I just got back to Serbia and immediately found myself at a huge Sabantuy festival in Novi Sad. A real Sabantuy with chak-chak and echpochmak pastries. Just so you know: this is an annual Tatar-Bashkir festival celebrating the end of the harvest season, celebrated for over a thousand years now. These days, though, it's not just farm workers who celebrate it.
We had about a hundred people show up, which was unexpected. Everything was organized really well. It felt like I was home. Whether intentional or by chance, the event was right near
Tatar Brdo.
A couple of years ago, this neighborhood's name got me curious enough to dig up the fact that back in the 19th century in Serbia, you could actually
become a Tatar and get paid for it. Sadly, those days are gone. Now nobody pays you just for being Tatar :(
The celebration was held on the banks of the Danube. At some point, a Serb came by in a boat. Out of curiosity, he steered over to see what was going on. They explained everything to him in Serbian and invited him to join, but he was shy because he was only wearing shorts. They gave the guest some sweet echpochmak pastries. In return, he took the kids for a ride in his boat. It was really sweet.
Thanks to the organizers and everyone who came. If you didn't make it this year, please come next year!
PS. While we're at it, listen to
Başkarma - Ber genä minutka (and read the
translation). They're great.
If you really want to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of Prohibition, underground speakeasies* and great music, New York has an option for you. In a small
basement that fits 30-40 people right in the heart of Harlem,
Bill Saxton plays excellent jazz. According to
reports from the New York Times, they've managed to recreate the 1920s-1930s atmosphere with incredible accuracy. Not least because visitors are invited to bring their own alcohol, and the space is very small and intimate. If you're in the area, I highly recommend it.
———
*speakeasy — an American phenomenon of underground bars from the time when alcohol sales were prohibited. The name comes from the English "speakeasy" (speak quietly), though the term itself appeared decades before Prohibition in England to describe contraband establishments. Sometimes these drinking establishments were called "blind pig" or "blind tiger" because money was charged for viewing the animals, while alcohol was given as a gift. Americans invented endless ways to get around the law. They used everything imaginable to disguise the business, including funeral homes. In New York alone, there were between 30,000 and 100,000 such establishments in the 1920s.
Swimming with whale sharks wasn't what I expected at all. You won't find anything more touristy in all of the Philippines, honestly.
I got to the spot at 7:20 AM. At registration, they gave me number 186 (though it's not an individual number—it's for a group, so there were way more people). I had to wait 3 hours for my turn (at least you can run off to check out the waterfalls and grab a bite instead of just sitting on a chair).
Then they put you in a boat and take you out a couple hundred meters from shore. They constantly throw food to the sharks and they swim along the tourist boats (I doubt that's actually good for them). You can jump in the water and splash around nearby (it's safe), but you can't touch them.
It's interesting to see, but you leave feeling like you've been run through a factory conveyor belt. Everything felt so mechanical. Soulless. If I'd known it would be like this, I would've spent my time and money on something else.
4/4. As expected, China: three-quarters of Singapore's population are Chinese. By the way, people in the video aren't singing for money. It's a local karaoke thing. Anyone who wants to can come and have a blast. There were some performers I thought weren't that great. But nobody took the microphone away from anyone.
Who would've thought that going to a cinema in Istanbul would be full of surprises?
They actually pause the movie halfway through! They literally cut off the actor mid-sentence and put up an intermission screen. Then popcorn fills the whole screen. Like, you know what to do. 10 minutes later, they continue from the same scene.
I found a whole
discussion about how different countries handle this. Apparently intermissions are common in Portugal, India, Iceland, Italy, Malta, Jamaica (and that's clearly not the full list). Some places used to have them (Netherlands, France, New Zealand) but don't anymore. People also complain that Hollywood movies get cut up all over the place. Bollywood screenwriters, though—they actually write the intermission break into the script itself.
The movie was shown in the original language with Turkish subtitles. Dubbing here is mostly only done for kids' films.
PS. And I couldn't even manage to buy a ticket online. The website requires you to register via SMS. They only send codes to Turkish, Albanian, Azerbaijani, Kosovar, and Croatian numbers, which I don't have. I wouldn't even question Bosnia being on that list. But how did Croatia end up there? 🤔
If you venture just outside the heart of Mostar in Bosnia, you'll spot plenty of football graffiti everywhere.
The most popular fan group is the Red Army. They support Mostar's club Velež. The team won the Yugoslav Cup twice and even made it to the UEFA quarterfinals.
Their golden era was the 1980s. Back then, people from all backgrounds supported the club—Croats, Bosnians, and Serbs alike. It was an incredibly unifying thing. During the peak 1985-86 season, over eight thousand (!) Red Army fans traveled to a match in the Croatian city of Split. That's just under 10% of Mostar's entire population.
Music groups even formed around the movement, dedicating their work to the fans. One of the most famous pieces is the
RA anthem.
Everything changed after the war. The level of football dropped dramatically, and the stadium attendance never came back. Mostly Bosnians support the club now, though the movement welcomes everyone with open arms.
So I ended up at a village wedding outside Cairo. A really simple one. And it's VERY strange stuff.
No toasts, speeches, contests, or any of that dancing. The guys were partying separately from the girls. Literally in different places. Really curious what was going on at the women's celebration :)
There was no set table. Women walked around selling sunflower seeds and peanuts. They'd just dump a handful on the tablecloth and wait a minute to see if anyone would pay. If no one paid, they'd take it back. After a while, they'd repeat the whole ritual. For extra money, you could buy hot food.
The music was pretty unusual. You should hear it yourself. And it blasted like that all night long. You get tired super fast.
For some reason, the party was on a Monday night going into Tuesday. Things got going around 11 PM. They told me it usually goes until 4-5 AM. I bailed way earlier.
What surprised me was the beer. Actual alcohol. The bottles were sitting out in the open, but they were pouring it under the table like it was some kind of secret. And people drank it from tea glasses. I didn't see any other alcohol.
But there were crazy amounts of hookahs. I've never seen that many in one place. People weren't just smoking tobacco. A lot of guys had hand-rolled cigarettes with weed in them.
I was asked not to photograph people in close-ups, unless they specifically asked me to. At first, not many people wanted that, but later on folks loosened up a bit, though they were still a little shy.
Off to the side, there's this guy sitting with a book. People record how much money each person gave to the newlyweds. When that person or their kids get married later, they have to give back at least that same amount. Kind of like wedding accounting.
Not all weddings look like this. Wealthier guys rent out restaurants, set up proper tables, hire better entertainers. And traditions vary a lot depending on the region anyway.
My whole trip to Turkey was planned around watching the Galatasaray vs Fenerbahçe football match. But from the start, something just kept going wrong with it.
I decided to fly out back in January. Got all my tickets, booked accommodation. But then in May, the game suddenly got postponed two weeks ahead, to June 4th. Not ideal, but what can you do? Had to scramble and adjust my plans a bit. Changed everything I needed to, got to the city, and literally just a couple days before the new date, the ticket seller told me there was a mix-up on their end and my tickets were gone. Couldn't find any others. He promised to just refund the money (at least there's that).
So I didn't make it to the stadium yesterday, but the streets of Istanbul had great atmosphere anyway. Looks like I'll have to go back again. I really want to see in person how passionate the Turkish fans get in the stands :(
The campaign leading up to Turkey's presidential election is absolutely wild. There's music, dancing, people handing flowers to strangers—it's just a whole vibe, you know?
PS. Honestly, I didn't come here specifically for the election. I bought my tickets back in January when nobody was even talking about it. Let's see what else they've got planned.
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.
Every year, Serbians celebrate Slava—the feast day of their family's patron saint. On this day, everyone who works gets an official day off, as written in the labor code. It doesn't matter if you're a local or just someone who moved there, or what you actually practice religion-wise: you get the day off, so you
can should use it.
The thing is, there's no single day when the whole country celebrates, because there are
many patron saints. Each family has their own: men inherit theirs, and women usually celebrate their father's saint first, then their husband's (though sometimes after marriage they celebrate both twice a year).
This tradition isn't unique to Serbia—you'll find it in neighboring Balkan countries too. Though Serbians often see Slava as a kind of marker of their national identity. But honestly, it's more complicated than that.
PS. For 2023, I counted about 10
public holidays total, plus you get 20 vacation days (though I know people whose employers give them 25). Guess I should read through the Serbian labor code again—maybe there are some other perks hiding in there :()
I managed to get back to Belgrade just in time for the big Christmas celebrations to see the festivities firsthand.
Serbia has a whole bunch of traditions around these days, many of which have survived from pre-Christian pagan rituals. Today, a lot of these rituals only remain in villages and small towns, while in larger cities they gradually fade away or transform. But I'll try to quickly walk you through the main highlights.
The main visible action happens on the evening of January 6th (the actual holiday is the 7th). But the preparations start about a month before.
Meanwhile, life is bustling in the Palestinian part. Markets and shops are open, transport is running, and I even accidentally stumbled upon a mini-concert.
There was a competition on a Tel Aviv beach for a local version of footvolley (though I'm not entirely sure that's what it was). I'm not sure how else to explain it, but everyone on the beach was playing this game, and some were even playing it in team format. But check out how beautiful it is.
Since January 16, 2022, there's been a tent camp set up in front of Serbia's National Assembly building (the local parliament). These guys decided the current government is illegitimate, declared themselves the only legitimate temporary parliament of the country (apparently that's allowed?), and have been manning the place 24/7 for over six months now.
The police don't bother them, and honestly, everyone just acts like nothing's happening. Online people say it's a puppet opposition movement controlled by the president.
Out of curiosity, I walked over and asked what this whole thing was about. There were maybe 3-4 people there, but they weren't exactly eager to chat (probably because of the heat; it's +38°C in Belgrade right now). To get rid of me, they handed out a printout in Serbian explaining that they think the current government is illegitimate, and it had their website address on it.
I checked out their site—it's a really weird movement with no clear goals. I liked the part about how they think politicians are unnecessary in general. Yet they regularly hold meetings where they issue various decrees. For example, they gave all Serbs permission not to get vaccinated. If that's not politics, then what is it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You don't need a protest to voice your disagreement with the war. Yesterday, some folks organized a charity run in New Belgrade and raised donations to evacuate Ukrainians affected by the fighting.
It's great that people are organizing events like this. It's great that people show up. It's terrible that we still need to do it.
I was driving near Niš when I spotted a cyclist with Ukrainian flags out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't help but stop and have a quick chat.
Turns out his name is Vladimir — a journalist and traveler from Zaporizhzhia. Since February 24th, he'd been volunteering in Ukraine, helping the army. He says his house has almost certainly been destroyed by now. The hot line of the front moved through his village and left nothing behind.
Now he's left Ukraine and decided to go on a cycling tour across European countries in support of his homeland. The Serbian part is almost done: Vladimir was heading toward the Kosovo border.
A good man. It's a shame we met under such circumstances.
On Russia Day, anti-war protests are happening in many major cities outside the country. Belgrade is no exception. They picked an interesting spot: right in front of the Moscow hotel entrance (:
Not that many people showed up, but there weren't just Russians there—there were Belarusians and Ukrainians too. Even some Serbs. But there was literally no police presence at all. It was really strange to actually see a protest in person where nobody's trying to detain or beat anyone.
https://youtu.be/v3RQ6x9qD8wIs this how you imagined a Serbian wedding too?
(though it's not quite clear why the musician got hit in the forehead)
Stopped by another tribal settlement. Representatives of
Masai. The most famous and numerous tribe.
This time everything is clearly set up as a money-making operation for tourists. The Masai are decently dressed, speak English reasonably well, and charge for tours. They greet visitors with a welcome dance and adumu (a jumping dance where it's about who can jump highest; we jumped with them too), quickly show off their dwellings, then persistently and at length start hard-selling souvenirs at outrageous prices. Ugh, what a way to be.
Compared to yesterday's tribes, it's way too staged and not interesting at all.
PS. Still, there was something to be amazed by. These guys not only extract money from tourists but also raise livestock. Where there's livestock, there are flies (really persistent ones). The residents have learned to completely ignore the flies. So a fly crawls across your lip, you're not going to swat it. Doesn't stop you from talking. How is that even possible?
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