Belgrade's kafana pub culture

[rexarex]

The cafe culture is real in The Balkans. In Albania there would be five cafes side by side and they were all packed. Similar feeling in Serbia although I am sure there are some big differences I'm ignoring. I loved it.

[wannacboatmovie]

In a country where only 60% of people have gainful employment, what else are they meant to do with their time?

[crypt1d]

I spent a good chunk of my youth in the kafana, AMA :)

Joking aside, my feelings about it are mixed. I have fond memories of good laughs and parties with friends, but also can't help but notice a lot of black outs and hangovers the day after :) don't get me wrong though, if you are a tourist, you should definitely experience it.

[quotz]

Business meetings, everyday lunches and dinners, celebrations, crazy weekend nightouts, even weekday evenings. And ofcourse fancy kafanas and local cheap kafanas differ greatly in clientele. Source I am from here.

When the party gets going in a kafana its such a unique experience you cant find anywhere else. People start dancing on the tables and chairs, live music blasting, everyones drunk and loves eachother. People start smashing plates on the floor. Also you tip the gypsy musicians by sticking banknotes on their foreheads haha. I moved out about 10 years ago to the US and I terribly miss this.

[josefrichter]

There’s a Serbian restaurant in NYC’s East Village that’s called Kafana.

[quotz]

The food is very authentic and the rakija is one of the best ive tried. But sadly theres not a big kafana feel to it unless theres a big event.

[biztos]

Looks nice! My best friend had a restaurant in Budapest called Kafana but sadly it closed due mostly to a poor choice of location: it was close to the Serbian church but far from the bar scene.

Any idea what is “Orange Wine?”

https://kafananyc.com/Wine

[beebeepka]

I haven't been to Serbia in like 15 years but it is my experience that this particular behaviour is reserved strictly for the biggest, most obnoxious degenerates our Balkan societies have to offer. Balkan rednecks, if you will.

It's beyond me why this sort of person has to be celebrated even more.

[izzytcp]

I lived in the Balkans for 30 years. Serbs have great culture and kafanas, but they are extremely political. It’s so hard to hold a normal conversation without them mentioning Russia, Yugoslavia, Kosovo/Albanians, NATO la-la-la. Especially in kafanas, I can confidently say that a majority of them still live in the past and can’t move on and it’s really sad.

[racketcon2089]

I've also lived in the balkans and my work involved tourism, I have to say this does sound like a complaint made primarily by germans and americans. I'm not sure if it's because germans and americans are the ones who get an earful of it most often due to heavier national involvement in the yugoslav wars and/or if we take it as a more of a personal affront.

The triumphal liberal cosmopolitanism of the 90s is starting to fade in Europe and the US, what's left looks more and more like cynical window dressing for brutal realpolitik. Nationalism, irredentist attitudes, ethnic cleansing and military conflict seem to be very much back on the menu as of late.

I see all of those as negative developments, but it's maybe time to wonder who's living in the past, them or us.

[OfSanguineFire]

The parent comment is ridiculous hyperbole. I spend several months every year cycling around the Western Balkans, largely for the sake of maintaining my knowledge of the languages and therefore I spend a lot of my time in cafes chatting with whoever’s around. Sure, Serbs sometimes bring up politics like any people would, but it isn’t at all “hard to hold a normal conversation”. I can and have talked with them about everything under the sun.

[otto2]

I don't know where are you from, but imagine your country being under devastating economic sanctions, then bombarded by enormously more powerful armies, then annexing a part of the country, all of that against international law. Make that process displace hundreds of thousands of people. Now when you imagine that, be honest with yourself and see if you would keep conversations at weather and sport.

[paganel]

This comment is so ridiculous and so orientalist, it has all the stereotypes.

And to add something more constructive, the Americans made a big strategic mistake in bombing out Serbia/Yugoslavia, as many of the people there were some of the most Westernised populace East of Dover. I'm from nearby Romania and somehow I got to listen to one of their national radio stations last week (Radio Belgrade 202 I think), and I have to say that the music there was profoundly Westernised, as in R.E.M. songs and the like in the middle of the day, and we're talking about a State-run radio station. We don't have that here in Romania, where half of the pop music (and more) is now local/Romanian.

Of course that dropping uranium enriched bombs on people's heads, as the US has done, might have changed the opinions of some of them.

[quotz]

People love talking about politics and history in the balkans, and its because the balkans have been politically and militarily torn apart hundreds of times in the past 200 years. History and politics are a big topic of discussion. I think its much better to have this than the random americans on youtube who dont know who their president is or why they invaded iraq or any basic fact about their country. Its like they live in this tiny bubble of just going to work and back and not belonging to any community out there besides a costco membership.

[foverzar]

> but they are extremely political. It’s so hard to hold a normal conversation without them mentioning Russia, Yugoslavia, Kosovo/Albanians, NATO la-la-la

> them still live in the past and can’t move on and it’s really sad.

Heh, but that's exactly my experience with Americans and their Cold War mentality, and that very specific idea they have about "fighting tyranny", "bringing democracy" and the whole childish image of good guys (tm) vs bad guys dichotomy. (And yes, also Russia, Nato, Ukraine and yada-yada these days)

I think it's just a matter of contrast.

[nradov]

I've spent a lot of time in Serbia. They're not all obsessed with politics. Most of the younger generation are resolved to the reality that Kosovo is lost forever (and never really mattered much anyway). Unfortunately, the political ruling class is still trying to maintain support from hard-core nationalists and maintain their distance from the EU and NATO; this won't work out well for such a small, poor country.

Some foreigners criticize Americans for being ignorant of history, and they're correct. But ignorance is also a strength in that it allows us to move on without holding grudges. It's not a perfect analogy but to some extent Americans have found it easier to get over the Civil War that ended in 1865 than Serbs have from the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.

[thsksbd]

Well U-238 half life is 4E9 years so there might be some remnant ill feelings for a while.

[mantas]

It's still important in the present. History did not end.

It's much worse when people in West avoid elephant-in-the-room topics because they're politically incorrect or whatever.

[xomodo]

So true. Even small children are having same attitude. This is why many of us had to move abroad.

[EB-Barrington]

Can anyone in Belgrade tell me: is smoking still allowed in Kafana's?

(other than Cafes in Vienna, Serbia was the last refuge of the smoker in Europe)

Edit: just clicked the link, smoking continues. Damn I miss Serbia.

(I once watched a guy at a Kafana struggling to decide whether to eat, or continue smoking. He ended up doing both simultaneously)

[t_tsonev]

Number 1 reason I don't visit Serbia in the winter.

[joenot443]

I was there last year and yes, smoking is still allowed in nearly every restaurant. It was lovely.

[busterarm]

Berlin is still a smokers' paradise.

Authorities have said they're finally going to crack down on smoking in bars this year, but I don't believe it -- 15 years of being illegal hasn't made a dent and 1/3 of men and 1/4 women are smokers.

[rrr_oh_man]

"How can people not agree with my superior views of the world?"

[aa-jv]

The people of HN would benefit greatly by expanding their cultural horizons, visiting Belgrade, enjoying the delights of kafana, and erasing their prejudices about other cultures on the basis of inexperience.

Belgrade is a beautiful city full of rich and rewarding experiences. Its absolutely worth the effort to engage in, as a city. And many HN readers (myself included) enjoy being reminded of the fact that there are great delights to be had well and truly beyond the Western 'entertainment' sphere.

Not everyone needs a billion dollars worth of LED's to have a good time ..