BELGRADE IN WINTER

One, relatively clear weekend morning I woke up early enough to stumble down to the train station and check out departures. It felt like a whim, but really I suspect it was the the thrust of a suppressed, manic need to get the hell out of this redneck farmtown, this village with delusions of cityhood, this Podgorica. I bought a ticket to Belgrade and in a few hours was rattling away the rusty tracks out of town.

Montenegro is not a bad place, it does indeed have some of the most scenic beauty of any country I've ever experienced. Sadly, none of that beauty can be found within the limits of this country's capital, Podgorica. And, too, sometimes natural beauty just makes you want to hurl. City is good. I love city. I love bustling throngs of humanity and steelglass monoliths. I love the noise and the chaos and the knowledge that there is something happening everywhere, that there are POSSIBILITIES. Hence, the need for Belgrade.

And I was not disappointed. Belgrade, while certainly no New York or London, has at least a population, tall buildings, and shopping. Belgrade has historical buildings well preserved and museums. But most importantly, Belgrade has a NIGHT LIFE.

Now, of course, coming from Podgorica, a decent nightlife is a breath of deliciously smoky blacklit air. Podgorica boasts about 20 bars, all identical, all ridiculously small and even more ridiculously overstuffed with clots of friends huddled together without hardly room to breathe, doing nothing but just standing there and talking. There is no dancing, no decent music, my god you can't even pick up a GIRL in one of these places! That's not the point of going out in Podgorica, rather you go out to be with friends. Jesus, the absurdity! Enough to make you run away home screaming where at least you can drink yourself silly with decent music, decent alcohol, and room to writhe one's elbows. But enough, you get the idea. You understand how badly a decent nightlife was needed by your humble narrator.

Belgrade offers not only an exceptional variety of clubs and bars, it also boats an underground speakeasy scene of nightclubs that you have to be in the know to find. Surely, a good sign, if the true hipsters had to move underground to enjoy themselves when the known clubs became too popular. Sadly, I did not enjoy any of these, but I have at leat a reason to revisit Belgrade again. Instead, I found a club downtown called, I think, the Academy, a decent little punkrock club which boasted two stages, a danceclub, and a bar and games section within its low, dark, graffitied halls. A welcome and exhilarating shot of culture in my void of a life here in the Balkans.

The train ride was decent as well. A night's sleeping in one of the comfortable sleeping cars the way there, a generally pleasant ride with some English speaking girls on the way back. The only problem I encountered was at the border coming through to Serbia from Montenegro. The border guard seemed rather put out that I didn't have a Serbian visa, despite the fact that visitors don't need a visa for less than three months. What was very odd, though, was that he let me into the country without stamping my passport. He tried to pull it off with as much border-guard asshole bravado as he could muster, but I could sense that the guard was genuinely confused. It brought home the fact that the new separation between the states of Sebia and Montenegro is still quite fresh, and not quite understood - even by the people who live here.

It's a tricky question, why Montenegro separated from Serbia. Most would agree that Montenegro could probably get richer on its own by exploiting its tourist resources, and that the Milosivic years did nothing to improve the image of a country associated with Serbia. However, the reason one most often hears is that Montenegro was always separate from Serbia, it was only allied with Serbia as a product of the creation of Yugoslavia. One is almost willing to accept this, until the Montenegrins start to support their claim by referencing their "different language" (I suppose a few colloquial phrases are different, but no more so than one would find between Texas and Oklahoma - would one call Texan and Oklahoman different languages then?) and their legacy of resistance to outside occupation, unlike the meek acceptance of domination displayed by their Serbian cousins (and even this notion is historically questionable. Did the Turks, for example have trouble conquering the Montenegrins because they were such feisty warriors, or did they rather just not bother going through all those damn mountains looking for them.) The invention of Montenegrin nationalism is a very fascinating study, but perhaps for someone else on another day. Suffice it to say, Montenegro and Serbia are distinct countries now, and there is still some uncertainty what that really means.

Regardless of the border problems, however, I hope to visit Belgrade again soon - hopefully when it's not so snowy! Enjoy images of snowclad Belgrade for now, then. Hopefully many more warmer pictures will follow.


View from the train















This last picture may, I think, show a building that was damaged when the city was bombed in the 90s. A chilling reminder that war and death happened here, and not too long ago. The region has moved ahead from those years remarkably, has modernized and democratized and has made apologies for the insane lapse of racism the region underwent. But there are these moments that let you know, not all the scars are healed. Hopefully, they won't open again.