Belgrade has a metro that doesn't exist. The city is jokingly called a half-metropolis because of this (it rhymes perfectly in Serbian — "pola metropola" or "metropola samo do pola").

Serious conversations about building an underground railway started in the early 20s. No, not the current twenties, but those from a hundred years ago, the 1920s. World War I had just ended and people wanted to rebuild their lives. By the end of the 1930s, there was a plan to build three metro lines, but World War II started and priorities changed dramatically.

People only started thinking about the metro again around the 1970s and spent a long time discussing future plans. In the early 1980s, they finally made a decision and wanted to bring in the USSR to help with construction in exchange for paying off foreign trade debt. But the Croats and Slovenes didn't agree to this: the debt was to all of Yugoslavia, not just Belgrade. So the capital's residents were left without a metro once again.

By the mid-1990s, they did dig some tunnels and build two whole stations. One of them, Vukov spoménik, is the deepest station in Europe outside the former USSR. 43 meters! But they don't operate as a metro: nowadays suburban trains run there. And they run rarely. Once an hour, if there are no strikes. I went down to the station once to look around, and lucky for me, a train arrived a couple of minutes later. If I'd come five minutes later, I would've only seen an empty platform.

The train in the video is from right there. Covered in graffiti. Old, beautiful.

Anyway, we've reached modern times. There's still no subway. But they promise it's coming soon. Around 2015, the Serbian government estimated the project at ~1 billion euros. France decided to help, and so far the French government has allocated over 8 billion euros for construction. But for some reason, the timelines keep getting pushed back ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In November 2021, preparatory work supposedly started. But actual construction is promised to begin only in 2023. And they're threatening to deliver all 43 planned stations by 2030 (opening of the first line in 2028). We'll see when they actually open them. If they do :)

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/v3RQ6x9qD8w

Yay, found an apartment for the long term! But I really didn't enjoy searching for housing in this overheated market.

First, I was let down by the local rental websites. You go in and see tons of listings with attractive conditions. But then you suddenly notice that most of the offers were posted last year and haven't been updated in forever. You set up filters to show only fresh options, and your choices suddenly shrink. Plus the conditions aren't that interesting anymore.

You start calling through the filtered listings, and way too often you hear that the apartment is either already rented or the owners don't want to rent to foreigners. Some of them you can't even get through to in the first place (they don't answer). You message them, they read it, but there's no response.

Half (maybe more) of the listings are from agencies, not owners. In that case, you'll have to pay half a month's rent for their services. And you're definitely not paying the apartment owner.

Since February 24th, a ton of people unexpectedly moved to Belgrade. Which of course affected rental prices. If before you could easily find great options for 6-7 euros per square meter, now 9-10 is already a good offer. Plus 80-150€ for utilities on top (depending on heating type and other details). Overall you can find cheaper, but it's either on the edge of the world, or the apartment is completely trashed, or both.

A noticeable portion of apartments are rented with no furniture at all. Where there is furniture, there probably won't be dishes and other essentials. You'll have to spend some money when you move in.

But overall, I'm thankful the process isn't like in Germany, where they basically interview you before renting, and then you move in a month or two or three later.

Before searching, it's helpful to figure out the neighborhood too. That's when I discovered this brilliant hoodmaps. For regular travel, there wasn't much need to study what's going on in different neighborhoods (though I did regret not checking where I'd be staying a couple times when I ended up in a bad area). But here, in a semi-joking way, it's got everything you need (and it's pretty accurate too).

Speaking of moving services, there's another great tool — numbeo. It shows pretty accurately how much your expenses will change in a new place. The calculations use the current exchange rate, so factor in some volatility.

Luck played a big role in my search: I called about another listing that was already rented, but the people had another apartment they hadn't really managed to publish anywhere yet. I came to look, liked it, and we signed the contract right away.

PS. If you're really curious, you can browse options here or here.

Is this how you imagined a Serbian wedding too?
(though it's not quite clear why the musician got hit in the forehead)

Today I discovered that cevapcici actually comes from kebab. The similar name and recipe kind of hinted at it, but I only connected the dots now.

The Turks brought the dish to the Balkans along with Ottoman rule. Over time, it adapted to the local language and cuisine and became cevapcici. Plus a smaller version emerged — cevapcici (in Russian, we'd call them kebabchiki).

Almost every major city has its own recipe. The most popular is the Sarajevo version. And the most unusual one is from Banja Luka: cevapcici linked together. I really need to make it there someday to check it out.

PS. A few more Turkish loanwords: the white stuff on the plate is kajmak — and in Serbian it's kajmak 🙃

Smoking is super common in Serbia. According to official statistics, over 40% of the adult population smokes. And you can smoke anywhere—even in cafes and restaurants. So you'll often walk into a place and think you could hang an axe in there, it's so smoky.

Sometimes you can escape to outdoor seating if they have it. But even that doesn't always work: I walked past a sports bar patio the other day and it was still uncomfortably smoky even outside.

There are places where owners don't allow smoking. Enthusiasts mark these places on Google Maps. For example, here are some spots in Belgrade.

PS. Even though everyone smokes everywhere, I haven't seen cigarette butts scattered all over the streets. Overall, it's clean and tidy here.

#funfact: While I was working on a text about McDonald's, I found out there's an actual real University of Hamburgerology (I'm not joking). Though, they don't actually teach you how to eat hamburgers correctly there—they teach food service management.

I uncovered an amazing story about McDonald's in Serbia and just had to share it. Brew yourself a cup of coffee with a Big Mac and read my short longread. Hope you'll enjoy it.

If Putin in Russia is lifting his country off its knees, then in Serbia he's putting the EU on its knees 🙈

Really hoping this is just some ultra-right wing newsstand, because you don't see this particular mix of headlines everywhere.

It's pretty surprising that in Belgrade they still sell paper newspapers in lots of places. Like the internet was never invented.

Ура, (почти) новый год! (ёлочка)

В этом году ездил я не особо много (да что уж там, за последние 10 лет никогда столько времени не проводил дома). Потому и тут было довольно тихо. Надеюсь исправиться в следующем году :)
Зато у меня было время слегка подучить испанский и с переменным успехом повспоминать почти забытый немецкий. В процессе открыл для себя интересные околоновогодние традиции у немцев и испанцев:

— Same procedure as every year. В 1963 немцы сняли совершенно гениальный скетч "Ужин на одного". И каждый год 31 декабря стали вещать его по телевидению. На немецком только небольшое вступление, всё остальное — на очень простом английском. Хотя, казалось бы, немцы делали для немцев, причём тут английский? Что ещё интереснее: в англоязычном мире видео не сильно известно.
(спойлеров нет) Во вступлении рассказывается, что мисс Софи отмечает 90й день рождения и, как всегда, приглашает на праздник четырех своих друзей. Единственная сложность — мисс уже немолодая, и все друзья умерли 25 лет назад. Звучит печально, но дальше на экране происходит абсолютная магия. Сложно придумать нечто более подходящее к Новому Году. Фишку просекли не только в немецкоговорящих странах, но и всякие скандинавы и прочие фины. Так что последние 20-30 лет скетч транслируют и у них. Говорят, что в 2018 даже британцы решили поучаствовать, но не знаю что из этого вышло.
# Полная версия со вступлением без субтитров идёт всего 18 минут. Рекомендую смотреть эту версию.
# Есть слегка ускоренная версия без вступления с русскими субтитрами, урезанная до 10 минут. Тут варварски вырезаны всякие мелкие нюансы без которых куда-то пропал весь шарм.

— Испанцы каждый год играют в рождественскую лотерею. Впервые её провели ещё в 1812 году (я не опечатался, больше 200 лет назад), и с тех пор same procedure as every year. Лотерею не прерывали даже во время Мировых войн, гражданской войны в Испании и режима Франко.
В 2019 призовой фонд был больше 2 миллиардов евро. Как в любой лотерее разыгрываемая сумма формируется из денег с продажи билетов. По двухсотлетним правилам сюда уходит 70% собранных денег. Остальные 30% — на организацию (только у меня ощущение, что в современном автоматизированном мире организация стоит дешевле? :) ). Цена билета — €20. 1700 билетов могли сорвать куш в €400 тысяч каждый! Такой приз называется el Gordo. Помимо главного выигрыша есть куча призов поменьше (вплоть до стоимости лотерейного билета).
Участвует буквально вся страна: при населении в 47.5 миллионов печатают больше 160 миллионов билетов. А ещё каждый год выпускают милые трогательные рекламные ролики. В них всё понятно даже без перевода: 2021, 2020, 2015. Если хочется больше — ищите в ютубе "anuncio de la Lotería de Navidad".
Католическое рождество наступает до нового года, но и после него нет времени расслабляться: уже 6 января разыгрывается Sorteo del Niño, вторая по масштабу лотерея. Но раз событие по масштабу второе, то и максимальный приз в 2 раза меньше (на самом деле просто совпало :) ). Зато теперь вы знаете, куда надо ехать на новогодние праздники :)


С новым годом! 🎄🦘

We got dumped with snow. Flew over the neighboring forest — it's beautiful all around (watch with sound :) ).

So while I was flying, something went wrong with the drone: suddenly it stopped responding to altitude commands and shot straight up at full speed. All I could do was watch the altitude climbing by hundreds of meters on my phone screen. Even hitting 500 meters didn't stop it, even though the settings say it shouldn't go higher than that.
At 1000 meters, the app cheerfully informed me the signal was about to cut out and I should head back. Yeah, right—like I had any control over it.)
I'd already made peace with it, figured the drone was headed to space. But a hundred meters later, the thing came to its senses (probably the battery running low was the trigger), switched to emergency landing mode, and dove down just as aggressively. Once we got to about 30 meters above the ground, everything went back to normal like nothing had happened.
Support told me to calibrate before every flight, and to take it in for warranty if it happens again.

At least I got to see the sun for once. We've had nothing but clouds for days.