To my surprise, very few people in the United States know where Serbia is. I generally received one of two physical responses upon telling people of my upcoming travel: first, the look concerned fear because Serbia translated into Syria. Second, the look of utter confusion because Serbia evoked the image of Siberia. So let me clarify for those of you (*cough* Erin O'Connell) that have no idea where it is located before you read this post and paint an entirely inaccurate picture. Serbia is in Eastern Europe, in the former Yugoslavia, south of Hungary and north of Greece. I stayed in Belgrade, Serbia's capital in the northern third of the country. Here's my story.
Thanks to the block plan, I was in Serbia for my Block 7 class, The Art of Political Insurgency. The class was interdisciplinary and combined dance/theater and political science to study how non-violent, political protest is a type of performative art in the context of Serbia, the Balkan Wars and the resulting tensions still present today. When I signed up for this class, I had no perception of what Belgrade would be like both physically and culturally. I knew zero about the Balkan Wars, the NATO bombings, Slobodon Miloševič, or the resulting catastrophes in the 1990s. Eastern Europe seems so distant from the West as proven by peoples' ignorance regarding Serbia's location. Yes, I have heard about Ukraine and Crimea for months, but my knowledge on the issue is too small and the media's emphasis on the Russian-American conflict to establish a strong connection with the place. That is further bolstered by the differences between Russia and the USA emphasized heavily by the media. And those countries weren't even part of Yugoslavia.
After a four hour drive to DIA (normally takes one and a half hours) and nearly 30 hours of flying on April 3rd to Houston, Istanbul and finally Belgrade, I stepped on the bus illuminated by the little cars buzzing around corners honking at anyone who dare slow down and the signs for grocery stores, kiosks and restaurants written in Cyrillic. I was on a bus with mostly strangers: I had been in my class for a week and a half, but I knew very little about my classmates who were mostly junior and senior political science majors. That was the last thing on my mind, for I knew the relationships would undoubtedly form; All I cared about was the prospect of exploring this city as much as possible in the short ten days we would be there.
The next day, we were free to do just that. Two of my classmates, Lauren and Shauna, and I strolled out of Hotel Slavia, stomachs full of a sweet, Kielbasa-like sausage, in the direction of the pedestrian street downtown. My first lesson in Serbia was that the number of Menjačnicas, or currency exchange offices, is absurd. Whether indicated by a simple, painted plaque or a neon sign bouncing from letter to letter, Belgrade has ensured that not one foreigner will have to walk more than 20 feet to exchange currency to dinars. I forget exactly why, but it's has something to do with Serbian workers being paid in the Deutsche Mark, which is used primarily in Germany but also in a couple of the Balkan states, so they need a ton of currency exchange offices. Regardless, over the course of the trip, my classmate inserted the word into all contexts. "Where can we go clubbing other than the Menjačnica?" or "I'm going to punch you in the Menjačnica," and so on. It became the universal word for everything and anything, or just merely to replace a emphatic expletive..jpg)
We walked around without any idea of where we were going or what we might find. Belgrade is like a leopard: it's spotted with marble-smooth buildings with intricate detail among much less aesthetically pleasuring cinder block, 80s deco buildings. One perfect example is in an alley way off the main pedestrian street with a restaurant sheltered by umbrellas. On the left side is an office building made entirely out of rectangular, deep ocean blue tinted windows and steel frames. On the right side, though, is a mustard yellow colored building with detailed window frames and layers of varied embellishment. This trend continues beyond the first two buildings throughout the entire alleyway. To me, that is a subtle way by which this culture that tries to forget and ignore the horrific moments of their past in the 1990s goes about remembering it silently.That too is reflected in the bombed buildings, like the national library, the media news station near a Russian church and the Ministry of Defense building. Rather than create a memorial structure, they have left the buildings in ruins due to a conflict of interests. On one hand, people want a memorial built to remember those who died during the NATO bombings endorsed by the USA and the rest of the West. On the other, people want a memorial to remember the vicious, inhumane decisions by NATO to bomb non-military targets, kill innocent civilians and subsequently increase Miloševič's power. This conflict of interest cannot be properly addressed, though, because of the unwillingness of the general public to address their past.
This is what is so amazing about the performative art group, DAH Teatar, with which my class worked: they force people to confront the alternative histories lingering in the air like a blanket of humidity in a Florida summer through non-violent performative protests. DAH began in Serbia in 1991 as the Balkan Wars raged first as an experimental theater group that then developed into an explanation of the individual in tragic times. For about four hours each day in Serbia, my class attended workshops with their co-founders, Dijana Milošević and Maja Mitić, that introduced the tactics behind expressing emotion and message through the body. Later in the day, they would show or act out past performances in order for us to see how the basics we were taught in the morning developed into thematic, performative art.
In one of their performances we watched, In/Visible City, the actors rode a city bus in Belgrade, dressed in traditional clothing of different Balkan ethnicities, and acted out their respective transitions to show the beauties of Serbia and the former Yugoslavia's ethnic diversity. This contrasts starkly to the overwhelming air of nationalism instilled by the Yugoslav Civil Wars in the late 1980s and the Balkan Wars under Miloševič in the 1990s. This nationalism fueled mass killings and ethnic cleansing throughout the Balkans and particularly in Serbia. They affected Albanians, Bosnisans, Croats, Macedonias, Romas and Serbians alike. Underneath the smiles and celebrations in the performance lay the evils of excessive nationalism omnipresent in Serbian past and present.
I found this richness to in the performance and personality of women's and LGBT rights activist, artist and producer, Zoe Gudovic. On Monday night, some of my class attended the premier of the documentary, Pasarela, which chronicled Zoe's work with Act Women to create a 'fashion show' symbolic of the interconnectedness of social phenomena like violence against women, early marriages, rape within marriages, and social immobility. Zoe's actresses were by no means the stereotypical model, a tactic used to insinuate the universality of the issue addressed. They were bigger with wide hips, and petite with delicate limbs; had dark, small eyes, and cappuccino-colored wide eyes; and had A-cups and DDD-cups. They all for the most part though were victims Zoe found through the Act Women groups around the country that help women to become more self-empowered in a patriarchal society through education, job hunting, etc. Some of the scenes were quite disturbing. In one, a girl who had been forced to marry a man she did not love that constantly raped her, held up a bloody sheet indicative of the forced penetration.
I have massive amounts of respect for Zoe, for her personality is exemplified by her rendition of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" dance at the end of the film despite the general disdain for lesbians as well as the insubordination of women in Serbian culture. For example, in the 1990s, gays were considered criminals and lesbians were considered mentally ill. The former were placed in jail, and the latter in mental institutions. Although these laws are no longer in place, the anti-LGBT sentiments are immensely present in their society. Similar to Russia, gays and lesbians are targeted by the government because they can not reproduce, and thus cannot carry on the national blood line and increase the 'pure' population. Faggot, gay, homo, etc were used by the Serbians and their government to label anti-nationalists of Serbian and other ethnicities during the Balkan Wars. And although most LGBT people sided with the anti-nationalists, that by no means aided their acceptance in the post-Miloševic society. That's why I respect Zoe so much: it's not so much that she is an open lesbian but more so that she has the vivacity, passion and drive of a world leader supported by all 6 billion people.
We also met with Utpor, the political protest group in the 1990s that used humor and dilemma action tactics to kick Miloševic out of power, Women in Black, an international theater group that also uses performative art to address political issues, and Boris Milicevic, the first openly gay Serbian politician who ironically is part of Miloševic's former Socialist Party. They were equally as inspiring, insightful, and innovative as DAH and Zoe, but space unfortunately does not allow for much elaboration on my encounters with them. Because of course, I need to talk about the food.
Our hotel's food was at best sub par. Breakfast and dinner there was free, and breakfast was about all that I could handle. I wanted traditional Serbian food with plenty of meat, wine, and rakija. It took a couple days to find it, but once we hailed a taxi in the pouring rain to Skadarlija, Serbia's Bohemian Corner, the search was beyond over. Skadarlija is essentially Serbia's 'old town' district that is lined with cobblestone and rows of Serbian restaurants. Some had women standing outside shoving menus with washed out pictures of food in our faces, others were unassuming and barely noticeable because of dark patios lit up by heating lamps. We instantly migrated toward the latter knowing that if they didn't need advertisement, they must be top notch.
Six of my classmates and I ended up at Tri Šešira, or Three Hats. At 6 PM, the restaurant was empty. I sat down at the head of the table, and was instantly charmed by the Old World style decor. The walls were a mustard yellow with brown-framed paintings, crocheted curtains in front of the doors, and chocolate floor boards. Our table was draped with a pearl white linen and pairs of wine glasses waiting to be filled with red wine in front of each seat. The waiter welcomed us to his restaurant and asked what we would like to drink. We merely smiled back at him, and waited for the first one to admit we had no idea what to order to drink or to eat. "I will take care of you!" the waiter proclaimed proudly. Two minutes later, he strode out of the kitchen with pivos (beers) and a bottle of domestic Serbian red wine. Before we could even ask a questions about the menu, he told us he would bring a sampling of the appetizer menu. We didn't hesitate primarily because we had no idea what anything on the menu was and secondly because the exchange rate in Serbia is so poor that no matter how much we ordered, we would pay at most 20 US dollars a person for a meal that would cost at least $60 a person in the United States.
Our waiter carried two oval-shaped, wooden plates to our table filled with prosciutto, cured beef, Serbian hush puppies, a pinto bean spread, three different cheeses, a spicy pimento pepper spread, mini corn breads or projas, garlic roasted red peppers, and of course, like in any European country, a basket of assorted fresh breads. Our eyes widened and hands immediately snatched our forks and knives from beside our plates. I smeared the spreads on the spongy, flour dusted white slice, folded the meats on the multi-grain mound, and posited the cheeses on the pepper crusted pieces. I couldn't stop until the bread basket was empty and we could see most of the wood of the platter. The first words spoken in the five minutes since our waiter transported us to the promise land were by my classmate Anya. "Guys, you know the food is truly incredible when you forget you have a glass of wine in front of you."
Although we needed time to digest and soak up some of our appetizers with more wine, we couldn't wait that long. The prospect of sending our taste buds into yet another state of ecstasy (but our stomachs into comas) with the main course proved too enticing to wait more than 15 minutes to order. We all ordered about the same thing. "Give me your best (insert meat name) dish, please!" I unknowingly ordered a thin, chorizo like sausage that came with five links, french fries, two mounds of raw, yellow onion and purple cabbage (Serbians aren't too fond of many other vegetables). The links burst with spicy, chewy fat as my knife slit the casing. Whatever flavor the restaurant intended the cabbage and onions to contribute were completely unnecessary because the richness of the sausage was euphoric enough. A couple french fries here and there never hurt either.
Even though we were set upon arriving on dessert, my stomach already surpassed the point of explosion as soon as the waiter set down my entree. The bill for two appetizers, two bottles of wine, four pivos, and seven entrees totaled to about 12,000 dinars, or $150. Imagine a NYC dinner of that grandeur; it would cost at least $300 without the guarantee of equal quality.Just as an restaurant owner would hope, the lingering odor of the meal curling through my nose carried me back to Tri Šešira the next night. Boy was it worth it.Most nights after dinner (well, not this one because our bellies pleaded for the hotel beds), we'd head over to a kafana (bar), sip on rakija and pivos, then head to a noćni klub (night club) until four in the morning. The 9 AM wake up may scare some people away from such late nights, but I figured we were there for so few days and had little time during the day to explore Belgrade, so why sit in the acultural atmosphere of my hotel room? Plus, Serbians are crazy partiers. When in...Serbia, right?
Before coming to Colorado College, I never would have considered traveling to Serbia or any of the countries in the former Yugoslavia in part because of my sheer ignorance of the region and in part because of the current conflict in the Ukraine involving Russia. I never would thought I would ever spend ten days in Serbia learning how to use performance as a medium for political protest from the country's most prominent theatrical activists. And I never would have experienced how complexly rich this previously war-torn society is. Živeli!
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