Adrian Cachinero Vasiljević

Dossier: Rendezvous with the White City

Belgrade is a city on a privileged hilltop, cutting into the vast Pannonian Plains ahead as the mighty rivers Sava and the Danube lap its ancient shores.

It has changed hands many times in the past, as a result of its advantageous tactical situation and its strategic location at the intersection between the West and the East.

I had a chance to revisit this city which, despite not being the city of my birth nor the city I grew up in, I still nevertheless felt attached to from a family origin which felt close to me. I dove into the bubbling culture of Serbia interpreted through its window to the world, Belgrade.

This is a country which has suffered greatly in the past and has time and time again got up to keep on moving. Belgrade is a city with visible scars from the past, the latest of which are from the shameful 1999 NATO bombing. The ruins of some government buildings are still standing, grotesque monuments to stubborn national defiance. The signature Kalemegdan fortress, a park on the point of confluence of the river Sava into the mighty Danube, is a layer cake of all the different cultures which have claimed the White City as their own. From remnants of Roman fortresses to Ottoman towers, every major civilisation in the region has left an imprint here.

The Serbian people have taken the past in their stride and swiftly incorporate tragedies into national folklore and black humour. The character is riddled with paradoxes and contradictions.

A taxi driver drove at furious speeds through anarchic traffic at night, berating people who didn’t want to comply with new regulations that made wearing seatbelts obligatory. His own was, of course, unfastened.

One of the hallmarks of Serbian culture is a concept first described by occupying Turks: inat, which as a concept roughly translates as hard-headedness but experiencing it will quickly show the inadequacy of the English language to put into words such legendary stubborness. Belgrade is definitely a European city, but Western European civilised boredom has yet to be hammered into the people, as I learned when a friend of mine bribed a police patrol with a brand new pair of shoes in his trunk to dodge a hefty speeding fine.

The Cathedral to Saint Sava is a monumental construction, the biggest Orthodox temple in the Balkans, whose blinding white walls reach for the sky among a sea of grey concrete. While still under construction (which started in 1932 but was interrupted for various reasons since then), the shell of the building is strongly reminiscent of the Byzantine heritage which lives on in the Serbian Orthodox Church. One massive dome, representing the heavens, sits ominously over an interior of immense space. The Church has seen somewhat of a resurgence since the fall of the communist regime and is closely linked with a strong national sentiment. The average Serbian makes the most of every religious festival to eat and drink as much as possible.

The Communist past resurfaces every once in a while with a trundling Yugo car rumbling past, which although less common in Belgrade, remains a widely used method of transport in rural areas. Street vendors display planks of wood studded with old Communist medals and honours and a chic establishment close to the river Sava sells a retro-kitsch assortment of Tito inspired memorabilia.

Distinctly Slavic is the fixation on chess. Taxi drivers will send you away rather than interrupt a tense endgame. However, the food is a cultural element which displays the past in all its glory. From gelatine meat one could find in Russia to a Serbian salad more at home in Greece, to goulasch from the Hungarian neighbours and burek and grilled meat from the Ottoman Empire, Serbian food is a strong and varied experience worth going to some trouble for. The passion for grilled meat and the economic status of the country keep meat prices low and a Mediterranean outlook on life means that one can find food stalls in the wee hours of the morning (for a pittance by European standards), grilling army sized quantities of succulent meat for hungry clubbers. Serbians pride themselves on their food.

But even more alive than their passion for food is their passion for basketball. Yugoslavia’s legendary basketball team has historically been one of the strongest teams on the planet, if not the strongest, taking home three world titles and five European titles. A routine Euroleague game pitting Partizan against Barcelona’s strong lineup had the most furious stadium I have ever experienced. The seating arrangements were non-existant - people crowded into corridors and hung off the stands to cheer and jeer in a unified cacophony of cigarette smoke and fire and brimstone slogans.

The stadium was small and outdated, the ‘Pioneer’ Arena, a throwback to a Socialist past, but every last centimetre of it was used.

A small ditty was graffittied on the crumbling wall outside:

Tako je

Kakvo je

Ali bar ga imamo

“It is how it is, but at least we have it.”