It doesn’t rain that very often in Belgrade, but once it does, be careful when you try to cross the street. See what happens to this poor girl:

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We started jeering our own national anthem back in the nineties, and maybe even earler, I don’t remember exactly when it all began, but it soon turned into a tradition. Every time the first tones of Hej Sloveni would be heard from the speakers at any stadium, it would soon be covered by loud whistling, booing and jeering coming from the home Serbian crowd. You could often tell that the guest team players were looking at each other wondering what’s going on. It is generally believed that the jeering started because the anthem is full of communist mantras and as such, an essence of communism. Of course, this is not true because it was originally written several decades before communism got invented. No, like most other national movements, it all started with a conversaion between two random dudes on a football match:

- Hey, they are playing this Yugoslav anthem again.

– I know, I love it.

– Me too. But isn’t it strange that they play it now when Yugoslavia doesn’t exist anymore?

– Yeah, now that you mention it, it does sound kinda strange.

– I guess they will change it soon. Strange stuff freak me out.

– Yeah, me too. I actually hope they will change it soon.

– Yeah, I can’t stand listening to this freakish communist anthem anymore.

– Change it! Change it!

– Boo! Boo!

But, we stopped jeering to our own some 3 years ago, when the even older anthem became our new anthem. You can’t really jeer to it because “God” is mentioned in it about 12 times and you don’t wanna mess with stuff like that. The old one had “hell” mentioned once – certainly not enough to scare a devoted whistler, not enough to scare even his son.

So we jeer the other nations’ anthems now. We don’t care who we play against, because it’s one thing being friends in politics, throughout history, ancient or modern. No, this is about football and winning in it. All the opponents look the same to our fans – whether it’s the Canadians or the Croatians (ok, Croatians are on the top of the jeering list). And all opponents understand this with quiet disgust and frowning – “It’s ok, they are savage people, we have to accept our national anthem is being jeered at.”

But not the French.

It’s hard to believe, but to the French, the national anthem is even more important than football. You see, to Sarkozy, Carla Bruni is almost as important as the Marseillaise. He would do anything to protect the Marseillaise from being jeered at, that he even threatened to pull the players from the court if he hears a spectator laugh during the French national anthem. Because it has happened before, and it was not nice.

Now we have to wait and see if this serious threat will stop Serbian fans from booing the Marseillaise away on September 9th when the two teams will meet in Belgrade.

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... if we don’t fuck something up in the meantime, of course.

photo by lilit

The decision of the European Commision to allow Serbs to travel as tourists in European/Schengen area without visas seems more and more likely after yesterdays meeting, where, beside Serbian citizens, also Macedonians and Montenegrins are confirmed to be on the good track.

Even Netherlands also said that, as a sign of good will, it will support this decision, but continue to veto the Stabilization and Association Process for Serbia, until Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic are arrested.

These are the things we still have to do in the meantime:

• To install biometric document readers on every border crossing


• To fight corruption among customs officers


• To increase the number of custom officers


• To update the database of our citizens


• To cooperate with neighboring countries in fighting the organized crime


• Main condition: strict control and the obligatory centralization of issuing new passports to Kosovo residents

The consequences of visa removal after 17 years of virtual isolation – well, there are many, mostly positive. Aside from the most obvious ones, such as more free time for embassy employees, I would say that the biggest change should be of psychological nature – just knowing that you could travel if you wanted to, even if you can’t really afford it, is one less thing to stress about.

Among the comments on other news sites, some people expressed hope that this will force the prices of some food and clothes products to drop, as those traveling around in the neighboring countries will be able to buy those for less money than in Serbia.

I do not expect some mass rush for the borders, because not everybody has a passport, and among those who have it, not all can afford to travel.

Low cost airlines could also find a market in Serbia now that the potential passengers don’t have to include waiting for visas in their itinerary planning.

That was just a couple of good things off the top of my mind, are there any other benefits of visa abolition for Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian citizens you can think of?

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Lepa Brena is undisputedly the biggest showbiz star from former Yugoslavia (btw, I heard on twitter that the phrase ‘former Yugoslavia’ is a pleonasm, but I can’t restrain from using it). Biggest star in a Balkan country by default means that the star’s area of expertise is folk music. What’s interesting about Lepa Brena is that she was a pan-Yugoslavian folk star, never sticking to one side or the other, even after the war broke out and after it ended. This old video of hers is a good example of what I’m saying.

Since Serbia was the biggest meca for folk music at the time, it was only logical that she chose to settle in Belgrade, and after the war start her own folk music production empire.

Brena came into public focus only recently when she announced a couple of months ago that she would be doing a ‘world tour’ which also included Sarajevo and Zagreb. That caused a lot of fuss in Bosnia and Croatia, because apparently, Brena is seen over there as a Serb nationalist because of this video where she’s dressed in a military uniform.

Now, we could discuss the quality of the video (and the music, for that matter) but when her overall image and attitude is concerned, of all the folk stars throughout the former Yugoslavia, Brena always struck me as the least nationalistic and the most Yugonostalgic one. But it just goes to show that there’s still a lot of bad blood between the nationalists in all former Yu-republics, and that it takes only a tiny push to create an avalanche of hate, as shown by endless youtube, blogs and forums comment discussions that are impossible to translate because of the richness of SerboCroatian language when it comes to curses.

On the other hand, Brena’s succesfull concert in Sarajevo and the sold-out forthcoming gig in Zagreb show that there are lots of people that don’t care all that much about the nationality, which is always a good thing.

Now that I think about it, there are only a handfull of performers who truly are cosnidered persona-non-grata in other republics, with good reasons: Marko Perkovic Thompson in Serbia, or Svetlana Ceca Raznatovic in Croatia, for example.

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Another day, another Ratko Mladic news histery.

This time it’s the never before seen videos. And when I say never before seen, I mean that our secret services have been keeping them secret from us, until somehow they got leaked to a Bosnian TV. For some of the videos it’s possible to determine the exact date when they were recorded, for some it’s not. The best guess is that they are not new, but that’s still just a guess, which means it’s not possible to prove that this mountain video, for example, is not made last year, like the Bosnian TV station host claims.

It’s exactly this non-transparent behaviour of Serbian high officials, governments and other shady individuals and institutions that makes this sort of claims possible. I personally wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that one of the videos is from last year, but on the other hand, I find it equally easy to believe that Mladic is not in Serbia, or among the living. Simply put, the politicians are keeping us all in the dark, and there’s nothing else to do but make wild assupmtions, so I can’t blame Bosnian Federation TV for doing the same thing.

You can watch the latest private Mladic video delivered by secret services exclusively to Radio-Television Serbia on this address.

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First of all, let’s get something out of the way: the term ‘celebrity’ is difficult to define in real life, and on twitter it becomes even harder. So it basically comes down to what I personally thinks falls under a ‘celebrity’ and you are free to disagree. Further more, since Serbia is relatively a small country, everybody knows everybody, so the celebrity cult is virtually non-existent here – everyone is a celebrity to someone.

Why twitter? Because unlike facebook and other social networks, this one’s actually fun.
On twitter, ‘the celebrity cult’ becomes even more meaningless. Feel free to stalk some or all of them, in no particular order:

Aleksandar Macasev is graphic designer and visual artist. See his guided tour of Belgrade over here and find out more about him. Example tweet: “Hands up who thinks Bill O’Reilly should get gang banged and pregnant.”

Jasmina Tesanovic is a feminist, filmmaker and activist. See her articles at boingboing, her wiki and her videos. Example tweet: there is too much beauty in this world and not enough love

Ceda Jovanovic, first Serbian Politician on twitter and leader of Liberal-Democratic party. Does not update his twitter personally.

Bogoljub Karic – Serbian businessman and politician in exile, probably hiding somewhere in Russia. Also does not update his profile personally.

Maja Uzelac – former TV show author and host, now a DJ and a partygoer. Example tweet: The storm has cleared the atmosphere. It’s going to be a gentle day.

Marko Nastic – one of our most famous DJs, listen to one of his sets on youtube. Example tweet: hahaha….. had dinner next to adriana lima!

MC Stojan – internet celebrity, famous after uploading one of the most awkward rap songs ever, followed by an equally awkward video. Example tweet: some girls scream too much…

Jelena Jankovic – tennis player, former world no1, hopefully she will be on the top again soon. We wrote about her and other Serbian tennis stars here earlier. Example tweet: what kinds of a racket do you guys use?

Looney – R’n’b and hip hop artist, but also animation and video producer. See one of his videos here. Example tweet: i had fun last night with the girl from the neighborhood. but i didn’t had to be waken before 12.

Milutin Petrovic – cult movie director. Example tweet: Fork In The Road – says neil young

Stasa Koprivica – theater director. screenwriter, so far most famous for her role in “Sheytan’s warrior” – see a clip from the movie here. Example tweet: When I manage to do 10 minutes of jumping rope straight, then… then I’ll be content.

Marko Kon – our this year’s candidate for Eurovision. Unfortunately he didn’t make it to the finals, here’s the act. Example tweet: practice, practice, practice, and I’m gonna kill them all! the choreographer, the stylist, the director, the delegation chief, the deputees, the editors, everyone, aaaaaaa

Miranda Vidak – model, but also a blogger. Example tweet: lily, you’re out of control. insomnia much? you’re the only one worse than me

Relja [VIP] – Hip hop artist and producer, see one of his videos here, feat Oneya [also on twitter]. Example tweet: I think we’re the only nation in the world that asks from God to save us from doom

Dimitrije Vojnov – former child actor, today a fierce and feared movie critic. Example tweet: Who would win in a fight – Sam Worthington vs Zac Efron?

Zoja Borovcanin – singer, Lira Vega band, see video here. Example tweet: Going to play. Sarajevo and Mostar. Tonight and tomorrow. Feeling funny.

Damir Dokic, father of tennis player Jelena Dokic. I hope it’s not really his account. Example tweet: every tweet.

Galeb - Host of the local edition of MTV – MTV Adria. Example tweet: Slipknot tonight. Gotta do some pushups at home.

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There are more things than folk music on this guy’s repertoire:

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