Belgrade is a truly filthy city.
This post is probably useless with out pics.
most people drive cars that wouldn't be allowed on the road in the civilized world. Smoke from cars blackens the facades of buildings. Belgrade means "white city". Nothing could be farther from the truth. Dark-grey city would be more accurate. Belgrade has a population of about 2 million. The air pollution is that of a city 10X its size.
Graffiti is everywhere, most of it some kind of fascistic stamp (speaking to an entirely different variety of filth).
The main tourist information centre had "death to fags" written in front of it for about 8 months. In Serbia "death to fags" written on a wall isn't particularly controversial. After a 500-strong gay-pride parade walking around one block, thousands of thugs rampaged the city chanting "kill, kill, kill the fags" click here. I digress.
There might be more to be said on this.
stay tuned.
Are you gay?
ReplyDeleteDoes the answer to that question impact the truth-value of anything I say?
ReplyDeleteAre you a primitive Serb or a primitive non-Serb?
It seems you are preoccupied with lack of openness towards gays in Serbia - it's where your anger seems to mostly stem. You don't mention any kind of wife/girlfriend ever or family/kids, and it seems like you are an older curmudgeon-type man. Only if you had some gay boys at your side you could feel better, is the impression you make, but you are aggravated by the anti-gay attitudes and scared of possible physical violence if you were to stroll around the streets of Belgrade and kiss your loverboys.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my blog, random knuckle-dragger!
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't happen to be personally homosexual I find disturbing both the level of violence inherent in 5000 thugs rampaging and smashing their own city screaming "kill the fags" like some sort of sub-animals, and also the laissez-faire attitude by people such as yourself, which is the soil in which the seeds of this violence are planted.
Not much to do about it other than sit-back and cluck. There's clearly something inherently violent and primitive about Serbs. What can you do about it? not much other than point a shaming finger.
You support faggotry? Then you support the death of fags.
Deletewat?
DeleteWhere are you latest updates? you no longer hate Serbia? I can tell from experience that my visit to Belgrade was a real culture-shock. It wasn't even that bad in Bulgaria or Macedonia. What I wanted to add is that, to my assumption, Serbia is so tremendously bad, that Montenegro wanted to split off as it had the last part of former Yugoslavia and Serbia's coastline. Great places like Budva and Kotor are no longer in Serbia's territory. Oh btw I will spare everyone my experience in Belgrade, but it sacred me so much that I wanted to leave right away and I didn't mind a 5 hour wait at the train station to catch my train to Budapest. I avoid horrible places such as Naples like the plague, but for Belgrade I simply didn't know any better. Thanks to all those overly happy stories about night life there. Glad your blog is here.
ReplyDeleteSo, are you going for nature versus nurture? As you describe whole society as a one person - like all Serbs are this, that and so on... one would than reasonably conclude that as you are a Serb yourself, as you said 100%, - it must be down in your genes as well :). Hmmm, or how about your parents - are they born and raised in Serbia (equals they are these primitive animals :), so they inflicted on you similar primitivism)?. Anyhow, thanks for posting - loved reading this.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely nurture. I'm awesome :)
DeleteYour post is factually WRONG!
ReplyDeleteThere are 1.6 million people in the Belgrade metropolitan area, and only 1.2 in Belgrade itself. You've succumbed to the "Serb propaganda" stating that Belgrade has 2 million people. See how easy it is to believe this stuff if you don't know better (which most people don't)? Point the shaming finger to yourself!
Posts are OK. A little less hate, and a little more benevolent notes on the fucked up stuff would make the blog better, and more effective. There's some good stuff there. Also, admit that it's not all bad and you'll get more people who'll support you pointing to the shitty stuff.
ha! That's great!
DeleteThanks for the information :)
Here I am another foreigner who's gone native and spends his time perpetuating Serbian myths!
Step aside ambasador-serbia.com, there's a new sheriff in town.
Yup it really sad that belgrade is so grey, otherwise it would be nice if they painted all the buildings, etc.
ReplyDeleteI think if they power-washed the city, it would cause a major environmental incident in Romania and the Black Sea
Deletefunny how you expect a city to look pristine after a war. are you fucking retarded? seriously. literally. i've read your blog, and although some of your points are valid, you rants make you sound down syndrome-ish. If you want to see a filthy city, please come to NYC, aka new york shitty. I grew up here, and it's made of piss and rat shit. belgrade is by far 100 times less filthy than many other cities. i was quite impressed how the streets were not littered with garbage during my visit, then again, they dont have a melting pot of different races that fuck things up.
ReplyDeleteHa ha, idiot... The fact that Belgrade is filthy has nothing to do with a war, which was 10+ years ago anyway. But nice try! It has everything to do with a miserable state of culture of its citizens, their littering, spitting, throwing cigarette butts everywhere, not cleaning after their dogs, vandalizing buildings with graffiti, throwing garbage out of their windows, etc etc. It doesn't cost much to be clean and polite now, does it?
Deleteha ha.. as if Serbs need "different races" to fuck anything up. They do that just fine on their own.
DeleteFor a city of 1.5 Million, it's sure fucking filthy. Garbage everywhere. The Sava river is one big garbage dump.
So does this filth extend to the Danube River? It would seem out of pure geography that the further downstream the Danube flows, the dirtier it becomes.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade is more a city beside the Danube than on it.
DeleteI must admit that things have changed dramatically since i wrote this. They have done a lot to clean up the Sava. It used to be a floating garbage pile and now it's just normal.
How safe is Belgrade for tourists? I know there is a bicycle trail along the Danube River, would it be safe to pedal through Serbia along side the Danube?
ReplyDeleteBelgrade is very safe for tourists and also a fun place to visit for a bit.
DeleteI don't think the bike train exists in Serbia. A few years ago they put the signs up directing people to the trail, but no trail