Train Police...

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Chapter 2- Serbia (Part 1)
“War Museums and the Omnipotent Train Police”

In some cities of the world you can spend hours scrabbling around looking for a place to exchange your money into the local currency. Belgrade is not one of those thanks to the exchange window just inside the (garishly yellow) train stations main entrance. The old women manning it invariably give you evil looks, but it gets the job done.
I’d visited Belgrade before, once. I managed to see absolutely nothing of the city. This is due to the fact I got talking (and drinking) with a group of Serb lads from the north of the country on the train, and this led to me being led through all the best heavy metal shops in Belgrade before they went to a concert and I spent an hour wandering lost somewhere near the Danube (I had a map with me as well, so Christ knows why I wasn’t using it). I was determined to rectify this and see a lot more of the city.
I started walking up the street and quickly came across the one real sight I remember. The last time I had been here some of the Serbs I was with pointed at it and declared “NATO!”.
Straggling both sides of the street are the ruins of what I am led to believe used to be the Serbian military headquarters. Much of it as fallen and several holes indicate where our missiles smashed into it. Its cordoned off by a small metal fence and hasn’t been repaired since the 1999 bombing campaign, I suspect it’s a reminder of the past and it certainly seems to be viewed that way by the Serbian far right. The fence around it has had nationalist statements painted onto it including “Kosovo”, “Kosovo is Serbia”, “1389” (the year of the Battle of Kosovo that drove the Serbs from the region) and my personal favourite- the quite simple “Kosovo back!”. I snapped a few respectful photographs of the bombed out buildings and decided it would be great to have such historically relevant graffiti in England (“Remember 1066!” rather than “Gaz iz a wanka!”).
Seeing ruined buildings in the middle of a metropolis like Belgrade, with it’s heaving traffic and endless little kiosks selling coca cola, is quite disturbing and somewhat unnerving. This may well be the desired effect. I decided to head up the street towards the centre.
You’d find it hard to craft an argument describing the buildings of Belgrade as beautiful, they really aren’t. It’s a pretty drab city. But one thing they seem to take pride in is their churches- this may well be do with the fact that in the Balkans religion is often a key component in defining ethnicity. A majority of Serbs are members of the Orthodox church (a fact reflected by their use of their Cyrillic alphabet- described as “like alien writing” by “actor” Danny Dyer when he visited the country).
I’m not even remotely religious, but Orthodox churches are always pretty cool buildings. The fairly brilliant Sveti Marko dwarfs a smaller, blue domed Russian church built by Russians fleeing the Bolshevik revolution in their own land (they must have really been kicking themselves when Yugoslavia became communist a few decades later.). However the real pinnacle of Serbian architecture has to be the Sveti Sava. A church whose construction has been halted several times over the last century, the interior is still far from complete. But it’s vast white exterior is certainly awe inspiring.
I decided, having got my fix of religious buildings (and thus suitable photos to show curious relatives) I’d find some fine Serbian cuisine. There is a little pizza place I discovered on my first trip to the country that sells amazing pizza by the slice for about 60 dinars (56p). Unfortunately it’s by the train station and I was feeling lazy. So McDonalds it was.
The Serbs almost exclusively blame the Americans for their troubles in recent years, however they seem to love McDonalds (lets face it, who doesn’t- even Bin Laden would eat there if he could.). According to the “Welcome to Belgrade” leaflet I got on my return to Belgrade a few days later there are seven McDonalds in the city, with two more under construction. Good news for people like me. I’m sure there are a few people pointing fingers at this book and tsking at me for not trying the local food. My response to that is simple- fuck off. There are several reasons I take this viewpoint and in order to save me repeating myself, these are the reasons.
1) I’m on a budget and a tight schedule, I simply don’t have the time/patience for a four course meal followed by folk dancing.
2) All these “Genuine +country+ food” places are designed to rip off tourists (not that Belgrade has anywhere like this) and the only locals you’ll see anywhere near them are the waiting staff.
3) In places like Belgrade, tourism isn’t a massive industry and thus I am eating what the locals eat.
4) I’m pretty picky about what I eat and aren’t going to piss away a load of money just because some tosser says “Goat come on toast” is a traditional Balkan dish.
5) Finally, I’m from North Staffordshire. I don’t think anything that doesn’t feature oatcakes is really worth my time eating.
Got it?, sorted.
Checking out my map, I noticed that I was only a few streets away from the American embassy. Normally I wouldn’t consider a foreign countries embassy something worth seeing, but this time it was different. At the beginning of 2008 Kosovo finally declared independence and the Serbs went mad. The war I had been assured by some of them would happen the moment Kosovo declared independence has yet to transpire, but there was still rioting in Kosovo and Belgrade during February. The American embassy was understandably a prime target and a Serb died as they set part of it on fire. I decided to go and see how it looked.
It is, it’s fair to say, heavily fortified. Most of the windows have been sealed/painted over and the bottom few storeys have iron bars on the windows. All this is protected by a row of anti-car bomb bollards clumsily disguised as flowerbeds. I also noticed some more bomb damage further down the street. I began to wonder if they’d left this damage to deliberately encircle the American embassy. It really wouldn’t surprise me.
Having eaten and seen some more bomb damage, I went up to the Kalemegdan citadel/fortress. Belgrade sits at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers (and from the citadels grounds you can get an amazing view of the two) and as a result of this strategic position, Belgrade has been destroyed on around 55 occasions in it’s history (which may go a certain extent towards explaining it’s ugliness). The citadel itself is fantastic though, especially if you’ve never really grown out of the childhood belief that castles are awesome. As a bonus, there is a war museum surrounded by tanks and artillery which presents it’s own, interesting, view of history. For 100 dinars (93p), there really is no good reason not to visit if you’re there.
I decided it was roughly beer o’clock and went down to Kneza Mihailova, one of Belgrades few pedestrian only streets (which still makes it more pedestrian friendly than Budapest, which could only be less pedestrian friendly if they placed landmines on the pavements) and into a small café ran by a man who looked a lot like recently captured war criminal Radavan Karadzic and another who resembled one of the blokes from a pizza place in Leek. While in theory those two would make an amazing team, in practise it took them the best part of 10 minutes to fulfil the simple task of pouring a pint of Jelen pivo. I’d first had this beer the year before when I was on the train to Sarajevo. It’s actually a generally refreshing pint. Which was exactly what I needed given how hot it was, plus at 130 dinars (£1.21) I couldn’t really argue.
Café culture seems to be a big thing in the Balkans and Serbia epitomises this excellently. Almost every possible part of the pavement has had tables set up outside for attractive women and potential war criminals to sit drinking their coffee and beer. For a big city, Belgrade strikes me as being very relaxed, the people seem genuinely content (underlying grievances about Kosovo aside) and calm. A refreshing change from English cities.
I wandered over to Oblicei Venac next, a street running parallel with Mihailova for a distance. I decided I’d sit myself down in Okino café, a place whose clientele consisted of two bored looking old men in the corner. I ordered a Niksicko (92p) and sat down. Niksicko is Montenegro’s biggest (some would say “only) brand and seems to be pretty popular in Serbia as well- considering the two countries only broke up in 2006 that’s hardly a surprise as it is a fine lager. I noted in my journal how much I thought I was going to enjoy Montenegro the next day (I was right as it happens..for once). Okino pub seemed to have a lot of Irish tat on the walls and I think it was attempting to be an Irish pub (and you’ll hear more about those particular establishments later on). Of course, you can’t really be an Irish pub (or, in fact, any kind of pub) unless you sell Guinness. This place lacked Guinness, and thus all the Irish crap was in vain really. It’s alright to have posters featuring Guinness and leprechauns- if you sell Guinness, if you don’t it’s really just false advertising.
Through some brilliant research techniques (going to the tourist information centre) I had acquired the location of a proper Irish pub and, as it was near the bombed out building up the street from the train station, I knew exactly how to get there. However I decided I’d go and grab some pizza from the little café I like before heading to the pub.
In the 13 months since I’d last gone inside to stuff myself for an overnight train to Slovenia absolutely nothing had changed. Which is brilliant, because you can’t improve on heaven. I brought a huge slice of hot pizza (as opposed to the lukewarm crap you get at pizza hut) and tucked in. As good as ever.
I spotted a souvenir stand just outside the café featuring a t-shirt with a photo of Radavan Karadzic and his elusive mate Ratko Mladic along with some Cyrillic writing (probably declaring them innocent). I usually end up buying crap touristy shirts when I’m in foreign countries and I decided that a t-shirt featuring two Bosnian Serb war criminals would be a good purchase. I smiled at the angry looking man running the stand (the rest of his stock consisted of mini Serb flags and badges)
“How much for one of the t-shirts?” I asked
He looked up at me with a look that suggested marketing wasn’t a speciality.
“400 Euros”
I stared at him incredulously. for 400 Euro’s I could start my own company that sold t-shirts with pictures of war criminals on- better war criminals too.
“400 Euros or Dinars?” (400 dinars is £3.75, a lot closer to my budget than 400 Euros which is more like £318- the day I pay that much for a t-shirt is the day I stick a slice of bread up my arse and claim I’m a toaster)
“Euros!” he replied, evidently annoyed. He then muttered something in Serbian and I began to get the impression he really didn’t want to sell me a t-shirt. I smiled at him stupidly.
“Bye then mate”. (It was that or declare “Yeah, you’ve got your t-shirt, but do you have Kosovo?”. I think I made the right choice.)
That little stand is probably the only souvenir stand in the world that doesn’t cater to tourists and the gentlemen running it was one of those Serbs who give the rest, who are generally exceptionally friendly and polite, a bad name. Despite all that, he had raised an important point in my mind, I’d need some more Serbian dinars (I’d only changed around a tenner- I’d got some pizza, a few beers, a mcdonalds meal and a war museum out of it though). I went back inside the station and changed a few more Euros.
I decided that before I hit the Irish pub I’d grab a Jelen at an ugly little café/bar I’d sighted coming into Belgrade that morning. Just around the corner from the main station building, past the toilets (which were free by the way! A refreshing change) there is a small yellow building with about six bright yellow tables in front of it. Each has a “Jelen Pivo” parasol and, for some reason I didn’t quite understand, I felt the urge to go and grab a drink there. I approached the doorway and came face to face with the owner, who was slicing lemons. He turned and looked at me, pointing the knife in my direction. I pointed at one of the crates of Jelen that seemed to be holding the door in place.
“Jelen Pivo prosee?” I asked. (Pivo Prosee- “beer please” is one of the few things I can say in Serbian)
“Da” he replied, as his wife gestured for me to sit at one of the tables. Soon enough I was happily sipping from a bottle of Jelen (retailing at about 56p..). It seemed like another one of those “local pub for local people” places that somehow turn up at train stations in Eastern Europe. Disturbingly, one of my fellow drinkers (no food or coffee bollocks here) looked a hell of a lot like a train driver. I’m not sure how much damage you could potentially cause by being pissed in charge of a train, but I imagine it’s considerable.
By the time I’d finished the bottle I decided it was time to Irish the day up slightly. I headed back up past the bomb damage to the “The Three Carrots”. This little boozer, reasonably well hidden on Kneza Milosa, was apparently the first Irish pub in Belgrade (a fact I discovered by reading the back of one of the staffs t-shirts.) I treated myself to another Jelen and was quite pleased to find myself able to sit at a genuine bar, rather than being ordered to sit down at a table.
Irish pubs are an institution in any major city and, despite their name, I have always found them brilliant places to find a good variety of local beer (especially in places where the local beer is generally shunned, as we’ll see later on).
By this point the sun had set and I decided I should head back to the train station. Belgrade is renowned in the Balkans and beyond for it’s lively nightclub scene, I wasn’t too sad to miss it, a lot of those clubs sound like they’re designed for young businessmen and any tart willing to exploit them. Besides which, I’m not a nightclub person at the best of times.
I grabbed another slice of pizza from the place just outside the station and washed it down with a can of Lav that I got for 56p. Pretty much every Serb I’ve ever mentioned lager to has named Lav as one of their favourites, so I decided it was worth a try. It is actually pretty good, I much prefer it to Jelen (although it seems harder to find on draught).
Eating a supper of pizza and beer on the steps of Belgrade train station is definitely something I’d recommend doing at least once. It’s probably just as well I had the beer- the first time I had sat on these steps a copper had asked what I was doing and then directed me to the train station café-bar (“Pivo that way!) when it became apparent I was English (that is the kind of service I’d like in our country.)
With the train about to depart I ran to one of the two shops which flank the entrance to the toilets (not the most inspiring position) and purchased a bottle of Jelen for the road. Unfortunately I then noticed a large bottle of Beogradsko pivo and, since I hadn’t tried it, brought that as well. I jumped aboard the train, found a free compartment and drifted into a gentle sleep before I could even open my lagers. I really enjoyed Belgrade, it’s a noisy, ugly, metropolis, but at the same time it possesses an infectious lust for life atmosphere about it.
I was woken by someone shaking me violently. I opened my eyes and came face to face with a pissed off Serbian copper, hand perilously close to his pistol. He growled something at me in Serbian and pointed at my feet- my grave and serious offence appeared to be that I’d put them up on the seat opposite. I quickly apologised and put them down. He, suddenly realising I was foreign, asked for my passport.
His attitude towards me seemed to soften when he realised that I was not a Serb. Unlike in some parts of the world, in Serbia there are no brownie points of harassing idiot foreigners. I looked up at him and his two mates, both equally well armed.
“Are we at the border already?” I muttered, taking back my passport.
“No, we are train police, you will meet border police at border.”
Well excuse me for not being able to tell the difference between Serbian train police and Serbian border police..as an Englishman I suppose I should be able to tell the difference between varying departments of the Serbian police force.
Now my new friend, the “train” copper, decided it was his turn to ask some questions.
“You are student?”
“No” (only when it gets me lower admission fees to places I want to go)
“You are alone?”
“Yes” (just me and my invisible friends Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-twat)
He pointed down at my big bottle of Jelen Pivo.
“And no beer on the train”.
You bastard. (I reckon he only said that because I was foreign, the first time I was in Serbia I brought a six-pack of lager on the train- which me and my Serb mates quickly demolished)
The “train” copper and his two idiot mates when left me alone to exchange bewildered looks with the Montenegrins I was sharing a compartment with. It seems that, in Serbia, it takes three armed men to inform you that you shouldn’t rest your feet on the opposite seat. I thought this was a tad overkill. I decided that they must have been on the train for a different reason and just took it on themselves to give me a bollocking. Pricks.
I looked down mournfully at my, reasonably, delicious bottle of lager. Oh well, it was only a matter of time. I’d be in Montenegro soon enough, then it was out of Mr “Train” policeman’s jurisdiction. Thank God for Montenegrin independence.

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