Telegram mirror

Telegram is a messenger where I post short travel notes. This page is a self-hosted backup of that channel.

← Back to feed

I went to see Serbia's eternal derby: Partizan vs. Red Star. It's quite a spectacle. I hope I managed to capture at least some of the atmosphere in the video.

It's not that they play good football here, but the fan sections are absolutely fired up!

Sometimes literally. The number of flares in the stadium is mind-blowing. Technically you're not allowed to bring them in—security checks everyone at the entrance, though not too thoroughly, and people sneak them in anyway. At times it felt like I was at a fireworks show rather than a match.

The local fans never stop singing or chanting something. The chants are often pretty offensive toward the opposing side. Though they didn't forget about the country's president either.

Each ticket is assigned a specific seat, but in reality no one follows these formalities. Everyone just shows up and stands in the first free spot they find. And they stand the whole match. You'd think they could skip bringing seats altogether.

Especially since a lot of seats got smashed up and sent toward the police on the field. Burning flares sometimes ended up there too. But thankfully no one got hurt and it felt safe.