional attempts to counter the attraction.
Between the two world wars, the most successful
artists in Paris were sculptor Sreten Stojanovié and
painters Milo Milunovié (two of whose paintings
were purchased by the famous Burdelle for his col­
lection), Sava Sumanovid (a column he decorated still
stands in the Cupola restaurant) and Milivoje Uzelac.'
The latter - tall, handsome and attractive - was often
compared with the doomed Amedeo Modigliani for
his elegance and bohemian lifestyle. A virtuoso and a
brilliant draughtsman, he won fame illustrating for
178
pseudo-pornographic publications. Among other
things, he illustrated works by Marquis de Sade. We
should give special recognition to painter Marko
Celebonovid, who lived for a long time and eventu­
ally died at Saint Tropez, and who was an extremely
refined artist and one of the long-term pillars of the
so-called Parisian School.
Anyway, it happened that these painters in Parisian
circles gradually got tired of the exhausting struggle
for existence and fame. Maybe if they had endured
just a little longer they would have finally assumed an
important and well-deserved place in the museums of
France and the world, but something drew them back
home; perhaps a love for the homeland, a young lady
or, simply, a wish to rest for a week or two. Whatever
the case, they finally had a good meal and got a good
night’s sleep. Perhaps they became fed up with the
pointless struggle that would be won only after their
. deaths. They returned home and became respected
professors at the Academy, entered the museums
(ours) and mused, yearningly, about their unforget­
table days in Paris. From year to year, they slowly
sank into their bourgeois surroundings that both wel­
comed them and lavishly rewarded them for their
artistic contributions.
This plethora of Parisian conquerors conveyed
their love for the City of Light to new generations as
they taught them to paint, and it wasn’t long before a
second generation of painters set out on their own
Parisian adventure. Many of them still live in Paris,
with fickle luck. Among the more successful, we can
single out Bata Mihailovid, Petar Omdikus, Ljubinka
179
 Mihailovid and Kosa BokSan. In the sixties, Omcikus theme that the typewriter of the undersigned has only
and Mihailovid were the central figures of the Paris touched upon belongs to the most interesting chapter
School; their works can today be seen in numerous of domestic art history; its thrills, defeats, victories,
contemporary art museums and in the collections of doubts, nostalgias, hunger and ever changing luck
the most distinguished French galleries. The older would make it suitable material for the most touching
they are, however, the more time they spend in of films. Even when painters find success, they can
Belgrade, although they continue to keep ateliers in never be sure whether capricious Paris will in the next
Paris. And they did not return out of defeat, but season change its storefront, relegating yesterday’s
homesickness. We can say that their victories enabled masterpieces to some dark cache.
new generations of painters to more easily break the . However, it will still be worth trying again. This i s 0
barriers separating them from fame. If nothing else, life, after all, isn’t it?
every young newcomer can find shelter for the night
in their ateliers, receive a portion of beans and get
useful advice.
Finally, Dado Durid, a painter of nightmares,
freaks and horror, came to Paris as did Uro5
ToSkovid, an unsurpassed draughtsman of tragic
world visions. The city also saw the arrival of Vlada
Velickovid - a virtuoso creator of armies of headless
runners and decaying black rats; Ljuba Popovid, a
poet of chaos and despair and, last but not least, MiloS
Sobajid, a painter with a broad, abstract hand. As a
result of persistent work and their uncompromising
struggle, they finally succeeded in attaining what had
eluded their numerous predecessors. They went to
France not to learn from the French and become their
spiritual vassals, but to offer to them their own worlds
before which the spoiled capital finally began to purr.
This short survey of Serbian artistic adventurers is,
of course, incomplete and lacks the names of many
talented people who, with more or less luck, sought a
place in the international art scene. In any case, the

180

The Odyssey of an Art
Collection
or over half a century the Belgrade National
F Museum has harboured one of the most interest­
ing and best collections of modem French painting,
including masterpieces by Renoir, Odilon Redon,
Degas, Georges Rouault, Pablo Picasso and other
great artists of the era. Once owned by a Belgrader,
Erih Slomovid - a friend and associate of the great
French gallery owner and art dealer Ambroise Volard
—the collection does not cease to attract enormous
attention among the international art public.
182
One October day in 1928, at dusk, the feeble 13-
year-old Erih, from Belgrade, wistfully laid down a
marvelously illustrated book he had been reading - a
monograph about August Renoir, written by
Ambroise Volard. He sat down at the desk of his
father Bernhard, who was a wealthy Belgrade textile
merchant, and in his childish handwriting wrote an
admiring letter, in French, to the author. He closed it
with the following words: *4When I grow up, I would
like to continue your endeavor and be like you.” Then
he signed himself: “Erih Slomovid, 13 years old.”
Soon, he received a response from Ambroise Volard
who, deeply touched by the naivet6 of his young
admirer, invited him to visit when he grew up. Eight
years later, in 1936, now of age, the young Belgrader,
his hands in the pockets of his elegant, gray suit, rang
the bell of Volard’s home in Rue Lafitte - a true
shrine of avant-garde French art of that period. The
old Ambroise Volard, an undisputed arbiter of the
most renowned period of modem art, had once risked
everything by organising the First individual exhibi­
tions of painters nobody wanted to hear about -
Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, at al. - in his modest
gallery. Upon setting his eyes on the gaunt young
man enamoured of painting, he recognised in his
Fierce gaze the same ardour he himself felt in his
youth. . •;
Amazed by his perfect taste and fascinating know­
ledge of modem painting, that same day he hired him
as his personal secretary. They became inseparable,
and in his will the old art dealer left to Erih Slomovid
a part of his famous art collection - which was the
183
 result of his friendship with such great artists as
Andre Derain, Jean Cocteau, Marc Chagal, Henri
Matisse, Corbusier, Georges Rouault, and others.
This, in turn, became the bulk of the Slomovic Estate.
After Volard’s death in a traffic accident and the
outbreak of World War Two, Slomovid moved his
collection to Yugoslavia in the hope that his native
country would remain outside the hostilities. He
organised the first Yugoslav exhibition of his collec­
tion in Zagreb, in 1940, stunning a public that for the
first time had the opportunity to view such master­
pieces in one place and so close to home. After the
exhibition closed, Slomovid took his collection to
Belgrade, where his parents still lived. Realising that
the destruction of his home city was imminent, he
packed the paintings and smaller sculptures into cus­
tom made aluminium crates and went to the village of
Ba£ina, near Varvarin in Serbia, where old family
friends lived. He hoped that the Germans would not
discover he was a Jew and that he would succeed in
preserving both his life and his collection, which he
had hid in the walls of his host’s bam.
At the end o f 1941, a German expedition came
upon a gaunt Serb peasant in worn-out clothes and
asked him for directions to Mt. Juhor, where they
believed partisans who had blown up a railroad near
Stalad were hiding. To their amazement, Slomovid
responded in perfect German, giving himself away as
a fugitive Jew. The Nazis took him, his brother Egon,
and their father Bernhard, who had also been hiding
in the village, to the mountains. That was the last time
they were seen. If not killed out of hand, they were
184
probably sent to a concentration camp. Their price­
less collection the dream of many wealthy art col­
lectors - remained hidden in the dilapidated walls of
an auxiliaiy farm building until the winter of 1944.
Then, Erih’s aged mother Roza was granted per­
mission by the new Yugoslav authorities to travel
through regions still at war so she could find out what
had happened to her family in the distant village. She
found only her daughter-in-law Mara - the wife of
her younger son, Egon - and their two children alive,
and the untouched collection of her older son Erih,
which she dug out of the barn’s walls.
Local authorities, faced with her high-level refer­
ences, provided her with a railroad car attached to a
Belgrade-bound train, wherein she packed her fami­
ly’s remaining furniture and the crates of priceless
pictures. With her daughter-in-law and two grand­
children, she boarded the same carriage and traveled
through burnt and destroyed villages and towns in the
. numbing December cold. Unexpectedly, the train
stopped in open country, in the vicinity of the Stalad
station. A train carrying Bulgarian troops was going
on the same route, the same way. It was carrying
Bulgarian soldiers who communist leader Josip Broz
Tito had allowed to participate in the liberation of
Yugoslavia, following an agreement with Bulgarian
Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov. Those same
Bulgarians, wearing the same uniforms, had previ­
ously fought for the Axis powers, committing mas­
sacres and war crimes against the people of Serbia for
the duration of the war. Their “aid” to the Serbs was
- ju s t like at the end of World War I - supposed to
185
 exonerate them for choosing the wrong side. In the
deepest darkness, the locomotive of the train in which
the Šlomović family was traveling crashed at high
speed into the train of soldiers whose last carriage had
no signal lights. Mrs. Šlomović and her two grand­
children were killed in the accident, and only her
daughter-in-law survived, but she too would disap­
pear without a trace several years later.
A few witnesses said that the force of the crash
threw the aluminum crates onto a barren and frozen
field, and that piles of drawings spilt out from one
crate that had broken open. Many of the items were
used by Bulgarian soldiers to build fires. In trying to
keep themselves warm, they couldn’t possibly imag­
ine they were burning masterpieces by Renoir, Degas
or Redon.
Both Mara Šlomović and the remaining crates dis-.
appeared from the face of the earth. Several of the
highest-ranking state officials of the new, communist
Yugoslavia (MoŠa Pijade and Dr. Ivan Ribar), who
were friends of Erih Šlomović before the war,
ordered a prominent intelligence officer, Major Bora
Nešković, to find Mara Šlomović and the collection at
any cost
The major embarked on a long quest (he later
wrote a book about it), and after several years found
Mara in Peć, Kosovo, where she had remarried a
physician by the name of Albahari. The collection
was hidden in Belgrade and was discovered from tap­
ing the telephone conversations of a British diplomat,
(in Nešković’s book he remains unnamed, but he is
believed to be the famous author Lawrence Durell),

186
 who had bought the whole collection from a merchant
for a mere ten thousand US dollars. Finally, the paint­
ings arrived where Erih Slomovid hoped they would
v- the National Museum in Belgrade. The works by
Maurice Utrillo, Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Raoul Dufy,
Bonnard, Degas, Rouault, and others - so carefully
and persistently collected and guarded by the young
art collector -care occasionally shown to the public.
The odyssey of the Slomovid estate, however, is
not yet over. In 1980, during a search in long-expired
safe deposits at the Societe Generale bank in Paris,
another part of the Slomovid collection, of no lesser
value, was discovered. The following year, these
works of priceless contemporary art were exhibited in
the Paris Droit Hall in an auction that was cancelled
at the motion of the Yugoslav government, which
claimed it as the property of its citizen, who was a You Look Terrific!
Nazi victim. A lawsuit was filed, which is on-going,
involving France and several remote Slomovid rela­
tives living in Israel.
The destiny of works of art is unpredictable. Only oreigners living in Belgrade will never under­
temporarily do they belong to mortal people, being
themselves immortal, and it might be said that they
F stand a peculiar aspect of our character - the
boundless interest in other people’s appearance.
belong to those who are capable of deciphering the There are few places in the world where appearance
secret language of their colours and forms. is such a burning topic as in Belgrade. Frankly, it can
be quite disconcerting. You get dressed, make your­
self presentable, and off you go for an evening stroll.
You are never prepared for what may happen next
You bump into an old acquaintance who skips
pleasantries like “Good evening” or “What’s new?”
Instead, he immediately begins looking you up and
down in merciless appraisal. If you’ve recently put on

189
 some weight, he throws open his arms in sympathy If you really do look great and if everything is run­
and blurts out: “My God man, what have you done ning smoothly in your life, Belgraders devise a new
with yourself? You’ve put on so much weight! strategy, the retroactive insult. They say “Hey, you
look terrific! I didn’t want to tell this you before, but
You’ve really done some mischief to yourself.”
I was worried about you last year, you looked a real
A few more exchanges and he bounces off, not
realising that he’s just cast you into a stubborn sight”
Nevertheless, when you are in a distant country
depression. You dash for the scales and the following among unknown, polite people you start missing that
morning you start to diet. You loose weight day by intrusive and sometimes unbearable concern of your
day, and with each kilo lost the desire to bump into fellow citizens, you walk aimlessly in the crowd,
him again grows by the same emotional equivalent. longing to be stopped by an acquaintance who will
And the day comes. throw open his arms, tut, and declare that you’ve put
You’re walking along, slim as a blade and there he on or lost weight! You wouldn’t be as lonely then.
is. This time he doesn’t fling open his arms, he
doesn’t tut, he just eyes you suspiciously, as if you
have contracted a contagious disease, and then
gravely shakes his head: “What’s happened to you?
You’ve lost so much weight! You should see a
doctor.” His look says it all. Your illness is serious.
Your knees begin to tremble. You go back home and
eat like mad. When you see him next he says you’ve
put on weight.
Generally speaking, nobody will ever say that you
look just right. The English sentence, “You look
great”, which means nothing but is pleasant to hear,
is never uttered here.
Why do people do this here? Is it because they love
us so much and are worried about our looks? Or do
they want to hurt us because they are actually mean
and envious? Perhaps it is because they have nothing
better to do but worry about other people’s looks, and
that’s how they make conversation.

190
 Gray People
herever I go in Belgrade, I see gray people.
W Gray is our favourite colour.
I no longer recall when, exactly, we turned gray,
but gray has become the trademark of social power.
Just look at office workers when at three or five in
the afternoon they swarm into the streets through the
wide-open gates of office buildings - it*s a gray river
gushing out of the gaping orifice of the gray Civil
Service.
Gray, gray, gray...
But to an expert, there is a method in this grayness,
or perhaps subtle nuances.
The gray suit of a low-level clerk, for instance, dif­
fers a lot from the gray suit of an attorney or a politi­
cal big shot, which is made to measure from a dis­
creetly glistening material of the lister family.
192
Whereas the gray ness of a junior official is creased
and crumpled from long hours at a desk» the grayness
of an attorney has a kind of polish at the folds, and the
gray suit of a power-wielding politician resembles the
armour of a medieval knight. It is more like a symbol
of power than an outfit. It makes a VIP look like a
newly cast monument, which moves, yes, but always
slowly and with dignity. Who on earth has ever seen
a politician running?
Interestingly enough, Serbia is also where people
make the largest knots on their ties! The collars are
always too tight, so that the top button is usually
undone under the knot, which gives its owner a sort
of rakish appearance.
Remnants of a prolonged affiliation with East
European fashion systems are still visible in the heaps
193
 of badges on jacket lapels and the fetish for medals,
decorations and rosettes. There are still quite a few
people who carry whole sets of pens that ostenta­
tiously protrude from breast pockets in substitute of
the white handkerchief, which is frowned upon as a
bourgeois legacy.
Gray people see ranks in the social hierarchy of
Legends of Belgrade
gray suits.
They almost never laugh. A gray man who grins
risks looking feather-brained. Wrinkled brows and a
istory has recorded legendary leaders, heroes and
worried expression indicate seriousness, calling
attention to the tremendous heaviness of the burden
shouldered by gray people.
H prophets, great poets, three uprisings, priests and
educators - but it has recorded few of the insignifi­
Gray people deploy a trick that they hold very dean cant, forgotten and sometimes still extant “Three leg­
the slow mumble instead of clear speech forces lis- ends of Belgrade”. Let us now rescue them from
teners to lean forward a little. This puts the latter in an oblivion, perhaps even sanctify their memory.
inferior position.
People in gray suits love only gray because it Phantom
reminds them of olive-green, which reminds them of
the army, an institution of clear and unquestioned For seven days in 1979, throughout Belgrade, sto­
hierarchy. The love for gray is actually a hatred of the ries circulated of a phantom-driver of a white Porsche
unpredictability and colourful spontaneity of life, who drove insanely in the middle of the night. As
which is something they cannot hold on to. word spread, many Belgraders missed the last bus to
I believe in the permanency of gray people.
Everything comes and goes, only gray suits never
change... *
 catch sight of the phantom at Slavija Square. He
would arrive like an insane vision, driving like mad
on two wheels. For seven nights, police on motorcy­
cles and in patrol cars tried in vain to catch him, but
he would evade them at the last second.
“The man is not sane”, automobile ace B.B. told
newspaper reporters. “He drives on pure luck! To
drive like him, on two wheels, you have to be an
experienced driver.” And he offered this analysis:
“As to the question of his state of mind, he is entirely
immature!”
Some said that he had gone mad after he had failed
his driving exam thirty times; others insisted he was
an ex-taxi driver whose working license had been
revoked by the police... “I’m coming” - he warned
the police, and five minutes later there he was on
Slavija Square, performing insane circles and dare­
devil feats.
On the seventh night, at precisely one minute and
fifty seconds after midnight, spectators’ applause
welcomed the show. By this point, the police had
caught on and had set up a formidable blockade. Yet,
there he was, the automobile Robin Hood, heading
straight for a ring of police cars, a line of Public
Transportation Service buses and taxies. He tried to
make a sharp turn, but rushed into the body of a bus.
He vanished instantly into the crowd that had
thronged around him, leaving his car upside-down,
tires spinning. On this September night, the seven-
day-streak of lone Porsche ranger spite came to an
end at the bus barricade. Despite differences of opini­
on regarding his motive, all agreed in one thing: the
196
phantom wore a black baseball cap with an exagger‫׳‬
atecf peak, the kind that goalkeepers wear in order to
protect themselves from the strong sun. Although the
police announced several days later that the culprit
had been apprehended and convicted, no one believed
the news or the modest biography of the petty crimi­
nal. Boys from 1979, now middle-aged men, to this
day wake up in the middle of the night when the
moon is full, go to their windows overlooking Slavija
square, and wait to see a ghost-white car and the most
daring and craziest driver in the history of Belgrade.
‫׳‬IYaffic policeman Jovan Bulj
In the mid-sixties, at the busiest Belgrade intersec­
tion by the London casino, traffic policeman Jovan
Bulj - clad in a neat, white uniform with snow-white
gloves - one morning made his first appearance. The
sight of him, the elegance of his traffic gestures, was
enough to leave Belgraders breathless. His was
not the usual way of directing traffic, but something
closer to a dramatic ballet in which an unknown
policeman plays the role of the white prince or a dar­
ing toreador whose tights left marks on passing cars,
like bulls in an arena. His movements were charming
and graceful, but not feminine; the smile on his face
was beatific, a supreme expression of satisfaction
with himself and the work he was doing. A traffic
violation by a lovely woman was punishable with the
wag of a finger by way of warning - similar to how
one might reprimand a mischievous child.
197
 psyche was profound. In the end, Jovan’s joy forced
He would also blow kisses. Day after day, Jovan them to send him into early retirement. He finished
Bulj conquered the hearts of his proverbial difficult- his career as a vendor in a newspaper kiosk, and in the
to-tame city. Newspapers began running articles
about him and he appeared on television. The mayor end, as the keeper of a remote parking lot.
of London saw him from a car as he passed the inter­ Even today, his spirit hovers like an invisible bal­
section during a visit to Belgrade. The impression left let dancer above the crossroads by the London edi­
by Jovan was such that the mayor invited him to fice, in defiance of the dull traffic lights that have
London. There are stories that the traffic on Trafalgar been doing his job for decades.
square never circulated as smoothly as when it was
directed by Jovan Bulj, a peasant from a remote Shangai man
province. Londoners, however, never stopped to
watch him; his movements were not feminine enough Scents of the Orient abound from his plate covered
- unlike his London colleagues, many of whom were
with a white serviette.
gay traffic policemen. Still, fame and popularity
aside, Belgrade city authorities never liked Jovan
Bulj; he attracted too much public attention and
passers-by, instead of going about their business,
stopped their jdaily routine to watch a ballet perform­
ance. Jovan simply didn’t comply with the authori­
ties’ view of life and order. In the hierarchy of things,
traffic policeman aspired, or should aspire at any rate,
to become commanders of road traffic control, then
chief of staff, and finally, who knows, the traffic min­
ister himself. It was gloriously obvious, however, that
this traffic policeman wanted nothing more than to
stand at the intersection all day and indulge in the
passing cars, and that this was in fact a calling that
filled him with joy. Jovan made all other jobs seem
pale by comparison; he seemed to be the only person
in the city who loved what he did, and it was unpar­
donable. They moved him to a less prominent inter­
section, but it was no use. Jovan’s impact on the city

198
 Almonds, walnut biscuits, sugared grapes, sesame
seeds, glazes, quinces...
He started at the Mali Pariz restaurant, visited the
Manjež and the Zona Zamfirova, stayed for a while at
the Složna Braća, continued on to the Mala Madera
and the Madera, and then, after he had sold every­
thing, he finally reached the Kosovo, the Boka, the
Tri Grozda, the Grmeč and the Prozor.
He enjoyed respect and was considered the last of
the old-style tradesmen whose entire workshop could
stand on the palm of a person’s left hand. He knew all
the night birds and was witness to many love affairs.
He saw how they finished, and how charming girls
turned into obese matrons supervising the mixed meat
on the grill; he saw how their children grew up willy-
nilly, only to repeat the fates of their parents.
When he left his portable trade, there was no one to
remember the nights we walked hand-in-hand.
Belgrade Blues
n attentive outsider is bound to notice that build­
A ings are cropping up everywhere in Belgrade.
The city is one big construction site, especially in
Cubura, where new houses mushroom above dilapi­
dated shanties and thatched-roof huts, centered
around courtyards from whose center grows a linden
tree, and perhaps there’s a faucet for communal use
and a pigeon house towards the perimeter. Slender,
elegant buildings in post-modernist style surround
these Cubura courtyards, which usually host a fire­
wood shed, its roofs always slanting to one side. Also
in the courtyard, the perennial wooden table with two
shaky benches placed under a linden tree that has all
but begun to bloom.
Red-colored radishes and a cracked salt shaker rest
on the table’s wormhole-eaten planks; a slice of white
Sjenicki cheese is on the plate next to a loaf of warm
bread and a bottle of beer. Residents of the hovels sit
at the table, nibble on the snacks and have a drink, as
the classy inhabitants of the adjacent new buildings
look at them like some sort of Cubura spectacle.
201
 Finally one of them, unable to restrain himself for
another moment, descends in the elevator, enters the
courtyard and asks if he can join the crowd. They
receive him enthusiastically.
From somewhere, a mother’s voice calls her son,
who is lost in play.
“Slooooooboooooodaaaaaneee, come homeee,
luuuuunch,” and then comes the age-old boys’ replay:
“Iiiiin a minuuuute...”
The guest from the new building, in whose elevator
residents stare at illuminated buttons without greeting
one another, sends a neighborhood boy to bring a
round of drinks and three hunderd grams of sausages
for snacks. The spring sun, a true gift of God and
mother of the wretched, illuminates the whole scene.
Every Belgrader is at one and the same time a large
city dweller and a provincial who struggles for a
place of his own. Beneath my window a tree grows
through the sidewalk. There is nothing lonlier in this
world than a tree in asphalt... I have no idea what kind
of tree it is. Is it a young linden tree, an acacia tree or •vho will never grow into a happy rower or a water
a chestnut tree? Who knows? polo player.
On either side of it they’ve placed two bent hollow All the trees in the city have long since sprouted
metal bars, as if it were an invalid, to protect it from leaves, only my tree is still stark naked.
cars parked on the sidewalk. It keeps to itself and struggles, its eyes closed,
Is there anything sadder than to be a tree in searching for much needed soil deep beneath the
Belgrade? asphalt and the piping - it desperately tries to grasp
How did it take root when just below the street
some soil with even the tiniest of its roots... It keeps
surface there are pipelines for sewage and heating, all
manner of cables, including electrical and telephone? its silence and endures.
I have been worried about this all winter. Dry and Drunks vomit down its trunk; shabby cats scratch
slim as it is, it resembles a ricket-affected city kid their fur against it, stray dogs pee on it.

203
202
 in the grave - the beauty of a
things with one foot ^ t h point among _the
“Why don’t you bring forth leaves, you fool!” - 1
whisper to it from the window as it looks back at me underground^' network o f pipes through whtch
helplessly, as if continually apologising; it seems like chloride-treated water gurges. step by step,
in a short while it will totally give up on spring in
Čubura. . vessels,
And, behold, the miracle! Last night, when I went carrying precio P th h the concrete rings
to throw out the rubbish - Lo! - it turned green! It’s they make their y through a forest of
not some big treetop, mind you, but it nevertheless ^ r UgV l t ° T c r o : s t t z y t t e r t t i o n s , and their-
looks gorgeous: it winks at me, proud of having fecesreveal k subdued delight: they have onceagmn
issued forth its leaves. outsmarted the big, dirty city, by wringing from it die
A Tree Grows in Čubura... one remaining pure thing.
This tree in asphalt offers me hope that things w ill.
get better.
They walk for hours from the remotest Belgrade
city sections towards the Hajdučka Česma for spring
water at Topčider, like pilgrims of a hope into which
they alone have been initiated. They place their hands
under its lethargic flow and drink a long while,
hearing in the gurgling water the whispers of their
ancestors. Later, they stand looking at the plane trees,
as if they were at long last on their way to finding
their old roots that have been covered for centuries.
They have walked through the end of their
threadbare lives following the sweet bird that teased
them with promises of wonders: retired generals who
have lost their battles, cavalry colonels, former
archivists and court bandmasters, grocers, doctors
who began doubting the power of science, devout
people and those with supposedly fixed incomes,
pilots of Breguet and Potez aircraft who survived by
accident, ladies’ men from the turn of the last century
- the has-been who finally realises the essence of

204
 doesn’t concern me at all) I would keep old time out
of sheer spite, until that day in September when
watches are turned back, which would prove that I
had been right all along.
There is something unnatural in those fatal 60
minutes with which we try to catch the rest of Europe.
It’s too much for my exhausted organism, which,
after all, lags behind modem times.
Europe waits for me at the March meeting, but I
still yawn a Balkan yawn. Nobody asked me if I
wanted into Europe. Maybe I would prefer America
or Bangkok. Whenever I go to New York they tell me
I have gained six hours; no big deal because I waste
them with beer and hamburgers at P.J. Clark’s.
The new Serbian time does have some advantages.
When I wake up at noon it’s comforting to know that
it’s not noon but only eleven o’clock, and I don’t feel
as guilty.
If I stay in a club until three o’clock, I can convince
myself that I only stayed till two, and that’s far more
decent.
Crazy Time If I’m an hour late for a meeting, I lay the blame on
the new time.
Nevertheless, I can’t get rid of one idea about us
and Europe. Our provincial roosters still crow at the
very year, one day in March, same time, ignoring the civilised world’s arran­
E watches an hour ahead.
Although everyone explains
‫׳‬e have to put our gement
What do they know about Europe, anyway!
completely normal, I just can’t g 1 me that this is They’ve never left their yards.
time. I am desperately conservativ used to the new Isn’t it roosters who best know time?
I had a watch (I don’t because in this respect If
y personal time
. 206
 The ice “problem‫ ״‬probably arose because
Belgraders keep enormous quantities of meat in the
freezer. I separate the friends and acquaintances I vi­
sit into two basic groups, and I have never been wrong:
those who keep whisky in their homes never have ice,
and vice-versa.
People here still believe that ice causes a sore
throat and tonsillitis. If that were true, then three-
fourths of the United States population would be in
hospital right now.
Thanks to this age-old fear, Belgrade is one of the
few European cities where entrees are served cold
and Coca-Cola warm.
elgraders, who are otherwise a very courageous Another traditional fear is the draught.
B people (proven in the history of the city), have for
centuries had an inborn fear of only two things: ice in
What is a draught? An ordinary room wind.
Belgraders, who calmly walk in Europe’s coldest
drinks and draughts. wind - the Ko§ava - are horrified of open doors and
Ice is well known to Belgraders - but only under­ windows, even in August! Try and open the window
ground. In restaurants it can only be had if a guest is in a cab when it’s 35 degrees centigrade in the shade
related to the waiter, and even then it’s given on the and the driver will immediately throw you out or
sly, so others don’t see. Belgrade waiters believe that scream at you to close it because “The draught is
a glass of whisky requires only one cube, which melts killing me!” If you’re new to Belgrade, you may still
on its way from the counter to the table. A request for believe that the frequently missing window handle on
two cubes is being absolutely spoiled and three the passenger side of a cab is some strange coinci­
throws them into a “tri-lemma” - is the guest an dence, or that the handles are in short supply. Not so
Eskimo, a polar bear, or simply a lunatic? my friend. It is because in Belgrade we have a
A friend of mine who struck rich in America had draught that kills'.
acquired such a complex regarding ice in Serbia, due to This is also the reason there are only three convert­
its scarcity of course, that when he moved to San ible-top cars in Belgrade.
Francisco one of the first thing he did was install an ice Everyone knows there aren’t more because their
machine, and only after it had started spewing out the drivers don’t last long. .
first magical cubes did he build his house around it!

208
 '

Room with a View

ou have arrived in a small coastal town you’ve

Y heard wonders about. The famous semi-circular
beach is surrounded by pine forest, and the hotels and
bungalows are booked through late autumn. You are
forced, therefore, to seek accommodation with the
kind locals hanging around travel agencies and drink­
ing beer to kill time.
They say their home is located in the best part of
town, at the very foot of the hill in an olive grove. It
has a beautiful terrace. On a clear day you can even
see Italy in the distance. You accept this irresistible
offer and you begin the ascent, luggage in hand, up a
winding road to get there, somewhere, high up and
into a stone house.
That same day you learn that the beach is only sev­
en hundred and thirty-nine steps away, and that you
will have the opportunity to personally count them
tomorrow morning, but by that time it will be too late
to do anything about it.
You are ushered into a room with a view of the sea.
The room appears as though no one has ever stayed
there. Two large wardrobes covered in walnut veneer

210
 occupy about a quarter o f the space. There is also a
double bed with an artificial tiger skin cover, cheap
lithographs of saints in ornate frames adorned with
dried S t John’s Day flowers, and dressing and night
tables you no longer believed existed. The dresser
under the mirror, which makes you look fat, holds
varnish-covered fish, seashells, and plaster-of-Paris
copies of Greek vases. On the floor, a colourful rug
on colourful linoleum! On top of the wardrobes, old
suitcases and empty jars for jam.
“Do you like?’’ - they ask you, expecting nothing
short of overwhelming admiration on your part You
had imagined whitewashed Mediterranean-style inte­
riors with brick-red floor slabs, but you’re looking at
a room that ignites vague sadness...it reminds you of
your shattered youth, a psychic place you’ve spent a
lifetime fleeing, only to return to it now, on your
vacation. If only there were no pestering flies. But
where there are sheep, goats, chickens, donkeys and
mules, there are bound to be flies.
Your hosts, otherwise decent and honest people,
believe this room to be their most prized possession.
All their hopes for a better life are hinged on this
room. Such sacrifice went into its construction...reve-
nue from the room is supposed to school the chil­
dren, buy winter overcoats, and ultimately, the room
- after you and the likes of you stay in it - is supposed
to contribute to building another room, and another
one, and perhaps - who knows - a whole new little
boarding house? The satisfied looks on their faces say
it all; the room is not a room at all, but the first step
along the glittering road to a happier and more afflu-
212 , ‫־‬ - 213
ent life, where everyone lives in such guestrooms and
not in kitchens and storerooms. Appropriate books -
gathered in a small glass-covered bookcase - were
bought and paid for in installments. Ordinarily, these
include the works of Bromfield, Cronin, Pearl Buck,
Zilahy and, for some odd reason, Casanova! Perhaps
his Memoirs are designed to re‫־‬awaken a summer
lover. But, unfortunately, there will be none of that
here: the beds are terribly squeaky and one can hear
the hosts breathing through the walls as they sleep in
the hall.
Entangled in this summer scenario, you soon feel
the hosts* agitation in their censorious looks and
casually uttered reproachful remarks. They expect
you to be on the beach throughout the day; they
object to small children that “damage** furniture, and,
in a way, they object to your very presence - after all,
who are you to stay in a room whose image of luxury
was the subject of endless discussion and prolonged
self-denial, a goal realised through tremendous effort
about which you know nothing. You don’t even
appreciate the room! They have been putting things in
order, and you - you bring chaos! They work from
dawn to dusk, and there you are, on vacation. Tired,
they long to sleep, just as you’re returning to the
house. In their eyes, you are the embodiment of injus­
tice. Why, for example, do you take so long in the
shower and take ages to vacate the bathroom?
On the other hand, through no fault of your own,
you are taken back to your humiliating beginnings:
you are again in the position of a deprived tenant with
your landlady from 1956; once again, you have no
 clue as to why you must move about the house like a
cat, eat in the absence of light, keep your belongings
in your suitcase under the bed. You are amazed at
how fast you have reverted to your former identity of
a single person. The cheerless dormant single tenant
has been awoken in you, but you are no longer single
or alone - there’s the wife and kids who were not part
of that particular hell, but they look at you in wonder:
why do you submit to this humiliation?
. Why don’t you simply get another room? But, who
wants to pack the freshly unpacked stuff, and then
again - you have fallen into the old trap - how can
one hurt poor people whose livelihood depends on
renting rooms?
Food for the Body and Soul
he biographies of all great journalists include the
T fact that they began their careers by reporting
from market places. I could never quite understand
how a young reporter, a beginner, could be expected
to grasp all the beauty and excitement of an open
market - such as the Kalenid green market in
Belgrade, for example. In my view, to report on this
calls for a writer of the stature of Milovan GliSid or
Bora Stankovid, let alone DuSko Radovid!
Although I am not - fortunately - at the beginning
of my journalistic career but rather closer to its end, I
walk along browsing the green market stalls and
sample a strawberry or two (unwashed, of course!),
caress a cabbage head with my hand, taste some kaj-
ntak here, sample some white cheese there, never
ceasing to be amazed by this beauty - the wealth of
scents, tastes, colours and faces that go with them.
And, lo, the smell of smokehouses and stables of
Mt. Zlatibor suddenly contracts my nostrils.
Following this scent trail I come across a big man
with a SajhaZa on his head and a dandy-like twirled
moustache, applying a large knife on smoked beef
and using the tip to offer morsels as samples to poten­
215
tial customers. Dried chops and legs and a variety of
sausages are laid out in front of him, his unbuttoned
shirt revealing a tanned and hairy chest. A chubby
Ruthenian peasant woman - a genuine pinkish
dumpling, white in complexion and blue-eyed with
fat dumpling-noodles instead of fingers - sells differ­
ent types of dough and noodles next to him. Whereas
she once had two types of noodles for sale, thin ones
and thicker ones, she has now broadened her offer to
include Italian green tagliatelle noodles and tortellini
stuffed with spinach, ham or cheese. Amazing!
Whether out of nostalgia or because comrade Tito
liked them, a kind of pastry the Serbs never cared for
has in recent years appeared on market counters in
Belgrade - mlinci. I realised that štrukli of Zagoije are
also on sale. Macedonian chickpeas, the first toma­
toes of the season and the first peppers of the season
are over here; Hungarian kačkavalj (hard cheese) and
knack are there. And Romanians bringing walnuts to
sell were the cue to the man from Mt. Zlatibor (who
becomes tipsy around two in the afternoon) to start
singing a folk-song involving the word walnuts and a
lewd proposal, while leering at the Ruthenian woman
standing next to him.
As this goes on in the crush of little Babylon, a
slender young brunette makes her way through the
crowd. A man could immediately fall in love with
her. She has just completed medical studies, cannot
get a job and is carrying around a device to measure
blood pressure while calling out in her melodious
Belgrader voice: “We measure blood pressure, we
measure blood pressure!” She makes her way in very

216 u?>
tight jeans to the man from Mt. Zlatibor. His blood by Consuella, as everyone believes, but by her moth­
pressure is so high it’s as if both man and machine are er-in-law Dolores../‫״‬
The women listen to him attentively; their eyes and
at bursting point. It reads 220 over 140, with pulse
mouths open, and then reward him with small change
racing at 130. The Ruthenian woman has low blood
pressure: 100 over 60 - she’ll live to be a hundred, at left after buying fruits, vegetables and meat.
And in this way, not only food for the body but also
least I, too, have my blood pressure taken just to help food for the soul is sold at the Kalenid open market.
the young doctor, but as she touches me with the gen­
tle fingers of a piano player and looks at me with her
sky-blue eyes, my blood pressure jumps so high 1
nearly lose consciousness.
At the far end of the green market where flowers
are sold, right next to the parking lot where local
drunks are sipping their vinjaks from small-sized bot­
tles called unuce (grandson), sits a middle-aged man
with a sombrero-like straw hat on an empty counter.
He is' surrounded by housewives carrying shopping
bags.
What is he selling?
* Nothing. ■' ‫• ׳ ־ ־ ׳‬
He is re-telling yesterday’s episodes of Latin
American TV soap operas that housewives missed
due to their heavy work load, and now they’re finding
it difficult to follow other episodes. His offering is
more than impressive: Love is Gamble, Ruby, Heart in
Flames, Innocent, and Romantic Obsession.
“And then Esmeralda seduced Ricardo, by appear­
ing before him in her underwear” - the story-teller
recounts to the ladies rallying around him - “and
while everyone believed Alonso to be the murderer, it
was, in fact, his twin brother Alvaro all along, who
was separated from his brother when he was just one
year old, because the whole intrigue was devised not

218
Yesterday ,s World

t seems as if Serbs, more than other people in the

I world, suffer from sustained nostalgia; yesterday
was always better than today. When the men of my
generation were boys, their grandfathers told them
fairy-tales about life in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,
and now we enthusiastically tell our children about
the 1960s - referred to as the “golden sixties”, as well
as the “magnificent seventies” and “ unrepeatable
eighties”. More absurdly, many Belgraders swear
their lives were better during the time of general

4*3 6^
inflation - the worst ever recorded ‫ ־־‬than today, and
some even insist they felt better during the bombing
in 1999, when the war brought people closer together,
than today when almost nobody speaks to anyone.
To snap nostalgic people out of their reverie, I dare
provide a list of some things that they, sedated by
memories of youth, have completely forgotten about
As far as cigarettes are concerned, there were no
foreign brands available at kiosks four decades ago;
can you imagine the world without Marlboro? And
you could only buy single cigarettes, which is what
my generation did, so that whoever bought the first
ten from the pack got them wrapped in opaque paper

220 Â
while the next shopper was luckier and was given the
carton pack. Cigarette brands were named after the
names of rivers (Drava, Ibar, Zeta, Morava and
Drina) and the most luxurious brand was called
Yugoslavia. A filter was practically science fiction at
the time.
Let us remember our girlfriends’ hair washed in
rainwater and rinsed with diluted vinegar, so that let­
tuce for me still carries an association of early
romance. Who else remembers the era before sham­
poos, like Redken or Sassoon?
It was not so long ago that the state-owned Radio
and Television Broadcast Company (there was no
other) had only one channel, a black-and-white pro­
gramme that ended at midnight to the music of the
Belgrade hymn. At the time, one of my fellow-
drunks, instead of watching television, entered his
bathroom and watched the round glass door of his
washing machine, through which bright-coloured
laundry would revolve. His explanation for this hob­
by; unlike our television sets, the washing machine
has seven channels that are all in colour. Just think of
how many channels you have on cable or satellite tele­
vision and compare it to the days when a famous
presenter ended a broadcast with the sentence: *‘Good
night, Mr. President.” People used to say that he who
received this personal farewell because he was the
only one in the entire city who had a TV set
Truth be told, though, there was another TV set
and it was located in the Blue Saloon of the Metropol
hotel where we went for tea, as that was the cheapest
drink, and to watch the famous show “Six Formal

222
 Invitations”, hosted by actor Petar. Slovenski
Anyway, the Metropol was the only decent hotel in
the city - it was said to be a miracle of luxury - and
in 1960 we waited for hours in to see Elizabeth
Taylor and her husband and producer Michael Todd
enter the hotel. They were late because their private
plane had circled above Belgrade because Michael
wanted to finish a game of poker with his friends. The
sister o f one o f my friends, who worked as a maid in
the hotel, told us that foreign actors were awfully
spoiled: just think, she would say, they throw towels
on the floor! At the time our whole family would dry
off with one worn-out towel, and the story was really
strange to us. By way of a reminder: tooth fillings
were gray, made from amalgam, and a toothache
would more often than not be treated with extraction.
Do you remember when taps were put on shoes ‫־‬
those metal plates to protect the heels and soles of
shoes - so that with every step we clapped like freight
horses, or at best, made us think of tap dancer Fred
Astair? Does anybody still use taps today? And is
there anyone who still wears the so-called “inside-out
gromby” coats that were handed down through at
least three family generations?
Whisky was seen only in movies, and sometimes
Coca-Cola cans were spotted, which had reached our
poor country in some way or another. We held sharp­
ened pencils to look like American writers.
There were also shops specifically for re-filling
ball-point pens and others for “patching” nylon stock­
ings. And let’s not forget shops that sold nothing but
upholstering buttons!
224
The guys of my generation were allowed to hang
out until ten or eleven o’clock, at the latest, which is
when today’s generation begins considering where to
go out for the evening.
Wooden darning eggs, on which stockings were
repaired, have also disappeared and when they van­
ished burned out light bulbs were suddenly in demand.
Until 1960, there were only two street photogra­
phers in Belgrade; they took photos of people walk­
ing through Kalemegdan Park at a time when few
people had a camera. Remember that the next time
you take a photo of your loved ones with a digital
camera and look at the pictures on a computer screen.
Until fairly recently there were “Commissions”
(stores that sold things on commission) - and they
were often the only places where you could buy the
wonders of the world: shoes with rubber soles, plastic
raincoats, “super rifle” jeans and Zippo lighters. Take
a walk through Belgrade and take a look at all the lux­
urious stores and boutiques with merchandise made
by the most famous brands in the world, and you will
be easily cured of nostalgia for the “sweet sixties”.
We knew most Belgrade taxi drivers by name -
those at the railway station, at the airport and in front
of the Moscow and Metropol hotels - it would be
impossible to count them today.
Why, then, are we nostalgic?
Because that was the time of our youth, and above
all, a time of great expectations for the future - which
have gone unfulfilled.

A Flight Called Nostalgia
“ Tgotta date in seventh heaven...” - 1 croon the words
l o f an old pre-war hit while a JAT Airways plane
lifts me to the sky. And no matter how much my pilot
pals explain with great confidence the laws of aerody­
namics, I still remain a complete bumpkin: it’ll never
ever be clear to me how something so heavy and bulky
as a DC-10, for example, can unglue itself from the
sinful earth, together with tons o f luggage, 280 passen­
gers and three cinemas! The act of landing, on the other
hand, seems far more natural to me.
“I don’t actually have a fear o f flying, but of plum­
meting!” - admitted one of my friends, and I under­
stand him completely.
While we fly above a fluffy quilt of clouds, I recall
our long love of aviation, which reaches right back to
the happy years of childhood, when every boy dreamt
of one day becoming a pilot.
I always admired one of my uncles, a pilot, who in
1933, in a tipsy state, flew a Potez 28 biplane under
the Old Bridge that spans the River Neretva in
Mostar: he was, of course, immediately put on indefi­
nite suspension. In 1940, on the eve of the war in
226
Yugoslavia» he crammed me into a rickety Breguet 19
at Butmir airport and did a lap of honour over
Sarajevo. I was only three years old, so I had no
inkling how aviation would develop. Who could have
imagined back then that passengers like myself would
one day sit high above the ocean, watch movies and
sip champagne?
For a long time after my First plane ride, my gener­
ation only saw planes from the ground. They flew
over our heads and dropped bombs! First we were
bombed by the Germans, then by our allies, the
British and Americans. Everyone had a go at us! We
skipped over the ruins and sang with our faces turned
towards those planes in the sky:
“Throw us some paper,
Til give you a 4tater!”
In 1944 I saw the Germans marching two black
American pilots through the streets of Sarajevo. They
were brought down over the town. Both were gig­
gling like mad and threw us Mars Bars. We heard that
four London movie tickets were found in their pock­
ets: that evening, their girl friends waited in vain for
them to return. The broad, white-toothed smiles of
those brave pilots have always remained etched in my
memory, and remain connected to flying.
When the war finished I moved to Belgrade. All
those terrible Messerschmidts, perfidious Stukas and
big Junkers were on display in front of the Military
Museum in Kalemegdan Park. We climbed aboard
and played make-believe air battles. I shot down 12
planes, was wounded in the leg, and then a museum
attendant threw us out!
\
 In the spring o f 1946, a crowd o f us kids - under­
nourished, rickety and shaved bald - was squeezed
onto a semi-obsolete Junkers, its wings patched up
with tin sheeting and joined with wire, to be flown
high over Belgrade to cure us of whooping cough at
the state’s expense. Half the plane was coughing, the
other half was sick, but we were really cured of per­
tussis. And, along the way, of fear of flying!
Then came the age of the famous Douglas DC3‫־‬,
which flew us to the sea over the mountains. The poor
old DC-3 flew so low over the Romania hills that the
tops of the oaks on the Red Crags bent from the wind
from its propellers. Like a kind of fairy from a Hans
Andersen tale, a lovely stewardess offered “silken”
sweets to the passengers. We landed on the dry grass
of Dubrovnik’s Gruda airport and applauded the cap­
tain who had so boldly flown over the mountains!
In the “20th October” cinema ( the old “Luksor”),
there was a Russian movie called The Task o f Major
Bulochkin, which I saw a half dozen times. Major
Bulochkin flew a biplane with a Maxim machine gun
while singing:
“Because, because we are pilots,
The sky, the sky is our home, -
‫ ־‬First, first come planes,
Yes, and girls? (asked some crows from above a
cloud)
And girls, afterwards!” (replied the brave major).
We took our first girlfriends by bus on a super out­
ing - to the new Belgrade Airport! We drank tea
laced with rum and watched planes land and take off
and gawked at the haut monde who traveled the world
230
just like in a movie. In the city itself, in Knez
Mihailova Street, Air France opened an office with a
display window that was filled with photographs of
movie stars who always smiled and waved. Yves
Montand with Simone Signoret, Ella Fitzgerald and
Louis Armstrong, Elizabeth Taylor and M ichael
Todd, Gilbert Becaud and Pascale Petit. W e stood
there in the Belgrade slush - we, a generation without
passports, peering in admiration at this happy, care‫ ־‬.
free world, longing to go on those journeys, stay in
those luxury hotels, fly in airplanes on which you
could even eat a meal!
And now, here we are, enjoying roast meat and let­
tuce, high above the clouds. W e’ve become more
than a little spoiled, without really being aware of it.
We grumble at the airport about our plane being half
an hour late, we compare the food and services of var­
ious airplanes, completely forgetting our first modest
flights, when we were oveijoyed to get a “silken”
sweet
We look down on the earth from a height of 8,000
metres and all our troubles seem tiny and insignifi­
cant. Is that scattered heap of dice really the town
where we live and where we are tormented by so
many problems? We become like gods, but a little la­
ter, when the sound of the engines changes and flaps
are lowered, we feel a sense of our own unimpor­
tance: man was, after all, not made to fly but to walk
on terra firmal We conquer our fear and replace the
mask of indifference on our faces. We make a little
hst, think of those things we have left undone, and
231
 swear that, once we’ve emerged from this “zone of
turbulence”, we’ll be wiser and better...
We leave the plane, ashamed of our weakness in
the “seventh heaven”, and each go our own way -
lonely little philosophers who, high up above the
clouds and birds touched upon the riddle of life, if
only for an hour or two.
And flying with us are those poor little biplanes,
the Breguet and the Potez, and those brave pilots who
conquered the sky piece by piece, bringing us closer
to great civilised world.

Fear of Flying

he most accurate and sincere description of the

T “fear of flying‫ ״‬was Erica Jong’s in her novel of
the same title that became a bestseller. I interviewed
her in 1978 at her large Connecticut home, a two and
half hour drive from New York. She knew just about
everything there was to know about the subject, espe­
cially the waves of fear caused by loud clanking and
wheezing sounds when people are unaware that they
are caused by flaps or landing gear.
Psychiatrists interpret the fear o f flying as an
unconscious, typically bourgeois fear of death, as
members of this class believe, for the most part, that
they live comfortably in a consumers’ paradise. It is a
known fact, however, that psychoanalysis can aug-
ment the pathological fear or disorder that it attempts
to treat. My ancestors experienced a fear of the sea
after spending months in the lower decks sailing
across the Atlantic - they could not swim. Not much
has changed today. Crossing the Atlantic on an air­
plane, I’m aware that I still haven’t learnt to fly, but I
bide my time amusing myself by detecting fear on the
faces of passengers around me. I recommend this
amusement at an altitude of 11,000 metres, if for no
other reason than to kill the long hours.
After several hours, when the airplane finally
touches down on the tarmac you can pick out those
who fear flying as those who applaud the pilot, as if
he had played the title role in some air show. Those
whose fear was the greatest are the first to unbuckle
their seat belts precisely when they need them the
most, which is followed by a deep sigh of relief
although they were warned not to relax until the
engines come to a complete stop.
There is a special sort of person afflicted by the
fear of flying whom I call the airborne Don Juans. He
compensates for his fear by courting stewardesses,
asking them whether they’re free later that evening.
Some even find a sense of humour in this fear, one
they didn’t know they possessed. Thus, when the
stewardess announces that in the event of a change in
cabin air-pressure breathing masks will automatically
drop from above their seats, they ask if they will also
get fins?
Some drop into a deep sleep from the fear of fly­
ing, others demonstrate they are men of the world and
proceed to fuss about the food and service, pointing

234
 out that Swissair standards are much higher than Jat’s
•>- untrue, as the Swiss company offers passengers
; only frugal, modest sandwiches at a price.
For them, anything associated with foreign compa­
nies is better than Jat Airways; thus, with Quantas the
seats are much more comfortable, while British
Airways has much prettier stewardesses. Fortunately,
of late, the use of cell phones and laptop computers
has been banned during flights. These gadgets are
mostly used by people who - although already flying
business class - further demonstrate their belonging
to the world o f big business. Fortunately, they are
denied the opportunity of forcing us to listen to their
tales of millions, truckloads of goods and 18-wheel­
ers on the ground. . at the wonders of the world, admire the riches of past
Some people pull down the window shade as soon
‫ ׳‬as they sit down to prevent seeing how high up they
are. The most frequent type of coward is the one who
furtively opens a bottle of warm whisky bought in the
duty free shop. Anyhow, Scots say that if ice were
indispensable for drinking whisky, they would have
bottled it that way.
The situation is worst for smokers, whose fear of
flying is perhaps the greatest because there is no
longer virtually any air company or airport that per­
mits smoking. For smokers, the fear o f flying used to
be made easier by transferring the fear onto their cig­
arette.
“Why be afraid,” a captain friend of mine once
asked a terrified passenger. “No one has stayed up
here for ever!”
Could You Live Here
*7~lould you live here?”
V^We measure the world with this sim ple but
essential question, which no one can answer. We look
centuries, roam through luxury and abundance, and
then we drop in on the first countryman we find, take
off our shoes with a sigh, and giving a break to our
sore feet we ask: .
“Could you live here?”
As if we were the ones making such decisions, as .
if we had nine lives, as if our opinions counted for
anything at all.
“Could you live here?”
Oh, what a stupid, beautiful and touching question!
“I don’t know. It depends...”
“On what?”
“How do I know?”
“I wouldn’t live here if you gave me a million a
day!”, one of them swears, as if someone had really
offered him a million. “I wouldn’t stay here for all the
money in the world.”
But, really, could you live here, in America?”
237
 “You mean, if I knew I couldn't go back?”
“And you, could you live here?”
,-»■;!‫“ ״‬S r i -
live there myself. » y *
“Well, if...” that is.
And while others live, we ask ourselves, with our
feet on the table and a glass in hand, if we really
could. We ask ourselves that question everywhere
except in one place, in our own Belgrade, because
that’s where we actually live, if you can call it living.
“My home is where my book is”, the late Bernard
Malamud once said to me in New York after I had
asked him if he still misses his old block that was tom
down. “Could you live here?” I ask an American in
Belgrade. He also rests his feet on the table, glass in
hand.
“In Belgrade? Well, I do live here! My wife is from
Cubura. No problem!”
“Do you find anything here odd?”
“Oh, yes. But I got used to it...”
“Like what?”
“Well, Belgraders eat and smoke at the same time,”
he says. “Like they don’t know what they want to do
first! And when it comes to paying for drinks, they
argue over who should pay. Before they light a ciga­
rette, they always lick the tip because they suspect the
tobacco is dry. They chew toothpicks. They salt but­
ter spread on a piece of bread. They salt every dish
before tasting it. They kiss three times on the cheek.”
1 took the text out of the typewriter and went to the
window to smoke a cigarette. I licked the tip first, of
course. Belgrade was coquettishly clothed in green
tops. The lindens smelled sweet Belles were passing
by... ■‫־‬,

238
A Strange Country

ill, my translator from New York, has come to

B visit me. You could hardly say that Bill wore
himself out studying. The son of immigrants, he stud­
ied his native language at Princeton.
Everything interests him. He’d like to see and hear
it all.
In the morning we listen to the radio.
Used to their city being leveled to the ground in
wars, Belgraders long to have their apartment blocks
tom down so they could get another flat in a new
block.
Every morning radio hosts on local stations answer
questions from impatient listeners: “When will my
house be tom down?‫ ״‬Try to imagine how a New
Yorker would feel if he heard the following on the
radio:
“Unfortunately, your house on Madison Avenue
will not be tom down for some time yet.”
The listeners protest: “Then how come number 84
is being tom down. Mine is much older. It’s a perfect
disgrace!‫ ״‬:
Bill can't understand a thing. Me neither.
 In the evening, we watch television... My guest
wants to get to know his parents’ country.
First we watch American cartoons. Then we watch
American Coke and Pepsi commercials, and then an
American Western. An American show about Diana
Ross follows, after which we switch to the first chan­
nel to watch Dynasty and then switch back to the third
channel for Dallas.,. If the presenter weren’t Serbian,
I would worry about the impression we, as a country,
were leaving on Bill!
“How is this possible?”. Bill wonders. “Where are
your shows?”
“Well, occasionally, we watch them too”, I
explain. “It’s just that, we don’t have much luck
tonight.”
“So what’s the difference between your television
and ours?”, Bill demands.
I try to explain. “Here the commercials interrupt
the movie from time to time, but in the States movies
occasionally interrupt the commercials!” Life is a Fairy Tale

erbs are people who have the highest self-respect

S in the world, according to an international com­
parative study, published in 2005 by Dr. Davi
Schmidt, an associate professor and chairman of the
Psychology Department at Bradly University in
Peoria, Illinois. After Serbs, Chileans and Israelis
were also found to have a high superiority complex,
while the Japanese ranked last. Americans ranked a
robust seventh position.

243
 Only now do I realise that I’ve always felt this way
deep inside, but here, finally, is scientific proof that
Serbs feel they are an exceptional people, regardless
of what a malicious naysayer may think. Serbian self
confidence originates, primarily, in a genuine belief
in fairytales and scorn for the real conditions in which
they live. In Serbian folk tales, which used to excite
even the Grimm brothers, poor shepherds defeat
giants and m any emperors* daughters. They discover
buried treasure, strangle three-headed dragons, and I
still kiss every frog I manage to catch in the hope that
it just might turn it into a princess - you never know.
Indeed, our beautiful princess, Jelisaveta Karadorde-
vi<5, after a long period of exile finally lives in Belgra­
de, though we*re still a republic. Isn*t that a happy
end to a fairytale?
If we rotate the globe on our desk we can hardly
put our index finger .on the spot that marks Serbia; it
also covers several neighbouring countries. Despite
this, our self-confidence, so nicely established by pro­
fessor Schmidt from Peoria, has prompted us to fight
several wars against world empires like Turkey,
Austro-Hungary, the Third Reich, and to say NO to
the Soviet Union when it was at the height of its pow­
er. Seventeen Nato-member countries couldn’t stand
this high dose of self-confidence, and in the spring of
1999, bombed us for a full 78 days, dropping more
tons of explosives on Belgrade and other towns - as
well as village markets and local trains - than on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. It appears that all
this hasn’t shaken our self-confidence in the least.

244
 Wait, there’s more: even our dogs have more self-
confidence than other dogs in the world. If you pay
careful attention, you will notice that a Serbian dog
weighing hardly ten kilos will bark and snap at the
tires of a twenty-ton lorry!
When our basketball players win the silver and not
the gold medal at a world championship or the
A Country of Intimacy
Olympic games, nobody other than customs officers
shows up to give them a warm welcome. Serbs are
still in deep mourning about the poor results at
f you, dear foreigner, have the occasion to travel by
Eurobasket 2005, despite the fact that throughout
their history they’ve spent more time playing games
like kliSy a game involving a block of wood, or shoot­
I train through our lovely country, you won’t help
but notice that Serbs begin suffering incredible pangs
ing “rug-balls”, than trying to throw anything into a of hunger the moment the train pulls out of the sta­
basket. tion! Fried chicken is immediately broken up by hand
Actually, there was no need for professor David on a suitcase or in a lap, or on an ad hoc dinner table
Schmidt to trouble himself with a survey of 17,000 on which cards will soon start plopping. It is always
people from 53 countries around the world in order to understood that everybody in the compartment is
conclude Serbian perceived superiority. It would invited to this brunch!
have sufficed to sit in any Belgrade café and listen to As our trains do not generally have restaurant cars
jokes about an American, an Englishman, a Russian, or vendors pushing their drink-carts for hours through
a Frenchman and a Serb, in which the Serb, of course, crowded corridors, passengers are left to their own
always outwits and triumphs over the others. devices. Even if a vendor manages to make it to your
Serbs also boast of being the best lovers in the carriage, it will happen that the only soft drink he has
world. It may be a bit puzzling that there are no more is beer! At every stop paterfamilias pour out of the
than seven million of them because, according to the train brandishing empty bottles and make a mad dash
boasts in Serbian cafés, there should be at least as across the rails to a lonely tap on a distant platform.
many Serbs as there are Chinese. The reason for the There, under a meagre trickle and with clanging bot­
numerical discrepancy is that many Serbian women, tles, men shoulder for position as concerned mothers
the most beautiful in the world of course, go abroad
and tear-stained children lean out of train windows,
and marry foreigners, where they bear the most beau­
full of anxiety about whether the journey will have to
tiful and the most self-confident children in the world.
247
 continue without their fathers, who have so bravely
gone to war over for some drops of water.
If you are offered a drink from the one and only
bottle in the compartment, the owner will show his
sensitivity to and awareness o f the principles of
hygiene by first pouring a few drops out, then disin­
fect the neck of the bottle by rubbing it with the dirty
palm of his hand. To my compatriots, this seems to be
the most effective way of doing in harmful bacteria.
I have traveled a lot in the world and seen how
many foreigners travel in silence. Not a word passes
between them! They mostly read papers and books,
or they gaze indifferently out of the window. In this
country, by the first suburban stop we have discov­
ered common acquaintances and friends, and by the
second stop we settle with certainty that we’re actual­
ly relatives or, at the very least, have the same God­
parents by birth! This is yet another example that this
is a land of staggering closeness. Here are a few
more; _
After a pleasant chat, your fellow traveler quietly consulate. The person behind you breathes directly
takes his shoes off and, since he is sitting opposite
into one of your ears while your nose rests snugly in
you, places his feet in your lap. Or he may genUy lay
the nape of the neck of the person in front of you. I
his unshaven face on your shoulder and take a nap.
am certain this would be an invaluable form of group
Only those without utter confidence in their compa­
therapy that would produce excellent results in even
triots will cover their face with a coat hanging in the
compartment comer. the most alienated and frustrated types!
Frustrated types in New York get treatment at spe­
I have read hundreds of essays about Western cial clinics by touching and allegedly re-establishing
alienation and lack of intimacy. Instead of therapy, contact with their fellow humans. Belgrade is in this
Westerners should spend some time traveling on our
respect mildly excessive; to start with, even men kiss
trains and then come to Belgrade to stand in the occa­ each other on the cheek with the ritual three kisses...m
sional queue in front of a shop or visa-issuing foreign a casual street encounter! If someone taps you amica-
248
249
bly on the back, you’re likely to walk off with a dis­
located shoulder. Belgraders also shake each other’s
hands with enough vigour to tear them off.
Another thing: Serbs kiss their priests’ hands far
more often than they do ladies’ hands.
Many foreign travelers have noticed, and recorded,
that we frown a lot. That is probably true. That is
because in my homeland laughing denotes a lack of
seriousness! Our public figures are eternally tense,
brow-knitting, malevolent fellows. I am one of the
rare Belgraders who laughs, I’ve been told, without
reason. There, right now! Whatever for?
Because Pm the only person who won’t be able to
read these lines once they’ve been translated and pub­
lished in this book. My English is not good enough!
Isn’t that reason enough?
Yule Logs and Christmas
Trees
curious foreigner w ho, shortly before the
A Christmas Season, happens to find him self in
Belgrade will certainly be surprised to see piles of
oak branches covering the capital’s open markets like
a forest, and nearby he w ill see stacks of slender fir
trees. He or she may not know that on Christmas Eve
most Serbs - unlike m ost other Christians - bring into
their homes a bundle o f oak branches tied with hay,
instead of the Christm as tree common to W estern
countries. This is called a badnjak, and its closest
translation would be the ‫״‬Christmas Eve Tree”, that
is, Bthe Yule log.
adn jak is one o f the m ost important elements of
the ritual related to Christm as Eve and Christians,
according to a book on folk customs. Today, instead
of an oak log, the Yule log has become an oak branch
which is bought in the m arket place and is kept m
homes throughout the Christmas season, without giv-
. ing much thought as to its actual meaning.
Christmas is one of the two greatest Christian ho -
idays (the other being Easter). It is the celebration oi
251
the birth of Christ, but its origins are much older. This
Christian holiday replaced an old pagan celebration
devoted to the spirits of dead ancestors, and thus
many of the season’s customs are, in fact, remnants of
this ancient ritual.
The Yule log is traditionally cut down on the morn­
ing of Christmas Eve, before sunrise. It has to be cut
down with a single blow, or three strokes of an axe; it
must fall towards the east, and must not be caught in
the branches of a neighboring tree. The Yule log is
brought into the house in a ceremonial manner; it is
sprinkled with wheat and wine, coated with honey,
and is welcomed with great honour and placed onto
the hearth.
But what, exactly, does the Yule log mean?
The Yule log symbolises the god of fertility (or a
demon of vegetation) who is ritually burned so that he
may live again. Thus, it symbolises the annual cycle
of the death and rebirth of nature. Rituals performed
with the Yule log should secure good crops, fertility,
and the general well-being of the family.
Belgraders, who are among the most tolerant of
people on the planet (even without the prodding of a
special ecumenical council), have managed to recon­
cile the impossible: Christmas trees and Yule logs.
Namely, they impetuously celebrate whatever holi­
day appears on the calendar, marking with equal
enthusiasm past and present official holidays, as well
as religious festivals and saints’ days. Thus a
Christmas tree will serve to decorate the drawing
room and mark the New Year (for children, because
they don’t know the old customs), while the Yule log

252
 Christinas trees also had help in bribing people into
is brought into the kitchen (for grandfather and grand­ likiog them: under their branches, nicely w rapped
mother). presents await both the family and their guests. Yule
Decorated in their sumptuous jewelry and lights, logs never had anything to offer but themselves.
Christmas trees look down upon Yule logs, almost There is yet another big difference betw een the
scornfully, as if they were peasants who came to sell
two: the way their season ends.
their home-made cheese. A withered fir tree that sheds its dried prickly nee­
But Yule logs keep quiet and endure - their five- dles is taken out o f the house and thrown into the
hundred-year-long experience of being smuggled into garbage, after which the whole staircase has to be
Serb houses during the Turkish occupation has taught swept. But a Yule log bums defiantly, throwing off
them perseverance and patience. During the past half- sparks like a forest ablaze. And, with its last spark, it
century they have addressed Christmas trees as their tries rebelliously to set the fam ily's carpet on fire.
superiors.
Though they both came from the same Serb forests,
the fir trees were miffed over the Yule logs’ peasant
simplicity and pronounced Christian Orthodoxy.
After World War II, in the era of the “Dictatorship
of the Proletariat”, only the most insolent and brave
Serb peasants dared bring Yule branches to
Belgrade’s markets. However, they were so few that
they went almost unnoticed among the piles of firs.
Also, the subdued, rebellious nature of Yule logs
would not allow them to be decorated. Dry, branchy,
dark, and firm, they remained what they always were/
On the other hand, without their multi-coloured
bulbs, silver ribbons, stars, candy-canes, artificial
snow, and other glitzy embellishments, Christmas
trees are just simple evergreens. The Yule logs are
what they are, and need nothing else.
It is not known with certainty which came first -
the Christmas tree or the Yule log, but throughout his­
tory Christmas trees have had a better time of it and
always occupied a higher position.

254
Happy Patron Saints’s Day

elgrade and its residents will remain incompre­

B hensible to the foreigner who has never attended
a patron saint’s day celebration, whose season begins
in fall and runs through the end of winter.
What is a patron saint’s day? O f all Eastern
Orthodox Christians, Serbs are the only ones to still
respect this ancient custom of celebrating the family
saint or patron of the household. Ardent when it
comes to festivities, many Serbian families extend the
feast-day past the single day on which it falls. The
patron saint’s day is imbued with meaning through
various symbols, which, aside from the icon depicting
the saint, include the ritual cake, a candle which must
remain lit the entire day and sweet ground wheat
When I was young, patron saint’s days were rarely
observed. In all honesty, this was not due to commu­
nism’s ban on religion, which was a result of Karl
Marx’s view that the Party should break from reli­
gion; the “opiate of the masses”, according to Lenin.
It was, rather, due to the fact that the ticket for a place
in high society was atheism. More precisely: those
who were lucky enough to have grandparents who

256
 were still alive tended to celebrate their patron saint’s
days, while mothers and fathers were less-than-eager
to challenge the socialist system, which seemed like
it might last for thousands of years. Hence, every
Orthodox Belgrader knew which households cele­
brated their feast-day, whether it was the Petro-
nijevid’s with St. Luke, the Ignjacevid’s with St.
Nicholas or the Hadzi-Antonijevids with St. John...
As custom has it, one buys a bouquet of flowers
from a florist’s, puts on a tie and spends the evening
honouring the household and its patron saint
After the collapse of the socialist system, many
Serbs swiftly returned to Orthodoxy - ‫ ־‬so that St.
Nicholas was celebrated by those whose most impor­
tant holiday had hitherto been 29 November. Today
we find ourselves in a strange situation on a major
patron saint’s day; we buy at least five to six bouquets
of flowers, and go to the same number of dinners,
always answering the same question: “Have you tried
the ground wheat?”
A foreigner in our parts should be warned not to
take an already-used teaspoon when trying the sweet
ground wheat and not to eat the whole served portion
but to just take a symbolic mouthful. In addition, the
water in the glass is not intended for drinking - you
place the spoon into it after you’ve taken the wheat
Some have a tendency to overdo the celebration a
bit... In the households o f the newly-baptized
Orthodox, the sweet wheat is decorated with whipped
cream. The only thing missing is blessed chestnut
puree! Belgraders are, actually, the only people in the
world to have combined the incompatible in their pas­
258
try shops: the pagan sweet wheat and decadent
Central-European whipped cream, but this is a theme
for a separate study on ethnology and mentality.
The majority of patron saint’s days fall during one
of the four fasts, when it is forbidden to eat anything
but vegetables, bread and fish. Those whose bad luck
it is to have a patron saint’s day in fall, during the pre-
Christmas fast, can hardly imagine their festive tables
without roast pig, lamb and pore aspic; they eat fish
mostly when vacationing - at the sea. Their love of
roast meat is so great that they now apply for a spe­
cial permit from their priest to excuse them from the
fast, and reportedly the request is granted, so that for
three days St. Nicholas, from his icon, is forced to
watch feast tables straining under mountains of pork
and lamb, not to mention Russian salad.
On the patron saint’s day, when one should be
devoted to the saint being celebrated and to God, the
main topic at the dinner table is politics - which is
discussed with such bitterness that neither a long fast
nor months of prayer in a monastery would be enough
for atonement. Belgraders celebrating the feast-day
are also faced with another great problem: as every­
one has relatives and friends whose political views
range from the extreme left to the extreme right, they
can hardly assemble them in one place without risk­
ing the outbreak of civil war on the day that the
household’s well-being - through the protection of
the patron saint - is celebrated. Families have there­
fore invented a strategy to separate guests, so that the
rightists, for instance, come on the first day, followed
by the leftists the next day, while the third day is
259
reserved for the politically undecided, who are served
leftovers.
This, however, is not the most important change in
feast-day celebrations. Since ancient times, this has
been an intimate family festivity attended only by
family members, the closest relatives, neighbours,
marriage witnesses, godfathers and godmothers. The
feast consists of a festive but not overly lavish meal,
cakes and some drinks - for the sake of custom!
Today, this has radically changed: nobody celebrates
the patron saint with a midday supper. Rather, the cel­
ebration is held almost exclusively in the evening and
continues on until the small hours o f the morning.
Belgrade’s feast-days lost their intimate atmosphere
long ago and have turned into grand parties, where
guests often don’t have a chance to meet the host nor
find their way through the crowd of people to the
table with sweet wheat. At some Belgrade patron
saint feast-day celebrations, guests are now served by
waiters and leave their coats in the cloakroom attend­
ed by hired girls; many families engage complete
orchestras with singers and a growing number of
Belgraders hold the celebration in restaurants and
cafés.
However, dear foreigner, do accept any invitation
you receive to someone’s patron saint celebration;
npwhere else will you better familiarise yourself with
the Serbs and their hidden spirit than when seeing
them between gibanica, as a hot snack, and sour soup
as a pick-me-up at the crack of dawn.
Life along Roads
f you have traveled around Serbia you have proba- -
I bly noticed that our villages, unlike those in
Western Europe, lie mostly along roads.
A road is a television set for the poor!
Before newspapers, telephones, telegraphs, radios
or picture boxes were invented, important news used
to travel by road. Roads used to carry away the most
courageous and the most curious. Dressed up armies
with shining weapons used to march along roads,
replete with soldiers singing and war machines roar­
ing. After some time, they would come back on the
same muddy or frozen road, in tom uniforms, crip­
pled, chilled and defeated, leaning on their guns,
without order, like a bunch o f chicken thieves.
Circuses with elephants and dwarfs used to go
down the road, as well as peddlers, beggars, illusion­
ists, pilgrims, lost or stray foreigners, photographers,
traveling snake-oil salesmen, gendarmes and thieves.
Technical wonders used to arrive by road; first, hack­
ney-carriages with fancy lanterns, the first steam-
engine cars on wooden wheels, the first motorcycles,
buses, lorries and the first hitch-hikers. Wedding and
261
 funeral processions came after good and bad news.
Wires on wooden poles took the place of Tatars on
horses, while buses replaced stage coaches. It all hap­
pened before the eyes of people living in houses
along a road.
Why didn’t they build their homes a bit further
away from the road, in a landscape with trees and a
creek? Why did they erect them just there, by the
noisy and dusty road?
Probably because they wanted to be closer to the
road, to that inexhaustible source of events; close
enough but at a distance, separated by a fence and a
ditch. The front of the house always faces the road.
When they want to see the world and its wonders, vil­
lagers go to the front of their homes where many have
made benches. There they watch some other life tak­
ing place, so different from their own.
People who live by roads are philosophers, just like
people who live by rivers. Both rivers and roads flow
and empty - rivers into some distant sea and roads
into some town at the end of the road!
Who are we, passing in an endless procession of
designed tins, before their wise and tolerant eyes that
have seen so much? We are but a nameless river that
comes, passes, and goes away for ever, without leav­
ing any trace aside from a cloud of dust...

Serbia —Vronsky’s
Last Love
am lying in the high grass of an old and long over­
I grown trench from 1876 near the little village of
Gomji Adrovac, in the hills above Aleksinac.
Intoxicating spring flourishes in all its harmonies of
green - as if I were existing in the description of
nature from some nineteenth century novel...
And here it is, in my hand! Leo Nikolayevich
Tolstoy: Anna Karenin*
264
A little further from me, perhaps only a score of
metres, lay a Russian colonel, the aristocrat Nikolai
Nikolayevich Rayevski - the actual person who
served Tolstoy as the model for the legendary charac­
ter of Vronsky, Anna’s unhappy lover.
I leaf through the pages and find the spot where
Anna’s exciting life ends and Vronsky’s other life
begins.
“I am like a man”, says Vronsky, “good in the
sense that my life is worth nothing to me. And that I
have enough physical energy in me to throw myself
into the fray and to smash my way out or die - that I
know. I’m glad that I have something to give my life
for - not that I don’t need it, but I’m sick of i t It’ll be
good for someone else.”
‫״‬You will be reborn, I prophesy it,” says Sergei
Ivanovich, feeling moved. ‫ ״‬The liberation of your
brothers from the yoke is an aim worthy both of death
and life...”
Vronsky squeezes Sergei Ivanovich’s hand firmly.
“Yes, like an implement I can still be used for
something. But as a man,” he pauses, “I’m a ruin.”
I am lying, then, in the same place where at noon,
on 20 August 1876, Colonel Rayevski observed
Turkish positions through his binoculars. I see a
rolling landscape, similar to those old engravings‫ ׳‬of
battles - there are the Turkish trenches, from whence
flew the cannon-ball whose shrapnel hit Rayevski in
the head. They both fell - him and Vronsky.
They died a score of metres further on, on a slight
elevation, where there now stands a magnificent
265
church, erected in 1903 by M aria Nikolayevna
Rayevska in memory of her lost brother.
One died in Serbia - the other lives on in the nov­
el by the literary giant from Yasnaya Poly anna.
Both Tolstoy and events wrote novels.
But let’s return to the beginning of this story...
In May 1876, there arrived in Belgrade a certain
Mikhail Grigoriyevich, an envoy of the Slav
Commitees, the focus of the Slavophil movement On
15* of May, he received Serbian citizenship and was
quickly made a Serbian general. On 18 June, war was
declared, on the 20th, the first cannon was fired!
Let us look at the Serbia of that era.
Despite persistent requests by the great powers that
it should not go to war with Turkey, Serbia, with
something less than a million and half inhabitants, set
out to attack the Ottoman Empire which then had
over forty million subjects. Serbia didn’t find a single
ally in the Balkans. Nevertheless, it found help
among its Russian brothers: Russian volunteers came
to Serbia, among them professional soldiers, zealots,
heroes, but also adventurers, and desperadoes. All of
these came to the aid of a small, Orthodox nation to
fight for its honour.
And among them was Colonel Rayevski, with his
heart incurably wounded by love.
What did he look like? Let us look in the Tolstoyan
mirror:
“Vronsky was not tall, but he was well built, a dark­
haired man, with a good-hearted, exceptionally tran­
quil and yet decisive countenance. On his complexion
and in his appearance, from his short hair and freshly-
 shaved chin to the broad and brand-new tunic, every­
thing was simple and at the same time elegant...”
I enter the church of the Holy Trinity and listen to
my own footsteps in the cold acoustics amid the fres­
coes. I find the oval portrait of Colonel Rayevski
above the high doors. The colour o f the fresco has
faded a little - it is, evidently, the work of some
unknown artist from the beginning of the century.
The same short hair, the same decisive, somewhat
puzzling face of a mature man who knew how to pay
the price of life.
‫׳‬ITiere is also the written testimony of a person who
actually spoke with Colonel Rayevski! This was Pera
Todorovid, the father of modem Serbian journalism,
who wrote in his “Diary of a Volunteer” in a camp at
Prugovac on the evening of August 14, a Saturday,
that he had seen a man who had come to Serbia to
seek death.
“On the way to Prugovac, Colonel Rayevski
caught up with us from somewhere. He only arrived
10-15 days ago from Russia, and when he reported to
the headquarters at Aleksinac for the first time, I wel­
comed him. But when I gave his visit card to
Chemayev, it seemed to me that the general was not
as thrilled by this arrival as he had been with the
arrival of other Russians. Since then, I have seen
Rayevski only once,”
On the morning of 20 August 1876, Colonel
Rayevski, after washing and smartening up his uni­
form, gave his pocket watch to his batman. It is said
that the latter asked him in amazement why he had
been given something so precious?
268
Rayevski replied that he no longer had need of the
watch. ‫״‬
And then he went off to the trench, where he wait­
ed patiently for Madam Death.
They carried him in a blanket on rifles, to the ele­
vation where he died in a few minutes while gazing
into the vast summer sky streaked with white smoke
from exploding grenades.
At that moment, it seemed as though both Serbs
and Turks were firing salvoes of honour to this unfor­
tunate aristocrat and to his lost love.
At this place, from Colonel Rayevski’s forgotten
officer’s cap, there arose the church of the Holy
Trinity, built of red and white marble.
In front of the church is a small, modest cross, cov­
ered in woodland moss.
On it is engraved:
THE RUSSIAN COLONEL NIKOLAI RAYEV­
SKI DIED AT THIS PLACE ON 20 AUGUST 1876
IN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE TURKS.
I am sitting in the shade of a branchy lime-tree with
peasants from nearby houses. These old men preserve
the last memory o f Rayevski. They have brought
extra strong brandy, and the whole scene around the
cross resembles a commemoration for some long-
dead relative.
We drink to the repose of the soul of the Russian
colonel, who has passed into the history of literature.
As the Orthodox custom requires, we pour a few
drops on the tomb before finishing our glasses.
Those drops in the grass look like the tears of Anna
Karenina.
Last post: Serbia

eturning to Serbia is returning to a quintessence.

R One mostly reaches it through long, intricate and
complex ways.
In order to discover this quintessence you should
have previously traveled around the world and seen
its miracles. You should have seen, heard, smelt, and
tasted many things, yet feel a certain unquenched
hunger and thirst, like an unspoken word on the tip of
your tongue.
And just when you’re feeling blasé and empty, you
wake up in some old house in the heart of Serbia, in
the middle of some town or village, go to your host’s
kitchen and there they serve you a rarity in the world:
cherry preserve, a misted glass of cool water and a
minuscule glass of homemade plum brandy. Thus is
how a day.in Serbia begins... And behold! These
cherries, these small golden suns served with a love
that glistens in the miniature glass bowl, instantly
wash out that bitter taste of failure and futility from
your palate. Like the petite madeleines dipped into tea
in Proust’s Remembrance o f Things Past they bring

270 M w rfuS
 back the long lost, taste of blessed familiarity and
kindness.
Having finished the preserve, you drink a glass of
plum brandy from the nearby monastery. While gen­
tly slipping down your throat, its strong flavour burns
yours insides with a delay. You feel the taste of tradi­
tion and time, gentleness and strength, the hidden
vitality of this Serbian elixir that relaxes and excites
you at the same time, in some invisible way; it is a
mysterious blend of plums and the smell o f earth,
spite and obstinacy, gentle melancholy, optimism and
hope. The taste in the fragile glass is such that it con­
tains all of Serbia, which irresistibly envelopes and
heats you.
After a very long time you have again slept like a
child. How different from the nightmares of thunder­
ing traffic, the sounds of sirens in Sheratons and
Hiltons where bed linen always has the same smell:
impersonal and disinfected - just for you. The sheets
and pillows in the humble room where you spent the
night in Serbia were starchy, rustling and innocent:
they smell of quinces from the top of the dresser,
sweet basil and youth, of something familiar, tucked
and soft.
. .Traveling across Serbia one sees more clearly why
for centuries the most powerful empires fought over
this green part of European soil and still do so now.
The road you drive along perhaps best illustrates the
point. You can be sure that beneath the asphalt are
Roman roads on which marched legions led by centu­
rions, and over those roads the Turks laid their cobbles;
272
time and earth and humus and bones of ancient war­
riors have made the foundation for today’s highway.
You returned thus to the land of your ancestors and
suddenly you notice that you can breathe more easily.
This is your property and a deed on it is hidden in
your blood flow, in each, even the most minuscule
nerve of your skin, in the colour and shine of your
eyes. At long last you feel tranquil. On your own.
Strange is our love for Serbia. There is whim and
there is force in it - there are also bitter quarrels that
end with packing things and vows never to return. In
this love there is hostility and fatal attraction, an
unending comeback that is reminiscent of youth’s
sorrows, full of tenderness and tears.
When we are in Serbia, we grumble about it being
primitive and neglected. There is no this or that. We
send letters to editors of newspapers complaining
how everything is untidy, untrimmed, slovenly and
lazy, leaving everything for tomorrow. Tomorrow -
the most frequent Serbian word.
Then we fly to other, more beautiful and more for­
tunate lands and cities, where we admire castles and
boulevards, treasuries and splendid fountains. We
choose the best restaurants and we praise their per­
sonnel, eating utensils, silence and flowers on the
tables and we order, offhandedly, lettuce and Io and
behold! - Serbia laughs at us from the edge of the
plate: it is not the taste of our lettuce! True, it is more
pleasing to the eye, and it is bigger, cleaner and
greener but we feel as if we’ve being fooled into
chewing plastic. The homesick remember bread
slices spread with pork fat sprinkled with red pepper.
273
 We drink litres and litres of celebrated mineral waters
like “Vichy”, “Perrier‫ ״‬and “San Pelegrino” but we
simply cannot quench our thirst. There was a time
when one glass of water from a well was enough. .
We recall our cafes under lindens, our neighbor­
hood and the old man who used to get drunk and fall
asleep next to the scale for weighing, only to be
showered with small change. What are our old loves
doing now? Are kids still kicking a ball across fields,
are girls roller skating, are gypsies still blowing their
dented trumpets at village fairs, is she-bear Bozana
still dancing and are children still happy about heart-
shaped cookies?
How are our grandmas and grandpas, our aunts,
uncles, best men and godfathers living in Serbia?
Have they enough coffee?
Are mothers superior and nuns still alive in the
monasteries we used to visit, where we touched with '
impunity 13th-century frescoes with our palms, ate
nettle soup during the fast and drank the blessed wine
in the churchyard?
Is the old miller still alive who once presented us
with coarsely ground com flour - how much better
than the taste of instant polenta from‘ the supermar­
ket? His mill, two hundred years old, was located on
a foaming stream near the Ljubostinja Monastery
where we listened to the soothing water beneath the
wheel, eating roast piglet and waiting for the oldest
Serbian vampire, Sava Savanovid, to appear at mid­
night...
We passed along remote roads and paths where
roadside tombstones sprouted from the earth together

275
L
with grass and shrubs. The tombstones, faded by
sands and with barely readable engravings, would
appear suddenly, like petrified ghosts. In the base
relief the unskillfully carved faces of the deceased,
with obligatory moustaches and usually with rifles in
their hands, stared at us with wide-open eyes. They
were the first stone-deeds on their land and, whoever
conquered it, whoever it belonged to for a certain
period of time - a year, a decade or a whole century
- he could possess it only temporarily. This has been
known from time immemorial: a last, surviving
descendent will return and take back his land and his
ancestors’ property.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we travel abroad less
and less. The West receives us, true, but no longer as
guests and only under the condition that we emigrate
for good. As our people say, “The donkey is not invit­
ed to a wedding to dance, but to carry water!” The
West needs our intellect, education, our talents and
our fresh blood. From a business perspective, it doesn’t
pay to educate their own children when they can buy
the best educated people for a pittance. Their children
will continue their trade and will buy new brains on
the market of educated slaves. This is why today it is
easier and simpler to obtain an immigration visa than
a tourist visa. Who are we, indeed, to travel for plea­
sure when the majority of Americans visit Europe in
their later years, after they have retired and saved for
such a visit? And we are already here!
We are found guilty long before our guilt has been
proved. Every visit to a foreign consulate pushes us
deeper and deeper into this imaginary guilt. They

look at us above spectacles, these rigid vice-consuls
and ask for more certificates and documents and
guarantees and proofs that we will not remain in
Canada as woodcutters or in New Zealand as sheep
shearers. Serbia has always been known, even in its
rare periods of prosperity, to force a feeling of guilt
on its children. In this it really has no equal. We are
guilty, above all, because we were bom, because we
cry when it doesn’t suit our parents and because we
don’t let them sleep. We are guilty to our teachers
because we don’t know the multiplication table, we
are guilty to our professors because we don’t know
the date when Carthage fell or where we withdrew
during the enemy offensive. Later! we are guilty to
our wives because we don’t spend enough time at
home and to our lovers because we do. To our chil­
dren we are guilty because we are not successful as
other fathers who provide their children with every­
thing they wish. ‫־‬.
There was a time when we were guilty because we
were not in the League of Communists, and later we
were guilty for this same thing to former communists;
we were guilty because of our clear conscience after
they had changed roles and developed amnesia. We
were guilty to the East because we cheered the West,
and to the West because we remained forever in the
East. We are guilty for all the wars initiated by the
East and the West: we are guilty because we have
managed somehow to survive and because unwilling­
ly we have become the crown witnesses who remind
them of their misdeeds and betrayals. We now hold
the greatest collection of guilt in the history of
278
humanity, and we are guilty even to our brothers in
sufferin'* _ the Jews who, before us, had been privi-
Ie‫־‬ed tobe the most guilty in the world,
j don’t travel outside the boundaries that thrive
more and more rapidly. W hen I lived in the world, I
longed, like others, for Serbia - now I have it in enor­
mous quantities. I sip it slowly through a straw like a
long-forgotten drink - raspberry w ith soda. W ho
wants to see me, he or she knows where to find me.
Last post: Serbia.
And, indeed, what is there for m e in the world?
What is it to me, and what am I to it?
While waiting for a visa, I would have to lurk all
night in front of an embassy, to drink coffee from a
thermos and to bring a folding chair. Even if they
granted me a visa to go to the world, what would I
travel with? For the price o f an air ticket I can drink
one litre of Banat Riesling a day, for half a year. And
where is the money for the gifts I am expected to buy,
as custom commands, to my relatives and friends?
Here, the best gift possible is to bring one kilogram of
coffee (not roasted), one kilogram o f sugar (cubes), a
bottle of homemade brandy, two bars o f soap and
candies for children.
It is too late for me to learn not to enter restaurants
and think about what and whether I will drink some-
tomg at a bistro, tavern or pubs. Why should I live
over there in a different way?
Then, they will ask me what’s going on here, as if
I knew, and they will look at me as if I were a
stranger, with that reproachful, half-pitiful look,
pushing me into guilt.
 Let it be noted that for me the world no longer
exists. Even Serbia has barely managed to please me!
I thought that this was punishment, but it appears to
be the best reward.
It is, indeed, a great privilege today to drink spring
water and not bottled or carbonated water: to listen to
actors and singers live and not on CDs, records and
cassettes: to pick sour cherries from a tree and not eat
them from vacuum jars: to drink freshly drawn milk
rather than from a tetra pack: to wait for an egg to be
hatched, still warm, and not to eat ham-and-eggs in an
aluminum-phosphorescent snack bar where the origin
of the chicken is suspect: to have grilled minced meat
with chopped onion instead of a sticky tasteless ham­
burger: to view masterpieces of Byzantine painting
directly, and not as reproductions: and finally, which
is no less important, to take in the smell of genuine
women with milky skin, who radiate an authentic sen­
suality and eroticism, and not depilated dried skin and
perfumes that differ only in their price.
Should I lay down more reasons for my choosing
to live in Serbia, as opposed to somewhere else, or are
these sufficient?
In the Wonderland
uture researchers who study the mentality of
F Belgraders will one day certainly wish to know‫׳‬
what sorts of nonsense the inhabitants of the one-time
capital used to believe. Not to be forgotten, I herein
leave a legacy of some of the nonsense in which I take
delight, which at the same time serves as irrefutable
proof that I am still alive.
Among the many things my co-citizens naively
believe is that by placing an index finger in the foam
of beer, one may thus prevent it from overflowing
over the edge of the glass. Though café-bars are full
of men sticking their dirty fingers into one’s another
glasses, I haven’t yet seen anyone accomplish much,
other than drenching the tablecloth and with beer and
getting their hands wet.
Belgraders also invented the belief that stains from
red wine can be removed by soaking the stain in
white wine. That’s why Belgrade is a city of drunken
trousers - they mix drinks! Another belief: a greasy
stain on clothes can be removed by sprinkling salt on
the stain, though dry-cleaners are the only ones who
know the real remedy for this type of stain; scissors.
281
 You may ask what connection there is between
passing an exam and water? But when one leaves the
house to take an exam, mother or grandma will
always pour a full glass of water behind the exam tak­
er, down the stairs, and exclaim, ‘T o flow as water!”,
which causes to slip and break a leg or arm, while
some arrive to the university soaked. '
Sty - an inflammation of the eyelid, is caught when
one winks to girls, while those sitting at the comer of
the table will never marry.
If you suddenly get a toothache, older Belgraders
will advise putting some sugar on the burned end of a
cigarette, closing the nostril opposite the painful tooth
and inhaling the sugary smoke until you pass out.
There is also another method: to keep strong brandy
on the painful tooth. This is why many of us have
grown used to alcohol since childhood.
Melons are, according to many, cooled best in
summer when wrapped in a wet towel and left in the
sun: one will get the best tan when sunbathing in the
shade under fluttering treetops and will feel refreshed
in the summer heat by drinking hot tea instead of
water. Unbelievable!
Many Belgraders boast that they have shaved with
the same razor for years, which has been kept sharp
by rubbing the razor against the inside of a wet glass,
while others claim that mineral water doesn’t evapo­
rate if a coffee spoon handle is inserted into the neck
of bottle. Why the spoon and not a stopper or tradi­
tional cork will remain an eternal secret.
Many naively believe that a burning candle on the
table does away with cigarette smoke or that a tom

283
 engine belt can be successfully replaced with a female
nylon stockings, which is a good excuse when a jeal­
ous wife finds a stocking in a man’s car.
Though not fetishists, young Belgraders adore the
Mercedes sign. Whenever the opportunity arises they
pull it of and take it with them as a talisman, leaving
the majority of Mercedes cars in Belgrade without
their proud circular sign at the edge of their hoods;
like pots without a handle.
Though they live in a time‫ ״‬of synthetic dyes,
Belgraders remain stubbornly loyal to the most primi­
tive material for wall painting, popularly called Ҥtri-
cla”, which always leaves white marks on one’s back
and elbows. They claim that the painted by poly-color
or which are wallpapered “cannot breath”, and are
therefore sweaty! This is probably the result of a fear
that the walls may catch cold and become ill. I would-
4n’t be surprised to see promoters of the classical pow­
der “Stricla” take their walls out for a walk in
Kalemegdan so they can get some air.
 Mezze

curious foreigner whom a host invites for a drink

A will have the occasion to notice a difference
between us and other nations - that we, while having
a drink, eat. There is an old adage that a mother did
not scold her son for gambling, but for trying to dig
out of losses, and another adage about a mother who
didn’t scold her son for drinking, but for not having
mezze while drinking.
In a word, what is mezze? In this time o f history
when globalism threatens to erase historical memory,
tradition and identity, it may be useful to throw a bit
of light on that which distinguishes us from other J *
peoples. For practical purposes, Mezze is something but nibbling chips, Indian nuts, pistachios or having a
we eat while we drink. morsel of a small cracker canapé is considered appro­
I am the last man in the world who has anything priate instead.
against whisky, but I have never seen a group of peo­ This nut nibbling is specific to those civilisations
ple have mezze while having a glass o f whisky. In that drink whisky, gin or cocktails; I personally most
fact, whisky is drunk standing by a bar or - at that like “Manhattans” because they come with a sweet
blessed moment when an exhausted Westerner, out of
cherry in the drink.
whom the West sucked everything it could take, To have mezze is a ritual belonging to a complete­
throws off his moccasins upon returning from work ly different civilization, as is indicated by the very
and rushes a sip down his throat to become conscious word, which is of Persian origin, having reache us
of well-being. One cannot have mezze with whisky, via the Turks. With it came several important cultur-
286 287

al phenomena, such as messiness, outhouses and
hemorrhoids, or swollen anal veins, which one gets
from sitting too much. The difference between civili­
sations that drink whisky and ours, (while drinking
plum brandy one has to, at the very least, have a bit
of cheese) is summed up in the difference between
espresso (doppio ristreto) which one knocks back
while standing, and Turkish coffee, which one sips
slowly while sitting and chatting, and which Turks
generally don’t drink because their favourite refresh-
mentis tea. •
Of course, even the Serbs differ greatly when it
comes to having mezze. Serbians eat more than they
have mezze; the least mezze they can accept is liver-
wurst or a half kilogram of cracklings, while Serbs
over the Drina River, due in part to their longer
Oriental tradition, have achieved the finest distinc­
tions in the art of mezze. A famous Sarajevo bey, with
his litre of soft brandy had as mezze only a half of
walnut kernel and some roses which he smelled while
listening to a chirping cricket from his terrace - the
cricket had been caught in Anatolia - while one of his
grooms hummed and played a long-necked tamboura
known as a “saz” down in the courtyard in order to
make the cricket chirp.
Tell me what you have for mezze and I shall tell
you where you come from. Russians, when they drink
vodka, first eat a slice of lemon and then bring a piece
of brown rye bread close to their nose and mouth and
breathe through it, thus having mezze comprising of
smells.
Northerners use Nicholas-zwezze, consisting of a
round slice of lemon with one side sugared and the
other sprinkled with ground coffee. Pickles are com­
mon to all northern drunkards. Our Orthodox brothers
from Greece eat ouzo-mezze where each little piece of
289
bread is just a small mouthful, but the stuffing When Oscar Wilde returned from his journey in
exceeds even the most daring imagination. Some time America to England, he told his friends that on one
ago, on a sandy beach across the port of Volos, from occasion he praised the moon in Virginia to his host
where in ancient times the Argonauts put out to sea in and the host melancholically sighed and said: “Well,
search of the Golden Fleece, I drank fourteen small you should have seen it before the war, Mr. Wilde!”*
ouzo drinks in a shack slapped together from tin, bar­
rels and the remnants of ship boards - 1 wanted to sci­
entifically test whether the inn-owner would make the
same ouzo-mezze once again. He did not. He was
equal to the inimitable Byron. The first ouzo-mezze
consisted of a piece of bread topped with feta cheese
in olive oil, the second was filled with salted sardelle
with tomato, the third was topped with tiny Garides-
shrimp, the fourth with halved olives stuffed with
almond.;. When I tasted all the variants prepared by
this Greek hedonistic genius, I came to the conclusion
that not only was I incapable of describing them, but
could not stand on my legs due to my extreme scien­
tific research.
Generally speaking, it seems that in the country­
side people have better mezze and have it more often
while drinking than people in metropolises. In small
towns and the countryside, time passes slowly and
people have a lot of it to rest and to listen to their
heartbeats. In the evenings in Belgrade’s suburbs,
where people lead a becoming life, residents have
their mezzes, but this is less so in the centre which has
long lost the habits of its fathers and grandfathers.
In peripheral courtyards people sit, sip and have
mezze. Night sneaks in like a thief through the tree-
tops of linden and walnut trees, mezze is served in the
moonlight and everything is as it was before.
Garden Party

hen invited to a garden party, I don my only

W dark suit as if it were some form of punishment
I call the suit “table wine” and when I put it on, moths
fly in all directions. I take a taxi to Dedinje where the
happy people live, who still have something that I’ve
long forgotten - a garden with trees and flowers.
The taxi driver looks at me with some suspicion:
who are you to be going to such an elegant district? If
I belong there, he will hate me, if I don’t belong there,
he will scorn me.
We leave the gray, dirty, stuffy, sweaty city and
enter a climate to which my poor lungs aren’t accus­
tomed. God, how much grass, ozone and chlorophyll!
How much botany! How much cotyledon per head of
inhabitant! I suck deeply on my cigarette to experi­
ence something familiar.
Naturally, everyone goes to a garden party by car
or they are driven by chauffeurs. My battered taxi
with its peeling paint shrinks in shame - it may as
well have been a child’s go-cart - and its driver
quickly flees for the familiar haunts of the city.

292
 When you go to a garden party, you should come
neither too early nor too late. If you are first, you will
find yourself standing in the middle of the lawn alone,
like a scarecrow who doesn’t know what to do with
its hands. This will compel you to grab a glass, mean­
ing there’s no chance of staying sober until the end of
the party. If you are among the last guests, nobody
will notice you’ve arrived, people will be talking
about how good the food was, and the ice will have
melted. .
If, however, you arrive at the proper time (the fash­
ionable half hour after the indicated invitation time)
someone will escort you to a long table lined with
beautiful dishes, smile, and say “Help yourself”. My
well-meaning advice is don’t touch anything, other­
wise you’ll get yourself into a heap of trouble! After
taking your plate, knife, fork and napkin, you find
yourself, walking along the table taking a bit of this
and a bit of that. You can’t resist dishes you don’t see
every day, and you’ll be unable to avoid the beloved
salmon, medium-baked roast beef, cold white turkey
meat, asparagus and artichokes, and... oh look, squid
risotto... is that mushroom dressing? By the end of
the table you realise your plate is filled to the brim,
. and to make matters more difficult, a waiter has hand­
ed you a glass of wine, you see neither table nor chair,
and why should you; people are expected to stand at
garden parties. Wait, there’s more; your lit cigarette,
which you momentarily set on the edge of the table,.
is now threatening to set the batiste tablecloth on fire.
There is no ashtray near you (elegant people don’t
smoke when eating), no bread (elegant people don’t

294
 I asked a stiffly-buttoned diplomat how this was
consume bread) and worst of all, no salt (elegant peo­ possible. He looked at me and said calmly, “I don’t
ple don’t eat salty food). How to extinguish the butt want to feel hot!”
without being seen? The trimmed English grass looks And so the garden party ends, and porters call for
at me with hostility while I muse about being a many­ long black automobiles that slide along and swallow
handed Buddha. distinguished guests in a single “gulp”, while you
And while you’re standing like a living monument depart on foot down a long street with no numbers,
to a provincial - a plate in one hand, a glass in the and there are no taxis along those gardens and villas,
other, a fork, knife and napkin under your arm - and you thir)k to yourself: Boy, they sure know how
someone important approaches,o someone you’ve to live!
been wanting to meet, and they hold their hand
extended! You can’t just put everything down on the
grass. The more attentive, experienced and cunning
have already taken up the convenient positions, the
comers, and staircases...
Then come the “garden party phrases”, known for
their studied amiable irrelevance that binds no one.
“By all means we should meet soon! No, no, I will
call you...”
“Are you here in August? No? Splendid! So see
you in August!”
“Give me your telephone number. You have no
telephone? Fine! I’ll call you, definitely...”
My black jacket turns into a Finnish sauna - an
instrument of torture. Streams of sweat trickle down
my back. Someone asks me if I am well.
“Never better!”
Unlike us Belgraders, •Westerners don’t sweat at
all. It’s as if they come from another planet! Even in
the highest heat, when we’ve taken off our jackets
and pocketed our ties, they have not loosened their
collars by even a millimeter.

296
North and South

For several weeks each year the poverty-stricken

South takes vengeance on the wealthy North for its
age-long humiliation. This is because no matter how
wide the divide between the East and West, the dif­
ference between the North and the South is greater
still. In the North, there’s rain, in the South, it’s sun­
ny. Up there, one finds beer and sausages, down here,
olives and wine. Up there, winter overcoats, down
here shirtsleeves. Up there, pallid blondes, down
here, temperamental brunettes.
In the North, a people of frozen chickens, in the
South, a la gratella siesta. The South doesn’t know
how to work, but the North is unskilled in the art of liv­
ing. The crafty North has created complexes in the
naive South by inventing the myth of Mittel Europa, as
well as giving us Freud, Kafka, Musil, the capuchin,
the reed newspaper holder, marble coffee tables, the
waltzes of Johann Strauss, Schoenberg and the wiener
in a roll.
The perplexed South failed to recall Aristotle,
Plato, Socrates, Zorba the Greek, roast lamb, Hagia
Sophia, sandy beaches and monasteries in valleys...
V.
298
 The Southerner d ives head-first from the tallest
Although no one is asking me, I personally prefer cliff while a doctor rem oves the tips o f a sea urchin’s
goat cheese and red wine, stone and shade, to mushy prickle from the sole o f a Northerner’s foot after he
Central European strudel and 'sufnudle’; I find the walked in shallow water. H aving put to sleep her
least attractive tavern covered with stone slabs more afflicted Northerner, w ho is running a fever, the
appealing than the Saher of Vienna that looks like the Northern woman steals out to the olive grove to make
cake of the same name from within.
love to the Southerner.
Nevertheless, in order to somehow survive, the And so, having sold the benefits o f a fine climate,
poor South goes to the North and toils in the dirtiest history, hospitality, air and water for two months to
and toughest jobs for eleven months. The North sends the North, the South w ill buy heavy winter overcoats
the Southerners down the deepest canals, the foulest for young Southerners and send them along to the
gutters, buries them in the foundations of the North’s
welfare, hangs them in the sky to operate cranes or on North to study.
The North will not say ‘thank you* for getting its
the scaffolds of future palaces, turns them into ser­
vants, into dishwashers ... money back. a■
But once a year the poor garbage man comes home
to his native South, where he at once changes into a
gentleman in whom the women of the North fall in
love with while vacationing. Each year, the North
packs its suitcases and as a matter of habit travels to
the South for a bit of masochism and to be robbed.
His former Southern servants charge Northerners a
hundredfold for each bed, for each grape, for every
centimeter of pebbly beach, for each parasol and for
every parking space. The North puts up with these
insults because Northerners must return with a suntan.
The South sleeps after lunch, while the North had to
invent pills to fall asleep, even at night! Southerners
blithely drink three litres of red wine a day, while
Northerners have to get their stomachs pumped and
take antibiotics after eating half of a salted sardella.
The South sleeps in the sun - the North peels and
bums like a boiled lobster, even in the shade.

300
East - West

In the East, clerks work from seven to three.

In the West, from nine to five.
The clerkly East wakes up at half past five.
The clerkly West at seven.

he drowsy East creeps through a foggy winter

T morning, cursing jobs, the state, life, fate... the
East is half-shaved. This is because men shaved the
previous evening so as to be able to sleep longer in
the morning.
The smoothly-shaven West rides in the metro in
silence.
The East tells political jokes in an overcrowded
bus.
The West reads newspapers in complete silence.
Nobody talks.
The East falls in love with an unknown green-eyed
working girl. Naturally, the East arrives to his work­
ing place at half past seven and angrily says to his
boss: “What? We are not in the West, for God’s
sake!”
The West begins working at nine.
 The East gradually comes to himself. He has had
three coffees and has read in the newspaper what is
happening in the West. At half past eight, the East
discusses last evening’s television news...
The West is already immersed in work. He cannot
discuss what was on 67 channels as nobody watches
the same program.
At half past ten the East, with a two-hour handicap,
goes to his deserved breakfast. He breakfasts head in
tripe, goulashes, pljeskavica, burek, bean soup, lamb
with sweet cabbage, stewed sauerkraut with meat and
similar dishes, as if he’s been digging all morning.
Later, he chews a toothpick and has three beers with
medals from a world exhibition.
The West has a lunch break between twelve and
one o’clock. He eats a sandwich with cold chicken
(white meat) and drinks “7-Up”. Then he returns to
work. In the hall of the company building he drinks
his first instant-coffee from a paper cup.
The East already has the advantage of three beers
and two vinjaks (grape brandy). On the way he hears
about a sale and drops by to see what’s all about and
returns to the office two hours later.
The West agrees to hold a trade union meeting on
Saturday because it is a non-working day. The agen­
da is to decide whether go on strike.
The East is given a frozen flank of beef by the trade
union, which is placed into the freezer. The blood­
stained suit is being dry cleaned.
At three the East goes home, but first he drops by
for one more beer. The West is still working.
The East has a lunch and then the family walks on
tiptoe because the father is tired from work.
The West continues to work.
The East is still napping on the divan, having first
covered his face with a newspaper because of flies.
They wake him up at 19.30 to watch the news. The
East has a thousand objections about the economic
situation.
After watching the news, the East sets heartily to a
light dinner cooked pork knee joint with horse radish
and red wine provided by the father-in-law from the
village.
At six o’clock the West returns home. He has no
energy to read newspapers in the underground. The
West has extracted everything from the West.
The East is fresher in the evening than in the morn­
ing! He plays cards with his friends and opens a third
bottle of red wine.
An exhausted West takes off his shoes and has a
whiskey to recover. He drops into an armchair and
watches flickering television images without under­
standing the issue at all. He wonders if life has any
sense. Where does this all lead to? He eats his dinner
in apathy: a tasteless Atlantic fish and cooked vegeta­
bles. A glass of white wine.
At this moment the East has the advantage with
five bottles of red wine.
The West goes to bed early. Tomorrow is a work­
ing day. The West will live only on the weekend.
From five p.m. Friday to Sunday morning.
 . For the East, every day is a holiday. I wouldn’t live
in the West, he says to his wife, if they give me a mil­
lion a day!
The West takes sleeping pills.
The East carelessly borrows money from West.
The West grants credits to live from the profits of
the East Improving Image
Both East and West sleep like babies and dream in
colour.

ot long ago our government issued a tender for

N international marketing agencies to help change
and improve the image o f Serbia in the world.
“Image, what an ugly word!” Zuko Djumhur used to
say. “What have they made of the beautiful French
word image...” In a fit of contrariness, he would use
the similar Turkish work “amidz” instead of “image”.
The most well-known international agencies put in
proposals for the tender; for one million euros they
were to create a campaign that would change our
image in the world. A million euros is no small
amount! Teams of experts got together, all of them
comprised of young, elegant Anglos with diplomas
from the world’s famous universities and with all of
their teeth in their head. They are efficient, productive
and they all have the same “Samsonsite” luggage
with the same contents inside the luggage and inside
their minds. We kindly ask that you turn off your cell
phones before the meeting. Thank you!
And so, the action begins. An art director with a
shaved head introduces the assembled with the guest
from Belgrade, who represents the agency “Smith

307
 and Smith”, and then presents a well-worn image
about Serbs in the world, which must be transformed
fundamentally. Who are, in fact, Serbs? In that very
brief introduction, which he picked up from a gener­
al history, he explains that Serbs have always been an
obstructive factor, beginning from their hero Milos
Obilic, who killed the Turkish Sultan by deceit, to the
persevering guerillas called hajduks and caravan rob­
bers uskoci, all the way up to Gavrilo Princip, the
assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who started
World War One. He introduced them to more recent
history, like the spontaneous March 27th protests,
when Serbs rejected an alliance with the Axis powers,
to 1948, when Serbia said NO to the giant Russian
bear, all the way through recent events in which they
killed innocent Muslims and Croatians, raped their
women, and eventually provoked 17 Nato countries
into bombing Serbia. In short, what needs to be done
to change this horrible picture?
The next step is the following; the gathered should
relax and throw out ideas, no matter how ridiculous
they might seem at first glance. Something similar to
group therapy.
“We have a legendary marketing expert here from
Belgrade”, the art director said. “Tell us, what kinds
of projects did you work on?”
“Well, mostly beer and banks. You know, “Svetsko,
a nase” (Worldly, but ours) and “Udjes, izadjes i goto-
vo” (You go in, come out and that’s that).
“Well, perhaps we could begin with beer?”
“It’s no use. All the breweries have been bought by
foreigners.”
308
“Well, what about banks?”
“Same deal.”
“I think we should accent Serbian history”, a
blondish man interrupts. “A tour o f medieval monas­
teries, a discovery o f the beauty o f fresco art, the
Renaissance before Italy, and the greatness.of the old .
dynasties.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?” ;
“The monasteries are on Albanian territory who
shoot at people passing nearby. They throw rocks at
buses, light cars on fire and beat up travellers.”
“Alright, it's just a matter of time before things set­
tle down.”
“By the time things settle down, they will have
destroyed all the places of worship.” D
“Serbs are, in essence, a positive people who con­
stantly form states. They created Yugoslavia.”
“It’s no use. It disintegrated.”
“They formed a state union with Montenegro...”
“That fell apart as well.”
“I think”, said a sophisticated, well informed man, .
“that we should emphasise the sea; old towns, Jong
beaches, comfortable hotels.”
“How do we do that when Serbia doesn’t have a
sea?” •
“Really?”, stammers the man. “Since when?”
“As of recently.”
“How?”
“It simply leaked out.”
“There are still rivers.”
“Yes, but they’re polluted.”
309
 “What about cuisine?’’, asks a third man. “The cui­
sine could really improve the image of that people.
Cevapcici, for example!”
“Cevapcici are not a national Serbian dish. They
came from Turkey, like all grilled meat, which came
from the Arab world, while sarma, or dolmas, came
from Persia. In short, Serbs have nothing they can call
their own in gastronomy. In Vojvodina they eat
Central European food; cuspajz, melspajz, rinflajs,
noodles and sufnudle. We can’t present that to the
world,” said Smith and Smith from Belgrade.
“What about good old Serbian ajvarV'
“Too late. The Slovenians have branded it despite
the fact that they have never roasted one jar of ajvar
in their history.”
“Sljivovica?”
“That’s a Croatian brand.”
“Sumadija tea? That is the only tea which is not
drunk at five in the afternoon, but early in the morn­
ing, often accompanied to a live horn band.”
“Well, maybe kajmak. Nobody has that!”
“Kajmakl What’s that?”
“It’s a type of mozarella, but more intense and it’s
spread on bread. Nobody aside from Serbs makes it!”
“Hot peppers?”
“Please, Asian ones are much hotter.”
The million euros, which had been dangling just
above their heads, was receding ever further away, so
far that they couldn’t be any further. It turned out that
Serbia is no ordinary car whose image needs to be
fixed, the way one fixes a muffler for instance.
/ rw *'
310
 “We’ll get nowhere thinking about Serbian brands
because, in fact, there are none,” said the art director.
“We need to improve the image of Serbs as a people,
and not what they produce and export to the world.”
‘Take the Dragacevo horn bands”, someone said.
“The Guca Horn Festival, a legendary spectacle that
shows the Serbs know what fun is!”
“Yes, but the Mexicans have that as well, but they
call them mariachis” •
“What about music?” someone else said. “Serbs
have beautiful old songs that might soften up their
enemies if they could be heard.”
“Yes, but they were mostly taken from the Hung­
arians.”
“You mentioned that Serbs raped during the war?”
“Yes, they have been indicted for that.”
“Maybe that could be used in a positive way, for
certain Western women who might want to get to
know Serbian macho guys, and in light of the growing
gay movement, they might see Serbia as an excep­
tional oasis of masculinity in an effeminate world.
They might come in hordes to be raped in an exotic
location.”
“What about organising a hunt for two well-known
war criminals? An exciting expedition in the Serbian
mountains, on the border of Republika Srpska, with
rented military gear, military camps in the woods,
national culinary specialties around a fire to the
sounds of national gusla music, and who knows, a
possible reward of $5 million?”
“Serbian courage is well known...”
312
‫ ״‬Who cares about courage any more? Only idiots
are courageous. That’s a 19th century category.”
“Their dogs are courageous too”, said yet another.
“I once saw a 20 pound dog attacking the enormous
wheels o f 20-tonne lorry.”
“Excuse me for interrupting, but I’ve heard about a
rare Serbian character trait called inat. Maybe we
could use that somehow?”
uInat is a Turkish word, but it’s a Serbian trait”, said
Smith and Smith, “which is the reason for their bad
image in the world.”
“What about women? I’ve never seen so many
beautiful women as in Belgrade.”
“Yes. Feminine beauty is a profession everywhere
now; there are models, stars and the wives o f the
wealthy. Only in Serbia is beauty free and can be seen
everywhere on the streets.”
“So, what about that?”
“Well, a man doesn’t have to be wealthy to win the
heart o f a Belgrade beauty, and don’t forget you can
have dinner or breakfast at four in the morning at a raft
on the river.”
The million euros hung in the air above the table
and nobody could think of anything better. A million
euros in cash. O f course, nobody in the room smoked.
Perhaps if they smoked, they might come up with
something, but like this, nothing.
“What the hell do these Serbs have that others
don’t?”, the art director snapped, by now losing his
patience. “How can I improve their image?”
313
 “Smoking! Serbia is one of the rare countries in the Momo Kapor
world where you can smoke wherever and however A GUIDE TO THE SERBIAN MENTALITY
much you want. Isn’t that great?”
For the Publisher
“Just don’t do anything to ruin it”, I would have Dijana Derera
said if I were there. I think that the million euros
should be spent on large billboards around the world
which would bear the same message as the sign that a Editor-in-Chief
Aleksandar Šurbatović
well-known Belgrade lunatic used to wear on his
chest: Proof-reader
Alex Todorovic
PLEASE PAY NO ATTENTION TO ME.
Designer
Ružica Stanisavljev

Selector
Košta Rakić

Corrector
Ivica Dolenc
Seventh DERETA’S Edition

ISBN 978-86-7346*951-5

Printed in 1000 copies

Belgrade, 2014.
Published / Printed / ftaccmem
DERETA doo
Vladimira Rolovića 94a, 11030 Belgrade
phone/fax: +381 11 23 99 077; 23 99 078
www.derera.rs
Bookstore DERETA
Knez Mihailova 46, phone: +381 11 30 33 503, 26 27 934
Banovo brdo, Dostojevskog 7, phone: +381 11 30 58 707, 35 56 445
« 5S7‫־‬
//rs;‫*?*־‬

CIP - K.TranonoauHja y ny6roiKami)it

Hapooiia CnCaiiOTCKa Cp6iijc, Beorpan

821.163.41-32
KAPOR, Momo, 1937-2010
AGuidetotheSerbianM cntality/M omoKapor; illustrated by
theauthor; (translatorJohnW hite ... ct al.|. - 7th Dcrcta's cd. -
Belgrade: Dcreta, 2014 (Belgrade: Dercta) - 313str.: ilustr.; 21 cm
Tirai 1.000.
ISBN978-86-7346-951-5
COB1SS.SR-ID208219148