Mosquito bites - and two rivers

My God how the mosquitos loves me! It’s a very intense love/hate relationship. They love me – and I hate them! Every morning new bites are itching on my shoulder, arms and fingers - or anywhere they can suck my blood. Greedy bastards!

Maybe this is one of the prices to pay when you are living between two big rivers? You might know that Danube is running through the Serbian capital, well - alongside at least, but there’s also the river dividing the old town from the new town; Sava. Somehow Sava can be regarded as the border between the mountainous and wild Balkans and the slow and quiet Pannonian plain stretching through Vojvodina, Slavonia and Hungary.

The river was historically a part of the Vojna Krajina or the Military Frontier, between The Habsburg - and the Ottoman Empire. The origin of the river is to be found where Sava Dolinka and Sava Bohinjka flows together between the Slovenian towns Radovljica and Lesce. From this point it runs through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia for about 950 km before it runs in confluence with Danube.

I remember being 6 years old when I got thrilled about a book in the local library in my hometown of Trondheim. This book was titled “Donau”, which is both the Norwegian and German name for Danube – in Serbian it is Dunav. It featured many pictures from the places this beautiful river was running through. Some of them taken during night showing the bright lights of several great historical cities like Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade. 

When Dunav passes through Belgrade it caresses the Serbian capitals Eastern outskirts. After this fling she continues eastwards defining the border between Romania and Bulgaria, turns North just avoiding Bucharest and runs out in The Black Sea - but not before making a short visit in Moldova and Ukraine. Running 2850 km Danube is the second longest river in Europe, just after Volga. 

The pictures of this river really fascinated a little boy in Northern Europe. Now he’s living in one of the great cities along its route. And who knows: maybe this exciting waterway one day might lead back to my Great Grandfathers childhood city of Lahr - to be found in German Schwarzwald, just a few kilometers from Donaueschingen where Danube origins. The ways of life are mysterious and all in all; maybe it in the end is worth all the mosquito bites?

Demonstration against French deportation of Roma

14:00 today in Pionir Park: approximately 100 demonstrators are gathiering in this announced rally against deportation of Romas, or Gypsies, from France. They are joined behind banners like “Stop the deportations”, “Europe for all” and the two contradictory banners “Antifascism is no solution” and “Antifascism=Solidarity”. Leaders and spokepersons are giving interviews while the demonstrators are waiting to get ahead. There is 3 flags in the parade: The International Peace Flag, The International Flag of the Roma People and The Serbian Flag. The treatment of the last worried me a bit. It looked very worn out, and the reason might be that it has been dragged along the ground. It was even stepped on – not by purpose, but still quite respectless.

The route stretched from Pionir Park, Skupstina where an appeal was held, Terazije, Knez Mihailova and turned the last corner on the left down to the French embassy. It all passed peaceful, at least the part I witnessed. They later continued to The European Delegation in Novi Beograd.

I was afraid some hooligans might have attacked the demonstrators. There isn’t many who are in particular fond of the Roma, here as many other places, but a strong police-guard might have prevented possible attacks. It was organized with 3 policemen in full combat were patrolling in front, with 10-15 officers on the sides of the demonstrators and an equally number of fully equipped policemen at the rear. 3 tall young men were approaching the demonstrators, but didn’t escape the hawkeyed cordon-leader. They were probably just curious what the fuzz was about, but they were eyed by the police and I guess they knew instantly that they were under auspices.

This protection of the demonstrators might be an expression of a political will to protect civil rights, or just a way to employ police-officers. It depends on your take.

In front of the French embassy they shouted slogans and tried to convince the French with their own moral of “Liberté. Egalité. Fraternité” and others like “Stop deportation” and “Say no to racism”. The demonstration was in support and tangent with the manifestations in France today, where more than 10 000 Romas has been expelled the last year. But – is this against laws and agreements within the EU? Quote BBC:

“Under EU rules, the state can expel people who have been in the country for at least three months without a job or are a social burden. They can also be expelled within three months of their arrival if they are deemed to be a threat to public security.”

So despite the terrible conditions many Romas are living under; this manifestation might be in vain. More about this later.,..

Arkan - a hero?

Yesterday evening I went to my favourite bar in Belgrade;  Salvador Dali. It’s a cool place with many regulars. The barlist includes together with cocktails reasonably priced rakija (brandy) like Sljivovica (plum), Kaisija (peach), Dunja (quince) and several others from different fruits. I am always welcomed as one of the local guys – maybe I am about to become one? After ordering my Sljivovica I came to mention I had visited the grave of Arkan. I felt immediately that this was a touchy topic.

With skeptical lowered eyebrows I was told that he was no hero. The things he did in Bosnia, Kroatia and Kosovo disqualified him from such a status. They stressed that if I wanted to find real heroes I had to look further back to the Second World War. The ones of you who have read the last post about Ceca already know that he was running dodgy business in Belgrade.

Zeljko Raznatovic ran away already at the age of nine taking part in petty crimes. His international career started at the age of 20, when he immigrated to Western Europe and started his career as a bankrobber. He operated in countries as Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden. Despite being a hardhead he should also have been a charming man. His love-affairs in Sweden may have witnessed about this.

In autumn 1990 he formed the Srpska dobrovoljacka garda (Serb Volunteer Guard), later known as Arkan’s Tigers. For a while they kept a tiger-cub as their mascot. This militia was mostly recruited from The Red Stars hard-line supporters of Delije Sever and may have counted as much as 10 000 members. They were first deployed in Krajina in Croatia and later in Slavonia and the siege of Vukovar. His men were also involved at places like Bijeljina, Zvornik and Brcko. And later they also should have been engaged in Kosovo.

I’ve met many Serbs which consider Arkan a great hero. After he was shot in January 2000 it’s said that nobody has seen the dead body and the myth tells a tale about him living in Moscow, fraternizing the widow of Slobodan Milosevic. That is, if the latter really are dead.  Urban myth is running hot in this part of the World…

When the former bank robber and paramilitary leader were buried, approximately 20 000 people followed him to the grave.  And from the pictures you can see for yourself how he wants, and are permitted, to be remembered. The grave is placed on the outskirt of Novo Groblje, the main cemetery in Belgrade. The reason might have been that the government wanted to avoid a cult in conneciton to his grave. The praise of Arkan can be seen as similar to the one for Milosevic; praise for a man who fought for the Serbs when they felt forced in a corner. Outer enemies unite at home.

The two guys I conversated Yesterday had a different approach. They did disapprove of the looting and murder which took place in the path of The Tigers. It’s well known that the payment for the paramilitary units was what they could carry with them from the areas they raided. Many went ravaging during the weekend. They got out of Belgrade and headed drunk to Bosnia and didn’t behave as gentlemen’s at all. I was asked if I would excuse anyone other places for behaving like this. And off course this is no proper conduct, even in war.

One of the guys recalled growing up in downtown Belgrade. When they saw the Tigers shield painted on a wall they knew who was running the business. One of his friends kept the hood of a car in his living room, tightened to the wall. It used to be attached to a wrecked car owned by none less than Arkan. Kept like a relic.

Soon after this the other guy left the place with a disgruntled look on his face. We agreed to talk about girls next time.

The Magic of Ceca

Friday 20th of August in Cacak, 135km South of Belgrade: the Madonna of the Balkans - Ceca - is performing at an open field just outside the Serbian Motor-town. And I was there!


Born as Svetlana Veličković in 1973 she had a troublesome career, but after marrying one of the most notorious leaders of Belgrades underworld - Arkan - her career rocketed. This icon of Serbian pop-music is just minutes from going on stage. Me and my friend Rune are eagerly waiting for her performance. We ran away from the cacaphonia of trumpet-bands in Guca to catch this happening in Cacak. Despite that many of my Serbian friends thinks Ceca is a trashy and tasteless artist who slept her way to the top, I can't help from really looking forward to see her live.

At the end of the warm-up set the diva is entering the stage joining the washed-out opening artist in the last part of his last song. This passé guy, who looks like he just stayed behind in the Nineties, leaves the stage for the Queen of Turbo - and for the rest of the concert she owns the crowd! And we are there! I got shivers down my spine.

She performs "Beograd" (the video featured in ths blogg), "Pile" (which I for while had as wake up-signal on my cell), "Manta manta" and "Lepi grome moj" (both songs very popular when I stayed for months in Serbia in 2006). In this moment she is the centre of the Universe! Singing with a great voice, looking like a million - it seems like she is entertaining for friends. Even Rune, which never heard her music before feel moved.

This artist has survived the tragical Nineties - Devetdesete - when she gained popularity singing at rallies held by the nationalist regime of Milosevic which brought misery over all former Yugoslavia. Her music was a blend of up-beat disco and folk music. This mix is known as Turbo-folk. A style as much hated as loved. The lyrics is mostly about money and fast cars; two of the symbols of the wasted decade of the Devetdesete. When she got married to Željko Ražnatović - Arkan - in 1995, the marriage was broadcasted on national television. The sexy girl marrying a rich and powerful man gave fuel to the tide of the time; gangsters with a lot of money "sponsoring" beautiful woman. There's even a surviving term from this style of "teaming up"; Sponsorusa.

But - all this aside - on the open field in Cacak Ceca was the Queen. She captured two Norwegians on tour and we had the time of our life!

Excuse me for blogging!

I hope You will forgive me for sharing from my exile in Belgrade the capital of Serbia, former capital of the lost Yugoslavia. This blogg will contain updates on various escapades, political issues and small everyday happenings.

It will probably come in handy to know that the supermarket Maxi in Ceka Ljubina is totally hopeless! I've never been there without some sort of problem or complaints from the staff. Do you think I'm exaggerating? No - I'm not! Either I buy too much (!), have bills they can't don't want to change or they change the price of the thing in the cashier. This last thing happened for the second time today; always with cheese... Which is quite expensive here in Serbia. Odd!

After dining and wining in Guca, Herceg Novi, Sarajevo and Belgrade with Rune (Johansen) it was finally time for some home-cooking. I've found this great fresh-meat shop in Vase Carapidja; Big Bull. Yesterday I got some chicken-filets which my stomach refused to shelter, but today I made a new attempt at some beef. Small sides of what I guess is cured beef (vrat) - needs just some frying and together with fried potatoes and tomatoes it makes a delish! meal. To be enjoyed with a glass of Plantaze Vranac red wine.

After a few chilly days it looks like the weather is getting back to normal. But for keeping your interest I think we'll continue this blogg later. Still not night - but let's just say laku noc in any case!
(Laku noc = Good night!)