Light Monday Night Read: Belgrade Saturday Night Fever
It’s Saturday night and the where to go plans have been made for the whole evening. The night is hot and the air is very humid – normal for this kind of year.
First stop – a small underground gallery located in an student apartment at the fourth floor (ok, in that way it’s not really underground) of a Dorcol building (Lucija already blogged about it, in case you missed it). Nobody knows what we are going to see, which is normal, because it’s not announced anywhere. Besides, the exibition is only a sporadic thing, friends are waiting there, gossip and other sorts of alcohol as well – we chip in with a hot vodka bottle in exchange for cold beer – in this heat it’s not a bad exchange. But the exibition is cool as well – dried umbilical cords in a jar, a live orphan crow and a chess game of wood against stuff being some of the art work presented.
Then it’s off to a concert we go. The band playing is an old one, but nevertheless pretty cool – Disciplin a Kitschme. It’s their first album in Serbian language after a sixteen year long break. In between Koja did couple of albums in English during the time he lived in London, which did quite poorly in the UK (Melody Maker labeled one otheir singles as “the worst record ever made by man or beast”) but pretty good in Serbia and ex-Yu.
The concert is not so good, but luckily we didn’t pay the entrance fee – you have to always know someone who knows someone. I imagine that the people who payed ten Euros to get in were not very satisfied though – the sound is bad, the songs have never been played before, which is always a drag to listen to, and the Pogon concert room of Dom Omladine is hot as hell – even the overpriced cold beer in cans don’t seem to help much.
It’s about midnight, and with ringing in our ears and sweaty foreheads we leave the city center in search of some cooler place – the road leads to bicycle path under the Sajam halls, where Brodic is situated. The name of the place – meaning Little boat or Boatie – is appropriate only in form, beacuse it doesn’t look like Brodic is ever going to sail away again. Some friend is having his birthday there and we relax with a few cold draught beers near the waters of Sava. Boatie is one of those places that you can’t find unless someone shows it to you or if you happen to look at the people drinking while cycling past it during the day. Still, everyone knows where it is because of the grapevine propaganda.
The final destination for the night is also situated at the water – it’s where the night life moves to during the summer. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you listen to – house, Turbo Folk , hip hop, or polka – you can be sure that it’s on a raft somewhere, on one of two rivers running through Belgrade – Dunav or Sava.
Like Brodic, our next stop is located also on Sava, under the old Sava bridge, one of the few big river bridges in Europe not demolished by retreating Germans in 1945. On our way we pass one newer turbofolk raft and a bit later three brother (or sister?) rafts all playing very similar disco/house lifeless crap music. There are millions of people lining up to get in and the same thing awaits us in front of our destinated raft – Povetarac. We don’t have much sense for time because of all the beer, but i figure the line moves quickly and we are in after 15 minutes. It is now half past two, the prime time to enter a club, hence the cueing. The raft is full but it’s not hot, because the bottom part breathes through the big hole in the roof and several others smaller ones on the side walls, and the roof part is, well, in the open air. DJ is playing all sorts of jungle/breakbeat/drumnbass/reggae/ragga/dancehall variations and in the dancing crowd I meet friends I already saw in the city earlier – it’s like this is the only place in the city. The Swiss guys i met couple of days earlier are still thrilled by the city. Who wouldn’t be after the newbie to Belgrade tour – Strahinjica bana cafes to Obilicev venac cafes while eating excellent junk food made by Loki all in couple of hours after they arrived. People dancing all around the raft and all night long only make them more persuaded that this is indeed the party city.
It’s six in the morning now and time to go home somehow. I spend the entire next two days recovering from the night, which Ed uses to successfully lobby for his Satin Pajama – but that’s the price of partying in Belgrade on a Saturday night.
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Brodic is the best! The pizza is terrific, and there is no place better in Belgrade on a sunny afternoon, watching the boats on the Sava — and occasionally the women doing a bit of topless sunbathing!
I think that, judging from the current female fashion trends in Belgrade, the day when we are going to be able to see a bit of topless sunbathing at Obilicev venac / Strahinica Bana / Cvetni Trg / etc is nearing upon us. Why else do you think the Swiss guys were so thrilled to be here?
Viktor, I must correct you. I actually managed two parties (Saturday and Sunday) in London which both went on till 3.00am and involved more than a couple of drinks. I can blog the photos as proof if you like but I think they might frighten people away!
Take care,
Ed.
I am wondering when – if ever – Viktor does the following he preached in his previous article:
40. Visit Roma slums, stay there for a couple of hours and ask the people living there about everyday life
This must be done also and particularly after the election campaign is over.
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It doesn’t seem like Viktor is the type to actually help people and get involved in the real problems, but just preach for things Serbia should do and spend for non-Serbs (bending itself backwards to an extent not seen in most other nations while ethnic Serbs in Croatia, Kosovo, Slovenia, the Muslim-Croat Federation are denied basic human rights), while he himself lives spoiled and the liberal lifestyle he likes. So nothing difficult or out of the way, but he will push for other Serbs to do difficult and taxing things and not care about ethnic Serbs refugees suffering.
When Viktor writes something about the not-so-pretty face of Serbian society, you go: “AAA!!! Serbo-phobia!!! AAA!!! TRAITOR! SOROS-LOVER! AAA!!!”
Then, he writes a relaxed and completely apolitical article like this one, about a night in the city, describing the face of Belgrade we can be proud of – and this load o’ crap is all that you manage to produce with your keyboard.
Get a life, you pathetic bag(s) of misery, is there anything besides paranoia that keeps your heart going or would you simply fade out once deprived of it?
Nice, I think we should not neglect topics more relevant to those who want to visit Belgrade so its nice to see this. Even if these topics will have less comments it doesnt matter.
And again I have to apologise because topics have occured to me that are of interest to Belgrade2.0 visitors but I havent been able to get it together to do something about it. One particular thing that crossed my mind was a visit to Belgrade by 2 Croatian women published in Blic.
They called Belgrade the “New York of the Balkans”. How does that sound for the title of a post? And of course there is some scope for our more political regulars to make comments regarding reverse visits of Serbs to Croatia etc…
Brodic is a great place to go for a spritzer, probably better during the week because its too popular at the weekend these days. And for the sake of balance (and honesty) I’ve been a little disapointed in recent visits because of how long it takes to get served.
Still, anybody who does make a visit should ask for Milica. Better still buy a pizza and she will turn up soon enough.
Oh yes, and if you are not shy take your swimming trunks.
That’s interesting, Nemanja. All your accusations at the posters are accusations you would have hurled at me because I’m the one who has brought these points up in the past, not any of the others who happen to have actually posted here at this topic. You wanted to yell at me, did you? Now don’t you feel silly?
How do people know what it means to be serious if they don’t have any understanding of what it means to have fun?
Blackbird,
You are a real gentleman. This “Nemanja (BG 2.0)” – from now on, when I see his nick – I will just ignore the blob of writing following. He doesn’t write anything worthwhile does he? I don’t care for his opinions; I don’t learn anything from him except he is nothing but abusive.
All I was wondering is if there have been any articles on the Roma refugees in Belgrade or the pictures of the slums Viktor is talking about. Perhaps he was only talking about politicians only who should spend their time visiting and talking with the Roma, as he said something about making a point to do this after the election campaign.
If so, he should make it clear in the rules if he is talking about politicians or the common people.
Ida,
I think i mentioned the word government at least 20 times in that article, plus once in the title. I don’t think i can make it clearer than that.
Bganon, “New York of the Balkans” sounds pretty much ok to me.
Milica is the black labrador, if i recall correctly… it was late when we were there, around one o’ clock, which is about closing time i think, so i guess it was too late for her to be there
Ed, I would gladly exchange your two parties that lasted until three for this one that lasted until six-seven am and than we can talk.
Besides, i have to make some sort of an excuse, don’t I