The owner of Svetlana Industries talks about the shady business of running an international music label from Belgrade via London, the art of slipping through borders and how to market upcoming artists from Eastern Europe I first met Toby Brundin…
Apparently, MJ got his own post-mortem tree in Budapest. Every year at the anniversary of his death, Hungarian fans gather for a honorary flashmob dance via Real Housewife of Belgrade This is a labor of love. Photos, letters, and candles…
Serbian teenage drama Tilva Ros by Nikola Lezaic has been nominated for the EFA Discovery Award 2011. The award is presented annually as part of the European Film Awards to a young and upcoming director for a first full-length feature…
We’ve asked Milan Djuric from Shazalakazoo to compile us a YouTube playlist of lesser-known folk music from the Balkans. As expected, the result is a stunning 10 track collection of sheer musical madness, ranging from Macedonian Gypsy bands, through Albanian…
Some obvious tips on what to wear and how to behave in order to blend in with the Serbian masses and explore your tourist destination in peace It’s very easy to spot a tourist/foreigner in Belgrade and in Serbia in…
University of Graz professor who made a list of bizarre Balkan universities has received some bizarre mail in his inbox Couple of weeks a go, in September, we posted a list of bizarre Balkan universities by professor Florian Bieber from…
In this 1986 US travel documentary produced by CBS, Yugoslavia is presented as a socialist paradise where people spend their laid-back, carefree lives amidst breathtaking natural sceneries, with nations and religions coexisting in peaceful harmony. Just five years later, it…
If Goran Bregovic sells the West the stereotypes of the romantic Balkans, Laibach, on the other hand, balkanise the romanticism of stereotypes for the same West. Nazipop icons? Ingenious! The impossible is possible* Laibach are not, of course, Slovenia, just…
Big Mac is alright, but we still prefer the Bosnian cevapi On Tuesday 19 July 2011, after nearly ten years of negotiation, the first McDonald’s opened in Sarajevo. The celebration was lead by the Bosnian Chairman of Presidency Zeljko Komsic…
The Soviet army memorial in Sofia, Bulgaria, recently got a colorful makeover by an unknown graffiti artist, causing the Russian embassy to protest because of an “outrageous act of vandalism”. A nifty gesture to round up the whole postcommunism dilemma,…
McDonald’s in the Balkans: a brief history From a source of national pride to a symbol of US imperialism, the American fast food chain has left its mark in the Balkans
In March...
The Soviet erotic alphabet picture book from 1931 This precious discovery from the vaults of Stalinism sheds new light on the supposedly sexually repressive communist society of the former S...
Yu-Mex: Yugoslav Mexican Music of the 1950’s After the Yugo-Soviet relations broke down in 1948, the Yugoslav authorities were looking for an alternative source of cultural inspiration....
Geeks behind the Iron Curtain: Yugoslav tech-socialism and the imaginary future Kristian Benic’s book digs out an impressive bulk of geeky stories not just about Commodores and Spectrums, but the Socialist Federal Republ...
