B92 Blog

"Before the 1990s, we were like drunk Americans!" a friend proclaimed in a Sombor cafe to me as he expounded on the history of the area. "We had good schools, free apartments, cars, we could travel anywhere we wanted ... even the cleaning women had $10,000 a month!"

It's a theme I've heard before many times from my husband's lips, although for him the time was the 1970s that were truly golden in Yugoslavia (before he grew up and had to try to find a job in the 1980s that interested him remotely.) He can speak for hours quite poetically about the free apartments, free healthcare, traveling anywhere, etc. My former-Yugoslav friends of that era overall seem to have had far more blissful childhoods than anyone I ever met in the US.

Growing up in the US in the 1970s and 1980s pretty much sucked. Our family life and the economy started getting significantly better just about at the same time Yugoslavia fell apart and your lives went into the toilet for awhile.

According to The Economist's 2008 World Rankings Book, the average Serb (man, woman, and child) smokes 5.8 cigs per day, ranking them as the Top 9 Most Smoking Countries on Earth.  That's a lot of smoking.

Greece comes in at #1 with 8.4 cigs per day; Macedonia is #2 at 7.1 cigs per day, Russia is #3 at 6.8, and Slovenia kicks Serbian smoker ass at #5 with 6.2 cigs per day.  Bosnia is below at #13 (5.2 per day) and Croatia is not ranked on the list.  Yet oddly, Croatia has by far the highest cancer deaths rate of the region at 167 deaths per 100,000 population.  (Serbia spends a far higher percent of the GDP on public healthcare, so that may make the difference.)

OK, one might be tempted to make jokes about the confluence of the Orthodox Church and smoking, or the whole Slavic + Balkans and smoking thing.

Actually because I'm American and as everyone knows, Americans are all about money, I will say that I'm awfully tempted to do the math.  That is ~8 million Serbs times 5.

As the political situation and the economy have eased in the past few years, a trickle of ex-patriots (Serb citizens who moved abroad) have begun to return. I know personally of three families in my circle alone and have received emails from several other returning Serb expats who read this blog. 

I suspect the government would like to see the diaspora reversed even more.  More expat retirees coming home to spend their last years and life savings living well in a land that's pretty cheap (as long as you stay out of downtown Belgrade.)   Plus, more young workers with college degrees and experience in the Western business world who'll help lure more multinational companies to do business in Serbia.   

If you are a former Serb citizen (or Yugoslav from the Serb area), what in your mind would make return-worthy conditions?  Why and when will you move home again?

If you are someone who lived abroad and already returned, what made you come back? 

As a foreigner who lives in Serb

Last week I mentioned here in passing that I liked architecture in Serbia.  A commenter replied, "Architecture? Which architecture? Many years ago famous architect Le Corbusier said about Belgrade that it is the ugliest city built on one of the most beautiful locations". 

This is just one of many times I've heard or read Belgrade-based people use the words Belgrade and Serbia interchangably -- as though they are two words that mean the exact same thing. For example, the Facebook Group Expats in Serbia proclaims, "Let's gather and relish the joys of Beograd together." 

I cannot begin to express how annoying this constant, knee-jerk, unthinking Belgrade=Serbia is for people living outside of Belgrade!  We a

Per our discussion on Serbs in Diaspora that sprang out of comments in my last blog post, I just phoned Ivana Cerovic, who is the Conference Organizer at America's Serbian Unity Congress, for details about the upcoming conference.   In case you're interested, here's what I discovered:

* the 17th annual conference is being held in downtown San Francisco Oct 26-28 (most activities are on Saturday the 27th.)  You can register online.

* Anywhere from 200-500 US-based Serbs will attend.  I'll be there part of the time and blog some notes for B92 of course.  Yes, qualified bloggers can get a press pass! There are

I'm not a Serb myself, just married to one.  So I only understood about 10% of the jokes on these sites... but they seemed fairly funny to me. I showed them to my step-children who laughed hard but wouldn't explain anything, "You have to be a Serb to understand."  Well, ok, you guys are Serbs, so maybe you'll understand.  Are these funny or not?  And are there any better funny sites about being a Serb?  Because, you know, sometimes we just all need a laugh.

#1.  You Know You're Serbian If...  (Note: There's also a Facebook Group dedicated to this list.)

#2.  Uncyclopedia entry about Serbia (this is Wikipedia for people who don't take the facts all that seriously.)   

I  had one the absolute happiest times of my life these past two months in Serbia... the air, the greenmarket, the architecture, the friendly and social people, the air of relaxation (after routine 80 hour work weeks in the US).  Serbia is a wonderful place.  I just wish it was happier for its citizens.

According to a 2004 study (ok it's dated and Serbia has come a long way since 2004) of global happiness, Mexicans were the second happiest nation on the planet.  Surveyed citizens said they were (a) happy and (b) satisfied with the way their lives were going.  America was #15 on the list, Slovenia was #38, Croatia was #42 and Serbia slunk in at #61.  Better than Zimbabwe, but hardly impressive.

If you don't know much about Mexico, you may be surprised to find it has more in common with Serbia than you think.  People don't have much money (except for the uber-rich), there's been quite a bit o

I've been thinking a lot about citizenship recently both because of Serbia's political debate about new citizenship laws, and also because many B92 readers have emailed me letters (thank you!) often mentioning they themselves are citizens of multiple countries.   Many members of my extended family  including my Father, also have multiple citizenships.  I'm not qualified to comment on political debate, but I can extend three practical considerations:

#1. Useful papers vs heartfelt allegiance

I've noticed as people start collecting citizenships, the importance and meaning of each citizenship often lessens in their hearts.  A citizenship which in essence should mean what country you consider yourself to be on the "team" of (sort of like basketball teams, only in this case countries), instead becomes a matter of convenience.  A matter of useful papers.  For example, my Father uses his Irish citizenship pretty much soley for the purpose of getting in shorter, quicker lines

On Sunday night, a couple of local friends stopped by our little house in Sombor, Serbia with their 13 year old daughter.   After half an hour of polite attention, she began to slump in her chair, bored, bored, bored with all the grownups chatter.  "Rosemary, I bet she would like to play on the Internet.  Show her your computer," my husband ordered.  Armed with a plateful of chocolate cookies, I led her into my home office to go online.  

She honestly had no idea what to do online (something unimaginable in a 13 year old US girl but typical of her peers here I've found).  So I showed her B92, Belgrade 2.0 and Krstarica which are about the only Serb language sites I know.  After 20 minutes or so she came out and listlessly joined us again.  The Internet, it appears, was awfully boring for a fashionable Serb 13 year old.  

Challenged, I got up again and this time went straight to YouTube and typed "Serbia" into the search box.  Surely there had to be something of interest.  Well,

This is my first post to B92 (thanks for inviting me Dejan!) and I feel rather self conscious about it. Which proves to be inspirational because that is the way I think most Serbs feel about America. According to most of my Serb acquaintances, America as a country hates Serbia. America is a big mean bully, glittering with gold, nuclear weapons, and Hollywood celebrities, that personally hates Serbs and wants to cause problems for them.

When I married my Serb husband, none of his family and friends from Serbia came to the wedding in the US even when we offered to pay for all travel. People from many other countries, however, happily accepted. When my company in the US hired several Serb-based workers, some refused to come on paid trips to the home office in the US. Others came after much persuading but were terrified when getting off the plane that Americans would be mean to them personally.

The truth is different.

At most, 2% of Americans know what and where Serbia is. Some o