Conversation is one of the joys of the Belgrade Coffee Culture. One of the things people are talking about is the elections that may or may not happen in October. Politics are never far from the surface in Belgrade. While Belgrade does not represent Serbia, anti-government feeling and arguments dominate here, anti-government sentiment is spreading since a canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad killing sixteen. The station was to serve a new Chinese financed high speed train. Bad construction, kickbacks, corruption and Chinese influence spice up the conversation. It looks like the station will never reopen meaning that to go to Novi Sad you stop at a suburb and take the bus or a taxi in. Our friend Duki met us in a taxi. President Vucic had scheduled a rally in Novi Sad, presumably to announce new elections on the day after we left. He canceled it when it looked like demonstrations would shut the city down. He dissolved parliament and called elections for October 25 without the rally.
Metro Belgrade has gone from 1.1 million to 1.7 million, creating housing shortages. Many Russians have come here to escape the draft and shelter their money. Talking in the cafes and conversation with cabbies some estimate up to 300,000 Russians, although official figures are a 10th of that. There are also up to 20,000 Ukrainians in Belgrade for the same reason. Russian coffee shops and restaurants are springing up. Many Serbs side with Putin so they do not really like the anti-Putin Russians and Ukrainians in Belgrade. (Don’t forget that a quarter century ago NATO bombed Belgrade.)
Belgrade is growing with Chinese and Russian money but also money from the Persian Gulf. Belgrade Waterfront, on the Sava River, is a large high-rise development with offices, shops, hotels and housing. There is also underground parking but reports say many of the garages are flooded because of the Sava River water table. Belgrade’s new central rail station that serves the Chinese built high speed rail is here (the rolling stock in German.)
There was also an attempt to infuse Trump money into Belgrade. The ministry of defense was bombed by NATO 27 years ago. The wreckage still sits in the middle of Belgrade, along Embassy row, as reminder to Serbs. Serbs have a unique quality of emphasizing and even celebrating their defeats. Most other cities would have rebuilt the bombed building by not but it still stands as a reminder. Jered Kushner and Donald Trump wanted to fix that and cut a deal to tear down the derelict ministry and build a new Trump Tower with hotel, office and living quarters as well as a memorial to those killed in the NATO bombing. People didn’t take well to that proposal so they took to the streets. There were indictments of officials in the heritage ministry and earlier this year Kushner’s organization withdrew. So much to talk about, so much coffee to consume.
A modern mall sits at the end of Knez Mihailova near Kalamagdon, where the Sava meets the Danube. Its appearance does not fit well with the traditional buildings of the old town. Residents say it is a parking garage attached to a mall. The garage is the most expensive in Belgrade, is massive and is the cause of much conversation.
Further out, New Belgrade, built under Tito, is expanding, and the older parts of New Belgrade have become tourist attractions. “Come see brutalist architecture and Socialist Realism on this unique tour.” Some of the new developments further out seem well planned. Housing blocks are integrated with office space, shops, restaurants, bars, playgrounds, clinics, and in one complex, a hospital. One of our friends, Maja, lives in one of these and loves it. She has her groceries, local café, and other things within easy walking distance.
Maja took us to her neighborhood restaurant after we visited her radio station. We first visited the station in 1997. Maja was unique in that she never asked for money, no grants, she just wanted training. And while Radio Naxi was not one of the stations on our list to support, I always included her staff in training. In 2009 when we were trying to help stations become commercially viable, we used Radio Naxi as the hub to develop a Radio Advertising Bureau. Today Naxi has three on air channels in Belgrade, a web portal with more streaming radio stations, and a network where they provide programming to regional stations and share revenue. They provide the music mix, local stations the DJs with local patter, there is national news on the hour, local stations provide news on the half hour. Several of the stations we worked with throughout the years are Naxi affiliates. Naxi caused a stir when we lived here because they installed webcams in key choke points and had better traffic reports than the authorities. That makes the “go to” station for drivers. The competition complained that they had leased the best camera locations and they could not compete. Almost every cab we rode in had Naxi on the radio. The webcams serve a second purpose because they coincidently are placed where demonstrations are most likely to occur. News you can use.
Finally, there is the media situation itself. There is consolidation and some of the local radio stations are going dark. Local stations and newspapers are being replaced by web portals but there is concern in Serbia, as in the United States, that news coverage is suffering. This is a global problem. There are also regulatory problems unique to Serbia. For instance licenses are expiring and there is no assurance of a renewal process which makes future planning and securing financing difficult if not impossible. I have seen this technique used in other countries to destabilize independent media outlets. Several colleagues told me that the situation for independent media is Serbia is as bad as it was under Slobodan Milosovic, “except there is no war.” But war’s reminder still sits in central Belgrade.
