From the category archives:

Society

The Last Tree

March 5, 2010
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New city authorities decided, after one study by the Belgrade’s Forestry Faculty to cut down almost 329 (three hundred and twenty nine) plane trees and in their place plant young new trees. See what remained after the trees were cut down.

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Serbia in NATO – Yes or No?

January 14, 2010
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News making rounds in Serbian blogosphere these days: group of 200 intellectuals wrote a letter to the government where they ask for a referendum on whether or not Serbia should join NATO. They believe Serbia should maintain to be “militarily neutral [Serbia], true to herself and her own traditions”. There are couple of interesting elements [...]

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iPod the law and the law won

December 14, 2009
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The new Road safety and traffic law is already proving to be a positive thing. Here are some of the life-saving changes:

No cell phones while driving, unless it’s hands-free.
Lights must be on always, even during the day when it’s bright.
Bicyclists and motorist must always wear a helmet.
And so on, there are too many changes to [...]

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Serbian Patriarch Pavle dies

November 17, 2009

Serbian Patriarch Pavle died yesterday, aged 95. What this means for Serbian Orthodox Church is that a new leader must be chosen in next three months, according to the Church’s law. For Serbian state, the first visible sign of Patriarch’s death is proclamation of three day mourning period, during which the Republic Broadcasting Agency decided [...]

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And so the wall fell… or has it?

November 9, 2009

The Berlin wall fell 20 years ago, and another one, our own private Balkan wall, is about to fall down – at least partially. On November 11th, the European Parliament will confirm the decision to cancel visa requirements for citizens of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. The visa-free travel should start from 19th of December 2009.
This [...]

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The Emo Has Landed

October 16, 2009

After the police managed to prevent a young girl from committing suicide [news in Serbian only] and after they announced afterward that she was an “emo”, here’s what the media managed to find out about this subculture (backed by police findings):
It’s an organization communicating mainly over the internet.
It’s a sect.
It’s a secret society.

Most of [...]

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Belgrade Gay Pride Parade – Not Yet

September 20, 2009

Before I begin, just a quick not that I have heard of three separate cases where foreigners have been attacked in Belgrade and beaten up in the last three days, including one Frenchmen that’s in critical condition. It seems that the groups of ultra-right fascists are patrolling the city center targeting those that seem unusual [...]

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First European backup of Wikipedia – in Belgrade

August 12, 2009

Imagine if the whole of Wikipedia would collapse right now. Everything is gone, and you badly needed to learn something about banana production in Iceland. Sounds unrealistic that wikipedia could collapse, right? But, as we say here in Serbia, it is also unrealistic for Ivica Dacic to be the Minister of Internal Affairs, and he [...]

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Mayor of Belgrade against Gay Pride

August 12, 2009

Asked to comment on the safety issues of forthcoming Belgrade Gay Pride Parade, which is scheduled for September 20th, and the anti-gay graffiti throughout the city these days, Mayor of Belgrade, mr Dragan Djilas gave the following bizzare statement:
“I say what I believe—maybe I was raised patriarchal—but sexual orientation is a personal thing, and [...]

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Crna Reka boot camp

May 25, 2009

Disclaimer: video contains some very disturbing images.

Stories about drug addicts being beaten as a way of punishment for not following the rules of Crna Reka spiritual/rehabilitation centre have been going around for a couple of years now, but it wasn’t until the public actually got to see the video of one such beating that the [...]

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The Pope Visit to Serbia – Delayed Until Further Notice

April 10, 2009

Serbia is one of the few European countries still not visited by the Pope. It’s not a big deal, if you ask me – what’s more important to me personally is that the Stones were here and now the AC/DC are coming. The thing is, I should not be so selfish and think only of [...]

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Marble Heads

March 16, 2009

Update on the traditional churches vs human rights law saga.
Some complaints by the churches have been implemented by the government, but the churches are still not satisfied. The article about free expression of one’s sexual orientation is really pissing them off.
Here’s a bit from what they have to say in a new written [...]

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Credit Crisis in Serbia… since 1993

March 13, 2009

Reuters have made a report from Subotica, city in northern part of Serbia, Vojvodina, bordering with Hungary, about a local ‘black market’ where people buy and sell stuff without paying taxes to the state. It may look to an uninformed viewer, upon watching the video, as if this market is a consequence of the recent [...]

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Discriminate Thy Neighbour

March 12, 2009

Main topic of the past several days in Serbia (besides celebrity Big Brother and Eurosong contest, that is): the anti-discrimination law and the problem it created for the traditional religious organizations in Serbia – Serbian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, the Islamic Community of Serbia, the Evangelical Church, the Christian Reform Church, the Christian Evangelical [...]

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Is Belgrade expensive?

February 10, 2009

Is Belgrade an expensive city to live in? According to a recent research conducted by a Serbian institute, no. What do you think, is Belgrade expensive? Have your say in the comments, foreigners and locals alike.

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Santa Claus: Deda Mraz, Djed Bozicnjak or Saint Nicholas?

December 22, 2008

As B92 reported some time ago and as the Guardian reports now, Santa Claus is banned from Bosnian kindergartens. Reason for this – it goes against the religious Muslim beliefs and/or Bosniak tradition.
Beside the bizzare fact of introducing religious teaching in kindergartens in the first place, this affair brings many interesting questions.
Is Santa Clause a [...]

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The Facebook Wars

December 14, 2008

Long time since we had a net2reality post here. I’ve been wanting to write one after the Croatian govt. caused all that fuss with the Facebook couple of weeks ago, but I figured it was covered enough by other medias.

However, there wasn’t so much talk about kids using the social media to promote nationalism, hate and fascism.

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What Just Happened?

December 12, 2008

An interesting way of fighting movie piracy: movie distributor Tuck decided not to run film “What Just Happened” in Belgrade cinemas because the copy of the movie is already freely available on the internet but it’s also possible to buy it at black market stands in the city.

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Whatever You Do, Don’t Mention The War!

November 28, 2008

After a series of mutual genocide charges we’re going over to some news of a completely opposite nature.
Fashion TV channel decided to start a special branch for the South East European market – that would say former Yugoslav countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro) plus probably some other, whatever falls under SEE these days.
The [...]

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Serbian Average Monthly Wage: Not As Low As You Might Think

November 22, 2008

Since statistics are always fun, let’s see what we can buy for an average Serbian wage of 386 euros a month.

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