Rollercoaster – are we getting close to the top?

Living in Serbia does remind me of rollercoaster ride. If you feel you are going up be certain that you are heading for hair-raising drop at some point of time.
This time occasion is Serbian presidential elections. Runoff between Boris Tadić and Tomislav Nikolić will be held on 3rd Feb 2008.

Most likely outcome is:

Irrespectively of the election result, it appears that Serbia is turning away from accession to EU. This change will be more dramatic if Radical Tomislav Nikolić is elected for president. Kosovo Declaration of independence will follow elections shortly. Serbian government will activate agreed secret plan that has been prepared for this occasion (from diplomatic and legal activity, to sending troops to Serbian held parts of Kosovo). Most of the EU countries will recognize Kosovo independence. Serbian prime minister will insist on steps that will be too much for Tadić’s Democratic Party .
What happened in last 7 years is that Serbia become much more dependent on investment and funding from outside. Exchange rate will be the first indicator to watch. Central bank will intervene with foreign reserves but it would be difficult to offset annual investment and loans flow of 3.5 bn USD that pushed demand for local currency. Interest rates will follow and this will lead to higher borrower delinquency. New investments will be first temporarily then indefinitely put on hold.

With Radical president and government Serbia will become EU pariah once again. In times of conflict with outside enemy rulers tend to get even more support so the Radicals might get another turn. Milošević managed 11 years in office.

So it could be year 2018. All Serbia’s neighbors are in EU and NATO. Hundreds of thousands left Serbia for greener pastures.

Friend of mine suggested that history accelerates. This could compress the Kosovo crisis in couple of years perhaps?

I don’t think I want to give it another go if Radicals run government in Serbia. In my case this will be a trigger to apply for Canadian permanent residence. We are expecting 3rd and it makes sense to spend here few more years but, as it looks at the moment , this might not be an end of the jouney…

Pro-EU government at last

I spoke to soon - coalition agreement between “democratic” or “pro-European” parties was reached yesterday (Friday) virtually in last possible moment as the government has to be elected by Tuesday, 15th May midnight as it takes about 2 days to call the Parliament session and elect the government. I must admit this comes as great relief as I don't believe either government with Radicals or new elections would be desirable outcome.

Belgrade stock exchange had about 16% of its value wiped beginning of this week at peek of the crisis (about 1 bn EUR) and virtually all of it has been regained on Friday morning before official news was floated about coalition agreement. It will be interesting to see who made money on this move when information about buyers (normally 3 days after the trade) gets published.

Same old story in the East

"Same old story in the East, no news in the West" were the words of song written by Bora Đorđević in socialist times. I started this blog day before Serbian Parliamentary Elections. Elections were finished long time ago but they, so far, failed to produce government. It looks unlikely that they will produce coalition of so called “democratic” or “pro-European” parties. Alternatives are government with Serbian Radical Party or new elections. If no government is formed by 15^th May new elections must be called within 60 days.

Key question is whether there is enough support (more than 50%) in Serbian electorate for path that leads to EU. This path assumes reforming state security services and engaging in process of arresting remaining International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia fugitives and accepting fate of Kosovo as determined by UN. Both of those issues create fertile ground for nationalists and previous elections did not give clear mandate for either option (EU or nationalist).

Yesterday some people watched directly televised session of the Parliament. It was too much for me, I watched few of those events since 14th Congress of Communist League of Yugoslavia in January 1990 to sessions of Bosnian parliament in 1992 that effectively foretold of coming calamity. Democracy in Balkans failed too often in producing reasonable governments. Elected majority in Bosnia effectively lead country to war. It could be argued that same happened in Croatia and Serbia. It doesn’t look likely that Bosnia will get government any time soon that will consist of non-nationalist parties but I hoped Serbia would escape this with last elections – this is still up in the air but I’m less of an optimist now.

“May you live in interesting times “– says misquoted Chinese curse. I had my share but it looks like more is coming ...

Finally here

Before we left Auckland for Belgrade, I promised to myself that I will not get irritated with anything we encounter, because things are as they are and I'm not making a living from complaining about new host country. This principle got tested in last 2 weeks with our stuff finally arriving. It took us 11 days to get container through the customs and there are few points to be made about moving to country with practices somewhat incompatible with what you got used to in ex-British colony:

Always use shipping company from your destination country, they know local rules and this is what counts.

Even though you would like to buy peace of mind with door-to-door service it is worthwhile finding out more about transport and regulations - this way you could cut your cost to half, save few weeks of shipping time and bit of your nerves

Make itemised list of valuables in form acceptable to customs officials of your destination country. Removals company will not do this for you.

Here is why:

I found that shipping cost of a container from New Zealand would be roughly half of what we paid for full service.

When container arrived it was in my name rather than in Jelena’s. This was a problem since Jelena had authorisation from Serbian consulate in Sydney to import goods without customs duties as she was working in foreign country for more than 3 years. Change of ownership of a cargo once it arrives was a loophole promptly closed by Serbian officials in order to curb dubious practices of the past.

Customs Department under Milosevic regime was state within state and was generating hefty foreign exchange for the government and officials. Funny enough, I found brochure in Customs office with independent review of their services based on interviews with importers and it was, in general, stating that importers perceived that there was less corruption in the service. However in 60% of cases some form of bribe is used (!) – It was impressive to see that government department would print something like this at their own cost.

Next issue was that MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) used train rather than truck to transport container from Thessaloniki (Greece). If goods are transported with the truck, they get cleared at the border and container can proceed directly to its final destination. True, train is cheaper, but in case of transport of personal effects to Serbia you will be liable from unloading of container, loading to truck that takes stuff to Customs depot, unloading truck and storage of your goods. This, apart from money, takes some time. I’m sure this is the case with all ex-Yu countries are the same with exception of, maybe Slovenia now in EU.

To make it more fun container also arrived to “Terminal for legal entities” rather than “Terminal for physical entities" (individuals). To allow Customs to proceed with the procedure this required approval from managers of both departments.

We also required invoice for the shipping. Another problem – cost of shipping was higher than declared value of the goods. My freight forwarder (špediter in Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian) said that this would confuse customs officials. BTW freight forwarder is a person that you absolutely need and that your door to door service will not cover. This is a guy that navigates dodgy bureaucracy for you.

As my brother said it is door to door but you must pull your door bit closer. I heard about the case when they dropped stuff in front of apartment building door arguing that it did not state which door.

And finally, paintings and books. We imported Jelena’s paintings to NZ from Serbia few years ago. This required extensive paperwork from Ministry of Culture. You would assume that presenting same paperwork would do the trick? Of course not, we needed original export customs declaration from few years ago...

Serbia is quite regulated place and, on face of it, this leaves little manoeuvring space. In practice this is bit different – nothing is possible, but, on other hand, everything is possible.

Container arrived to Belgrade on Monday, 9^th April – which was of course Easter. This was 12 days later than scheduled (MSC). We finally got our stuff from Port of Belgrade on 20^th April.

Movers were something else. We live on third floor of building built in 1936 (it looks like there was a huge building boom in period 1932-1939). There is no lift in the building and each floor is about 4 meters high + 2 meters of stairs on the entry. This meant moving 148 items weighing 5 tons in total 14 meters up by hand. We got 2 youngsters and after Maori boys that handled moving in NZ I admit I was bit sceptical. Half way through they were helped by another guy, who is I found, high school teacher supplementing his income with bit of work on the side (7 NZD an hour but it could be as low as 4 NZD an hour for this kind of job). I also found that truck driver has degree in Mechanical Engineering. Clearly there is some human capital to be released here.

Finally – we are quite happy with our new apartment. We are 400 meters from Marina’s primary school and Iva’s daycare, 200 meters from Jelena’s sister, 1200 meters from Jelena’s work, 400 from fresh produce market, 800 m from Kalemegdan 400 m from from Knez Mihajlova and numerous other facilities like theatres (apparently 39 of them in Belgrade), bookstores, movie theatres etc.

If you ever end up in Belgrade this is where we are:

Dobračina 21

Exit, Bruce Sterling and Chemical Brothers

One thing I was looking forward to was going to Exit Festival. In the past they featured my favourite musicians Hernan Cattaneo and Underworld.

I was trying to figure out who is playing on Exit Festival this year and I stumbled upon Viktor Marković blog. To my surprise I found that Bruce Sterling now lives in Belgrade. With William Gibson,(my favourite SF writer) he is one of the founders of cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is related to, now retreating hacker subculture. In years when I got interested in computers and programming, it was something else than good corporate career. You can grasp some of this from his freely available book Hacker Crackdown.

He is Belgrade resident from January 2006 and here is his take on Belgrade:

A Tribute To Chemical Brothers has been setting daily rhythm for months now. I am really keen to see Chemical Brothers playing in Belgrade on 13th June (my wedding anniversary!).

I am going to watch Serbia play Portugal in Euro 2008 (soccer for uninitiated) qualifiers on Wednesday 28th March. Local side lost 2-1 to Kazakhstan yesterday so it will be interesting to see what can they pull off (or not) against Portugal (they trashed Belgium 4-0 yesterday). I watched Bosnia win over Norway (2-1) today - Bosnian commentators where ecstatic - this doesn't happen often enough.

Rugby is not popular at all in these parts, but I happen to live in Dorćol suburb and local team won Serbian rugby league in 2005.

Another first by Nebs

Nebojša (Nebs for english speakers) is an old friend. We first met in Amateur Software Club (ASC) in Tuzla in mid 80's. It was 10 years after famous Homebrew Computer Club and technology we were talking about was as exotic. For some reason, at that time, importing of computers is socialist Yugoslavia more expensive than NZD 500 was forbidden. Nebs was the first guy we knew to have Sinclair QL and also first guy to make money in IT. This was on one of the last Voluntary Youth Action (no reference for this socialist Yugoslavia phenomenon on the wiki or anywhere else - strange mix between backpacking and kibutz, thousands of youngsters would spend a month sleeping in makeshift dormitories and working for free on infrastructural projects with key benefit of proximity of teenagers of opposite sex) - anyway Nebs held computer course on one of those events and got a decent consulting fee.

We met next time in South Africa in '92. Again he was the first guy I knew that used off-line video editing. No wonder large percent of our immigrant friends became video editors. I even tried to persuade Jelena to get involved in the trade. It was classic arbitrage opportunity - we could get hold of software and hardware that was required to learn the trade - and hence get jobs that were in short supply. Even my career was started like this. I got hold of copy of Visual Basic 2.0 at end of' '92 same company where Nebs was volunteering (or working for no adequate pay should I say). I read VB Tutorial cover to cover and wrote simple Windows game and this was enough to get a job in Investec.

Well, Nebs has done it again - this time being first Bosnian sailing around the world and produce 24 episode TV series Around the world (click on the previous link!) that is currently screening on BHT1 (Bosnian state TV). Check out the web site - some of the material is on YouTube. Well done Nebs!

Postcards - Part 1

One of skills in high demand in Belgrade is ability to do parallel parking. Yesterday I was challenged - this was only available parking spot in few blocks.
Payments for parking are done using by texting your registration plate to parking service - 1 hour of parking is then charged to your mobile account. Enforcement is done using handheld terminals that can check if you paid the parking. We are fortunate to have residential address in Stari Grad (Old City) so we can get cheap monthly ticket.

I mentioned earlier Coffee Dream and fact that you get Speculaas cookies. It looks like this Speculaas is of local variety. I figured out this by image of Praroditeljka (great-grandmother) from Lepenski Vir.


I keep on finding curious translations from Serbian to English all over the city. I couldn't help myself photographing this one:

This should probably say Archaeological Site Vinča.