shantytowns in Belgrade

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It took us awhile to cross Serbia, then changed currency to Dinar. Several things we noticed since crossing from Croatia, the people seem rather unfriendly, at least the ones we met at service stops, we have to pay for toilet for the 1st time and they keep shortchanging us everytime we buy something, it made us think maybe they are miserable at their work. It was a shock to us when we pas through Belgrade, when we saw shantytowns, I thought you see them in Asia or Latin America or Africa but not in Europe, and the state of housing is really poor for the most part. Then in the evening for our night stop we stayed in this posh looking Russian style hotel, wide spaces in the lobby etc. only when we got to our rooms we realized it was actually in bad state, food was alright and the waiter who speaks fluent German was really nice for a change! Got my first souvenir from an old man selling trinkets on the front stair of the hotel he seems very nice and is at least trying to make a living by selling art crafts, I bought an orthodox cross type necklace made of wood, nothing fancy, now I can't actually remember where I put it.

N.B.

Since I wrote this blog I have had a couple of comments from locals one particular person really upset about what i have written about, but let me just make it clear that i dont mean it to sound in a negative way I just wrote what i have seen as we pass along the city, i didn't even spend time in Belgrade(so maybe I should have not made a comment at all) I regret saying something about the slums without further reasearching into it, but I want to apologize to the locals if i offended them, i did not mean to make it sound as if Serbians live in the slums as that was not my intention, I took a photo because it was there, and now I was told Gypsies live there, next time I'll be more careful what i say or write and i would appreciate if people leaving comments could at least leave a return email address so I can respond to them, as you can see i kept my original journal as I wrote it then, I do welcome criticism as I am simple a naive traveller and may not see things necessarily the way locals do,
the comments on this blog opened my eyes as how sensitive people can be, it may too late but my sincere apologies to the Serbians I offended.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Hi, the shanty towns outside belgrade are not where Serbians live, they are gipsy shanty towns...just so you know, Serbia is not as poverty ridden etc as people think, in fact even the poor live quite well from my experience. x

[Ronan]

Belgrade
Belgrade is a dump of city, with the most unfriendly and rude people I have ever encountered. The hotels are shocking and the eateries are worse. Middle aged war veternans working in the hospitality industry doesnt work. Food is industrial and thats a compliment. Everybody is on the make and you need a wheel barrow to pay for anything.

[anonymous]

The people living in the slums may not be ethnic Serbs but are Serbian in the sense that they live in Serbia! In fact most of them were probably born in the country so that entitles them to every bit of consideration as the 'real' Serbs. Does these people's ethnicity take away from the fact they are living in destitution? Or is it ok for them to live like that because they are gypsys?