15-III-2025.
Fifteenth. Already cursing myself for writing this part eventually on tuesday 18th, because half of it aired out of my head. The events line up so fast that the new ones heap up over the old [ones]. This I will have to rebuild from [my] head, and the platoon meeting on Telegram.
The day of the big protest in Belgrade. The evening before we watched the magnificent doček of the walkers, bicyclists and bikers on Terazije. Blokada.info didn't have their own broadcast yet at the moment, did later, but at least the Reuters had a well positioned camera, across from RKB, next to hotel Moskva, with an incredible zoom, something like that Go's Nikon, which could serve as a telescope as well.
Spent the day watching it all mor or less, what and where happened. It was all so magnificent, merry. We saw, around 13:44, all of Tanja and Milan and Api walking with the others, at least that stretch next to their bloc, there's no better time to take a baby for a stroll than when there's a hundred thousand people on the boulevard... As much as I could see from the shots she made from the terrace before coming down, it was full all the way from Džakarta to Zeleni venac... Around 15:10 the girls and Api went up into the apartment, while Milan proceeded to walk to town with the others.
Around 14:00 there was a live feed from blokada.info, but the first hour it was just, now well known, anchor girls chatting among themselves, recounting the preceding protests and events from them, and then didn't go with the main feed because the students announced they'll move the main event from the plateau at the Parliament, i.e. between it and Ćacilend, as the so-called 'students 2.0' camp in the Pioneers park across is now called. Seems they have one real student, that Pavlović shill, the straightayer from medicine, and two guys with empty indekses, the rest are bludgeoners, hired extras, SNS politicians and the known terrorists from the disbanded JSO (special operations military unit from nineties), the same one who killed Đinđić 22 years ago.
(parliament is to the left; first row is the cops, then 3m to the right th 63rd; Ćacilend is in the park across, surrounded by two rows of tightly packed old tractors, double fence with some DukeNuke-like glop smeared on top, then a double row of cops...)
(Ćacilend from a drone; to the right are the Old Court and New Court, now serving as seats of the city government and state Presidency)
The relocation took a while, there were so many people that several kilometers of downtown streets were full of people. AJS (archive of public gatherings) that there were 300000 people on Slavija alone, which is about a quarter of the space. The blokada.info couldn't connect their roaming reporters because their mobile camera seems to rely on the public wifi or mobile network, which was incapable of handling so many people. They found, during the feed, that the mobile operators registered 1,6 million connections on Slavija. Though, that may mean that many phones were registered multiple times, while walking the edges of the perimeter, connecting to one tower and then 100m later to another, which then counts as two... Regardless, the numbers are huge. We found KTV's feed and watched that. It dawned on me that our connection is fast enough to watch both simultaneously, so we'd watch one and listen to the other. The students had more shots from drones and tall buildings, and passed the information from social networks as they arrived, while the KTV guys walked the streets and talked with people. Šarović himself didn't appear onscreen until the very end, because he became an obstacle to the feed itself, he's too famous and everyone wants to have a picture with him.
When the sound cannon was fired at 19:11, the students had a feed from Slavija, this time from the ground, some of it, while KTV was by the Parliament. The plateau was practically empty, the student orderlies kept a cordon at left and right of it, while the 63rd parachute brigade (veterans) were lined up at the Parliament, facing Ćacilend. What we gathered from various pieces was that a salvo of provocations started from Ćacilend, they threw (plastic) water bottles and stones to the few around them, while the 63rd prevented them from causing worse shit. Suddenly the cordons vanished, the yellow vests (called 'markers' this time, fuck it [if I know] why) were taken off. Eventually the third guy coming from the boulevard managed to explain that the students are retreating, they announced it's over (two hours short of scheduled), no more orderlies.
Then the first shots of the sound cannon in action emerged. Fuck, are these guys insane?
By 21:58 Lena passed the first video from N1 television's site, where the effect of that on the mass somewhere on the plateau (nope, Kralja Milana, some 200m southeast), the clunker tractors around Ćacilend can be seen in the background. By then Milan came back, said „in the middle of the 15 minutes' silence the mass suddenly started running away, nobody knew what was going on. Ths moment from the shot was really eerie in reality. Silence and then panic caused by nothing“. The blokada.info had already shot its feed by then, and KTV was rambling the streets looking for Šarović (whom they did find, and again many wanted to be photographed with him). „Guess I broke some record“.
By 23:00 we already knew a lot about sound cannons. Dačić (minister of police - the internal affairs must have been banned) claims there was no cannon, and what looked like some strange instrument that a cop on a terrace was holding is a rifle to jam or take down drones. Well it does resemble a violin box more than [it does] a speaker.
Sixteenth. Did the last week's shots in the morning. There weren't too many of them, except the chairs reupholstering session, looks really well. The couple of shots where a handful of cops were running into a sidestreet just a few seconds before the cannon's hit there was a veritable refute, one of the bikers appeared and said it was them, they were the second line of orderlies in case of a fight, and they were just called to duty, some provocateur was in action a block away.
By the evening Lena called on Telegram, a cooking show, she got a ready fried chicken and cooked an additional mushroom sauce. She held Tanja on her hip while finely slicing the thigh, and she's quite impatient, can't wait to get it, eats like a storm. The nanny says that it happened several times already that she ate all of it and complained when there wasn't any left. While she was finishing the sauce, she lowered her down on the floor, and in mere half a minute she crawled to the bathroom as she saw Milan walk that way. She put her back on her mat, and this time she crawled to her feet just as fast. When she was almost finished cooking, Nina called so we switched to that talk. Another cooking show, pancakes this time. Linda ate four with nutella (and whipped cream and the wee curlicues) and two more empties later. Sanda didn't lag far behind. She brought Violet into the frame just to see how big she grew... up to her eyebrows. Fuck how much she grow in just a year. Raja we didn't see, but she said he's already taller than her. How they grow, real miracle.
Then I took a nap, can do in the evening as well, and woke up just before Go called. Had a long chat with them as well. Stanley's dad regained some appetite, with an extra kink of claiming to be a vegetarian now. Bad news, they shook him off for medicaid, good news, he's got medicare, or the other way around. Regardless, he's now financed for a stay in the rehab and then nursing home, guess he'll transfer him to those Romanians when this is finished. Says the old man is definitely not quite together with reality, sort of doesn't quite get it what's going on and expects things to return to what they were as soon as he gets out. And he seems to be not quite able to play the piano, fingers disobey, seems he had a stroke along the way.
At least we saw both Neša and Anita, in good editions of them. And then we remembered it was past midnight and it was already seventeenth, so we congratulated each other the 46th wedding anniversary and enjoyed the good apricot of 2019.
Seventeenth. Read the news/reactions on saturday, whole morning. The čorba and squash mussaka for lunch, ay neervana (stress on the middle [syllable] is south-moravian, ergo unliterary, taught myself to pronounce it properly). Took a nap after lunch and then got on the bike to go pay the Yeptel bill, because on friday when she went to pay the rest I forgot to print that one - they are somehow updick, everyone else sends envelopes, they alone send pdf in email. Before this year I'd take it on a thumbdrive to gugolj in the bedroom to print it, then brought the printer here and hooked it into zmajček. We thought the lady takes payments until four, but nope, only half four, I was bare three minutes late. Froze myself like a butt, and not the feet (despite just clogs without socks), the upper body. The softshell jacket is a protection, but I didn't zipper up the pockets, so had some draft.
Now in detelina someone asked for „that thing against freezing the apricots“. I asked what, such a thing exist? Someone third injects „yes, stoke the fire“. Najka said „this [guy] was the twentieth in last two hours asking for that“.
Watching Šarović's walk through Ćacilend... what a pigpen, in Pioneers' park at that, in front of the old and new court, across from the Parliament. The exact image of Vučić's propaganda, so are his [guys], so is he. The pretend students couldn't have been fully sane when agreeing to come, fuck the hundred euros diurn, but they surely left with a serious darkening of minds. This morning the vicepresident of Obrenovac municipality comes to work and gets at least ten eggs, on his head and jacket, until reaching the building. He alone, others nothing... because among the few who played students in Ćacilend, he was the only one who showed up for work this morning.
By evening it turned out there'll be a protest in Njujork exactly from their head of municipality staff, who was the guy who robbed Šarović of his phone my the toppled tractor at Ćacilend, and whom cops somehow avoided asking for an ID...
Unrelated to anything... it crossed (!) my mind to see what exactly is that gosh in english, from „awmagosh“. And it says everywhere that it's an euphemism for god. Um... it must be some very bad word, seeing how it requires an euphemism to replace it.
Eighteenth, called Joška to offer the van to the students, when and if needed for anything. Said he'll connect me to whomever necessary (and nobody called me later, maybe not needed). We talked mostly about photography, says he's diving into chemistry, there's materiel available, and now that his mother in law as died they two are alone in that big house. The problem with paper and developers available is that they are there, but by the time you use up one batch, you can't buy the same. Now both suppliers have something else. So he had to get a scanner and do that from negative straight to pixels. There's too much old paper anyway, even big formats, but aged a decade or three, they lit by themselves, you put a drop of developer on it and it blackens right there.
Nineteenth. Reading the news whole morning, and how in three light steps they moved from „we don't have a sound cannon“ to the video where Dačić demonstrated that cannon for the reporters of Kurir and Pink (which may have been today or four years ago). Also another video where he, rather under gas (i.e. drunk), complains how he suffers from all the difficulties. He's visibly shabby, aged and deflated, not the singing piglet of dozen years ago. In Elemir they announce a citizens' assembly, just like they do on Palilula. In Niš, the SNS prepares an assembly of their own, the prime minister (of Serbia in resignation), Brbana and one more... and a rich doček is readied, bring your whistles, vuvuzelas, drums and signs. Eggs weren't explicitly mentioned.
Went shopping before lunch - first to the local community [center] to pay that Yeptel bill, which I failed to [do] foreyester, then to Lidl to buy a few things, then to Mere for the rest. Leaving the latter, she noticed my rear right tyre was flat. Someone came by with an electric compressor, which I plugged in and inflated the tyre in two minutes. Went home, lunched (rag[o]u[t] čorba and squash mussaka, third day), and then I got out to check the tyre... There the neighbor spotted me, and I came to her for a chat and to order 500kg of pears for the fall. She asked about our grandchildren, her Vesna is a few weeks younger than Violet, said „she's up to her mom's ears, and Raja is even taller than her“. Time files.
I drove the Joda to Optima, talked with Dule, Sanja said she saw us at Mere... Sorry, wouldn't recognize you anywhere except by this desk, but then would notice you anywhere :). Turns our that the only other Joda of the same color in town (there's no third) belongs to her sister (by something?). Small town...
The cabbie got confused with the oblique instructions and waited for me on the wrong side of the street... which led to a long chat with him. A lot depends on who is at the mike in his HQ, he said. He worked with a couple of unions previously, where the dispatchers were old cabbies, it was a real song, they knew all the tricks and pitfalls and exactly knew what problems to avoid. And now when there's a pretty sweet talking girlie, god remove, a catastrawf (can't properly translate the local length of the last syllable, something like first o in Buoston, as pronounced by natives). Or when he used to work in the cattle fodder production plant, to which I said „the place where the CEO is the taster?“ - „How do you know that?“. Ehh... So, he went on, when the commercialists were in-house guys who knew the wares and the job, it went fine, and then the company got bought by someone who immediately hired ten newbies, who had no clue but got office cars and phones, and neither production nor sales increased. Know nothings. And within these 4km he also reminisced of the times of ninetyone, when there were all those small wholesale outfits, two guys, phone, desk and half a secretary, and there was some amount of sugar, few tons, which they sold to someone, who sold it to the next guy and so on, and within two months they bought that sugar back in their warehouse, which never left, only the paperwork moved. They all made commerce and pretended to have made money on it...
When I retold it upon return, she said „it's as if you went to buy tomatoes, half an hour away and you have half an hour to recount what you heard“.
majstor Mile then called, to ask whether the house is still on sale. It isn't, and isn't in any sellable shape, but if anyone is crazy enough to put 50000€ on the table, it's sold.
In the evening Lena called, dived into work the day before, during our regular time slot, so then now. Tanja really loves to stand now, in her lap is the best place, obviously likes to. And then at 19:30 the outside noise began. Whistles, vuvuzelas, parked car horns... She let Api on the wee terrace, scheduled with the neighbor of two floors below to have hers out too, they love to bark news to each other and contribute to the noise.
Twonythird. Not one nap after lunch this week, my biorhythm simply got inside out, I'm not rising early but ruther do a chunk until nine, ten, or, as I did today, until half eleven. A gambler's* soup with dumplings and warmed up yesterday's pizza before we drive to see Tanja. Lena sent a video of her having a bath in the newly bought tub, which they put in the shower cabin, and let her discover the miracles of water splashing. Nice hearty laugh.
These days it takes me until lunch, and even after it, to keep up with the news in Danas („Today“), mostly no time to get to the weekly Radar (nee Nin). By half one I finally get to the local portals, and what do I see... Rade Šajtinac died. We weren't closely acquanited, but we'd talk at some length each time we met, he somehow memorized me and would had some interesting insight into the reality to convey to me almost each time. I remember the one when we sat and watched the rehearsal for the show for my prom night. Sheer genius.
The Joda drove smoothly, front wheels didn't vibrate. They'd usually stop that somewhere around Perlez, still better like this. True, the road was somewhat congested, until Ečka I watched the back of some slowpoke at 40km/h. As a consolation, it was even worse on the way back, I followed another one since the exit from the highway until Čenta, and this one drove around 60 but applied brakes thre times a minute. Insecure driver, never liked driving behind one such, at least this one was slow. Overtaking was not possible, the weather was nice and the Belgraders (and BelgrAders**) come this way. Both Stara dunja („Old quince“) and Trofej („Trophy“) were chock full.
This also meant I parked easily, at my spot. Tanja was in a really good mood and insisted on standing more and more, we tired her well again. She even took a nap some three quarters of an hour while we were there, which we used to go down for a smoke break, the new elevator is really good. Lena played some jazz from yootyoob on the television set, and it seems they were all trying hard to get into the experience of what they play and to look cool, but the music was so bland, not much of a melody, a hodgepodge of pieces thrown together... muzak for more expensive elevators. Then I noticed that in one of the bands the bassist was a leftie, and the question arose of the existence of left handed guitars. I claimed that shouldn't be a problem, just reverse the strings. To which Milan took me to his room and showed me on both the electric guitar and the akustara that they aren't symmetrical. On the electric there's no rivet to hook the strap to on the other side, and the buttons and the lever would be above the strings instead of below. And on the akustara the keel is also at an angle, so the thicker strings are a tad longer, which they have to be, this can't be ironed out by tension, the frets are laid out so that, if the strings were reversed, anyone with anywhere near decent hearing would notice that something is untuned. There you go, and I was convinced that it was possible. I'm still that much of a mathematician, that I respect a proof.
Of course, I knitted some fifty shots, mostly good [ones]. I'm not investing much effort anymore in making really nice or really good phots, it comes from intuition, the hand is faster than the head.
In the evening we spoke with Go. Anita made another dozen of faces, but I managed to catch a couple of normal shots. Neša we saw briefly, didn't exactly run away, just didn't stay in the frame much. He also grew, and keeps fulfilling what I said when he was three - this is how Bowie wanted to look, but failed to.
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* 'kocka' is a cube, but also a die; 'kockar' is a gambler. The soup from a (pre-cooked and dried) cube, one bought and one homemade is, thus, „gambler's“.
** reference to an old TV series, in the southern Moravan accent, denotes the fresh denizens of Belgrade, who go out of town for a sunday lunch with their origins
Mentions: Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Api, čorba, detelina, doček, Džakarta, Gorana Sredljević (Go), gugolj, homemade, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Joška Apro, KTV, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor Mile, Milan Nastić, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Njujork, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Stanley Berger, Tanja Nastić, Violet, zmajček, in serbian
17-III-2025 - 5-VII-2026