Serbia’s time capsule from the nineties part one: Air max Serbia

Every country has had its symbols of an era. And i’m not talking about the presidents that ruled at one time or another, nor the events that made history. It’s the little things that stick in your mind and come back to you when you think of some decade for example. Some show on the TV, some album, some comedian, fashion on the time, stuff like that. Once again Serbia is no different from other nations when it comes to this.

Unfortunately, most of the things that shaped Serbia’s history during the nineties were the kind of stuff that you’d normaly want to forget, what with all the wars, sanctions, isolation and despair. But it’s tough to forget those things. That’s why when we remember them we try to make it less stressfull and horrible than they actually were. We tend to downsize them and remember them in a humoristic way, probably so as to make the experience less traumatic, like the people did during and after the bombing (without the doubt the most stressfull and traumatic situation to hit Serbia in the nineties).

Examples and stories you are about to read are more less the favourite subject when somebody from these areas starts a conversation with a foreigner, becouse the foreigners usualy dont believe all the stuff and that fact is the thing that amuses the locals in some strange way. So let me also try to amuse you, although i warn you that most of the things here are best understood only by locals and those that have somewhat thorough knowledge of the recent Balkan history. To others who may find it hard to believe and understand some things, i will try to explain them as good as i can.

It’s important to understand that money (or lack of it, to be more precise) and bad economic situation stood behind all these things. Drastic change in people’s point of view on things, what’s good, and what’ bad, what’s trendy and what’s not was also the result in drastic change in economic situation – sanctions and isolation came suddenly in the midst of a country that was functioning more-less normaly in the eighties and before that.
One form of a false communism was replaced by another, even worse and much more dangerous – nationalistic communism.

As the Serbian currency, Dinar, began loosing its power, the Deutch mark was accepted unnoficially as the currency. Hence maybe the biggest symbol of them all – 100 Deutch marks, or in Serbian – “sto maraka”. Nice, round figure that represented a lot of things – monthly salary, yearly salary, daily salary. A symbol of consumers’ power – but in a country with empty shelves in the supermarkets, all the necesarry things could be bought on the street only. Cigarets, usually smuggled into the country and then sold from improvised stands – cardboard boxes in front of the supermarkets and busy places.

Gasoline was also an item missing from the gasoline stations, and therefore could be bought on the streets too. The photo is from Cambodia, but it looks a lot like the street stands we had some 10 years ago. (from tblog.bootsnall.com)

Popular monthypython-like TV shows of the time included jokes about trading a liter of blood for liter of gas and calling it “a good deal”.

Cues in front of the gas stations could be several kilometers long. But ubder the sanctions there were also cues in front of the grocery stores with people lining up already from 5 in the morning to try and get fresh bread, some frying oil and sugar. Citizens of Serbia who appeared to be most persistant and skillfull in this tough sport were the senior citizens, pensionist – for them it was almost as a social activity to wake up at 4AM, get ready and meet the neighbours for a friendly chat in the cue for bread that may or may not arrive. Mind you, these friendly chats could turn out to battles with deadly outcome if a newcomer was to break the rules and try to skip the line. One other interesting thing was that a lot of the early birds knew the schedule of delivery trucks as they made their route delivering groceries to the stores. Already at 7 AM most of the stores were already empty – those who managed to get what they needed were the lucky ones.

But most remarcable symbols of the era come from popular culture of the time. Since the internet was still an unfamiliar noun in the world at that time, and cable and satelite TV still not so implemented in Serbia, the influences from the western and other countries were practicaly minimized at the time – Serbia was left to create and manage the system of values herself, with tiny bits of fashion and trend somehow managing to come into the country, mostly in the form of global corporations such as Nike and Reebok, who became status symbols for kids whose parents often had hard times earning enough money to buy them.

One of such symbols was the Nike air max models, which, combined with nice tracksuit pants and tucked in pull-over made a nice male outfit suitable for all occasions: proms, hanging out in the park, taking your girlfriend out on a fancy dinner, washing your car, robbing a bank, etc, etc. Now please don’t think that all this was cheap stuff, no: combined with a heavy golden chain and all those hours in the gym homo sapiens of the period really had to work hard o earn all this items. In a way, those were the perfect examples of Serbian metrosexuals of the nineties.

Salary reached the ultimate low when it hit the “6 deutch mark” mark (approx 3 EUR today). One’s salary would be worth a pair of good shoes at the beggining of the day, box of ciggarettes in the afternoon and pack of gums in the evening, all this thanks to the galloping inflation, for which we hold the guinnes world record even today.

To be continued after the EXIT festival
Coming up: “Serbia’s time capsule from the nineties: TV fortune tellers and state supported bank robbery”

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Tagged as: conservative, festival, History, nineties, serbia