Ever seen that Yugo film from 1980 called Ko To Tamo Peva, or Whos Singing Over There? Its the archetypal film about a Balkan bus ride. In the film it’s 5 April 1941, one day before the German invasion of Yugoslavia. A motley group of random passengers on a country road deep in the heart of Serbia board a dilapidated bus, headed for Belgrade. Among them is a grouchy World War I veteran, a Germanophile, a strange huntsman armed with a rifle, an athletic hypochondriac and a pair of Gypsy musicians. During the journey, those in the group overcome their differences, bonding through a series of adventures. But the impending Nazi invasion looms heavy, putting a damper on their fun. Along the way, they are joined by a priest and a pair of young newlyweds who are on their way to the seaside for their honeymoon, and are faced with numerous difficulties: a flat tire, a shaky bridge, a farmer whos ploughed over the road, a funeral, two feuding families, and a lost wallet. All these slow the bus down and expose rifts among the travelers. During the early morning of Sunday, 6 April, amid rumours of war, they finally reach Belgrade only to be caught in the middle of the Luftwaffe raid (Operation Strafe). The only surviving passengers are the two Gypsy musicians who sing the films theme song before the end. It was with this film in mind that I embarked on another trip to Belgrade, that wild, loud, brawling, lawless and free city in the Balkans. Some called the bus line the “Gastarbeiter Express” because it hit all the west German Gastarbeiter towns from Berlin to Munich, picking up Yugos and bringing them Serbia. Others called it the “Gypsy Express”, because after hitting all the main Gastarbeiter towns in west Germany, then swinging into Novi Sad and Belgrade, the bus went on to Niš, its final destination, which is famous for being a Gypsy town. And indeed, on the grey and rainy day in August when our bus was poised to depart for Serbia a lot of Roma had shown up, with their asbestos-like luggage. There were Roma women fumbling for their cigarettes in cracked faux leather handbags, little pre-pubescent Roma kids with gold chains around their necks. Upon departure,one guy was already well on his way to inebriation when he stumbled on the bus at ten in the morning with a can of beer sloshing in his hand. It was my eighth trip to Serbia. Or something like that. I had come to Serbia by train, by plane, by bike. But I liked it most of all by bus. It was always an adventure. And so we zoomed all night through Czech Republic, ghostly little Bohemian villages flickered by in the darkness. We hit Prague. Wenceslas Square. A Gypsy in shorts and muscle T-shirt fidgeting on a tram. Nusle Bridge, the Vyšehrad in the distance. Serbian narodna music playing all the while. Soon things started to heat up on the bus. The Roma man in front of us who had boarded the bus with a beer, was drinking slivovitz and now was acting up and yelling for the driver to play various narodna folk tunes which the driver either didn’t have or didn’t want to play, and when the lady in front of him got upset and told him to show a bit of consideration, the Roma man said “Shut your trap, babo,” which sparked the lady’s ire: “I’m not your babo! The only person who can call me babo is my grandchild, you drunk cigo!” “I just love this bus ride,” said my neighbor, smiling. “Always some kind of scene. You can count on it.” As soon as we entered Serbia we began hearing wild things on the radio, songs with a marked oriental touch. The bus raced off through Serbia and before long we had arrived in Novi Sad. Merchants pushed their way on board shoving their way down the aisle selling odiferous sheepskin vests and wooden slivovitz bottles with hagiographic portraits of Ratko Mladić, Milošević and Radovan Karadžić. And then finally we crossed the Sava river into Belgrade, and just as we pulled into the traffic snarled streets the drunk Roma in front of us groaned and threw up massively on the window. “Welcome to Belgrade,” said my neighbor. The post Gypsy Express appeared first on BALKANBEATS.
I don’t know how it is with other journalists from the West, but when it comes to trying to track down and interview folk singers from Serbia this journalist has had no luck. Either they ask for ridiculous sums of money for an interview; or all they spea
Workshop Vorzeichnen für Microblading Powder Brows Erlerne die Technik des Vorzeichnens.Dauer: 3 Stunden Jetzt beraten lassen
zum Artikel gehenSasha and I go to Ziko’s, an old Serbian establishment off of Kantstrasse, just north of Stutti. Ziko’s used to be a popular meeting spot for the Yugo diaspora in the eighties. Back then there were Gypsy musicians and famous sports stars, in particular b
My German cousin Georg and I share a love for Balkan music. With me no one knows quite where this came from. With Georg I am sure it has to do with the fact that he grew up in Dresden, which is something of a gateway to East Europe – and once you are in t
The best way to see the Balkans is by bus, and if you don’t have wheels, it is often the only way. The Balkans is a real bus culture. From Novi Sad to Istanbul and beyond, I must have sampled every bus station of note there is. Bus stations in the Balk