Prava Srbija 2

I'm Nikola and I'm Maki.

Welcome to the World Serbian podcast.

Today we're doing Prava Serbia 2, the second part when we talk about what

it really is to live in Serbia.

We talk about Serbian culture and things that make Serbian culture unique in the

perspective of someone living there.

When you visit, you can also follow these tips to have a better time.

Where do you want to start?

so uh living in Serbia I really enjoyed you know everything about

it but the most I think the nature

so I'd like to start with nature escapes I think I've been to most

of them I think except one so

let's start with beautiful uh natural spots that you can visit and maybe we

can add some you know interesting facts about these places

and what they mean to you as a local person what they mean to

me as an expat in serbia

so kaponik zlatibor starapranina bruska gora these are all mountains

right let's start with the mountains so which one is your favorite nicola my

favorite has to be star planina because i'm uh

from that's my hometown is near near it and uh often uh was going

there before and now whenever

i come usually in spring and summer um it doesn't have much um there's

not many hotels there that you can visit as in Coponic and Zlatibor but

it's definitely I think the most beautiful

nature park because just because of that it's just pure nature everywhere and

so it's on also

one of the highest mountains in Serbia and it also has a ski resort

there a small one I guess

yeah yeah of course there's a ski resort there is one hotel with like

luxury hotel there is a couple there is one

old hotel and, of course, places you can rent out all over.

Yeah, weekend itza, right, you say.

Weekend itza, yeah.

Weekend houses, there are plenty of them in Serbia.

But the thing is, let me give you a hint.

Normally on booking or Airbnb, you can find if you were in Europe, right?

But in Serbia, not all of them are there.

Actually, most of them are not there.

So you need to find, you need to improve your skills of researching when

it comes to renting a place.

But Google Maps, Instagram and Facebook.

Facebook the most, I think, helpful one.

You need to write weekends.

And there are some websites that you can find these kind of places to

rent and to reach their contact info.

So my favorite is Koponik, because Krušovac was near

Koponik, and I went there many, many times, and I learned skiing there.

So that's why it's a special place for me.

Yeah. It's probably the most popular ski resort in Serbia.

Yes. The biggest,

for sure.

The biggest, yeah.

And the most popular mountain people go to, that and Zlatybou.

Exactly. And it has a very functional ski resort, I would say, even though

it's very crowded.

It's in good shape.

It can be crowded and expensive.

Yeah.

but since it's popular

there's a lot of people there and a little hint it's more expensive

on special days of course like

New Year's Eve Božić Christmas days are more expensive

than let's say December

and February in general so Fruska Gora

would you call it a mountain?

it's funny because for me

in my hometown

there's a lot of hills and mountains and when you see Fruska Gora it

doesn't seem like a mountain but I think

technically it is a mountain what's interesting for Fruska Gora it was an island

before so

yeah so old Pannonian region was once a sea like

a long long time ago right and Fruska Gora was an island in that

sea and you can see a lot of

fossils you can find there of different sea creatures that lived at that time.

Oh, that's nice.

I didn't know that.

Yeah. And yeah, it's very popular.

It's near Novi Sad, of course.

And you can go there from

Novi Sad, from Belgrade.

It has a lot of forests.

Yeah. When you are in Krishkogora, there are lots of wineries to visit in

that area. and also monasteries.

There's a lot of monasteries.

They call it Srpske Sveta Gora,

I think.

So, yeah. Very nice monasteries.

Yeah. So, number one, Stara Plenina.

Number two, Kaponik.

Number three, Fruska Gora in our common list.

And Zlatibor. I haven't been there,

but I heard so much about Zlatibor.

The Kaimak place, in my opinion.

Yeah, Kaimak place.

Zlatibor has a lot of old villages and like rustic life, we can

rent houses, it's very nice.

But it has one problem, it has a term, Zlatiborizacja, if I'm not wrong.

Since it was so popular, people started building a lot of hotels there.

And it's turned into a city.

A whole city with a lot of buildings and concrete.

So if you want to escape from Belgium to nature, go to Zlatibor, and

it feels like you're still in a city, which is not good.

So there's a lot of people building hotels and expanding.

so that's a minus but nature is beautiful yeah still before it's all like

turned into city i

think still it's a nice place to go yeah uh one of the like

least known ones i think astra bus is

what was my beautiful spot i visited many many times maybe you haven't right

i didn't i don't think i have been there yeah astra bus is uh

nicola

near kapoanik near kurushabas It's beautiful, I think.

It's also a national park.

And it's famous for its variety of trees and beautiful trails around,

a nice little stream.

It is really nice.

I mean, if you are on your way to Greece, it would be a

nice place to stop

and rent a weekend again and then enjoy the nature.

I definitely plan on visit all the nature parks of Serbia one day.

Yeah, go with Jasjabat if you haven't been.

And Očarbanje Kulisira.

This is not a mountain.

This is the most beautiful river, in my opinion.

Because it makes this like S-shape all around the valley.

and you can go there like some do kayaking or just kayaking though it's

not very fascinating

but it's a beautiful nature and it it's near cacac i would say

and it's one of my favorite places that i've been to in serbia one

of one other um river that's beautiful is a canyon reke uvac uvac river

which has like those meanders mean how do you call it

like um and there's there's a belogalevi soup which is a type of bird

a scavenger bird that

lives there and it's very very rare so it's endangered so that's definitely a

must to visit Canyon Rekovac Sounds familiar, but I'm not sure

Where is it exactly?

It's near Tara.

I think it's like around that region in West Serbia.

Not the best in geography, but yeah.

It's hard to go, but I think there are lots of things to see

on that side and near Tara.

That Serbia is beautiful.

All Serbia is beautiful.

But if you do not have any time, enough time, but you want to

see some kind of nature and you are in Belgrade, I think other Zagania

would be the address to go, right?

Yeah, that's the closest nature escape from Belgrade.

It's technically a lake now.

And people go there.

There's a beach.

You can go and swim there.

A lot of water sports you can do there.

There's a park around it.

Yes. even a little mini lake inside so if you want to experience the

weekend it's a i think you can also

find a lot of boat kind of weekend it says there and then you

can rent them you can stay there you

can go around the forest uh running cycling or whatever you want kayaking

it's a beautiful spot

so there are many many more but these are the first ones that come

to

my mind okay and uh let's move to history in daily life okay

so as a turkish person i think the

the sentence that i heard every day was like of course after living 500

years or 600 years together

we have this word and that word like this was a lot of turkish

words yeah and also a lot of uh Greek, Latin, German.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you probably noticed more of those words than I did growing up.

I didn't know their Turkish words.

But there is a lot of them, which is, of course, normal because it's

all the influence from surrounding countries

and historical countries.

So words like, I don't know if you know words that you notice,

I think, Akashica or something like that, all those

words are from Turkish language.

Maybe you know more than I do.

Yeah, I made a long list of them.

We have so many.

I will share a couple of them on Instagram when I share this

post, but there are

so many. You said you don't recognize they are Turkish, but how about the

other words, like words from German, words from Greek?

Do you notice them more easily?

Yeah, now I do, of course, but before I didn't.

I only learned about them in school.

We called it Turcism, Grezism.

me. And then it comes together and says, oh yeah, that sounds Turkish.

So it makes sense.

Yeah. Sometimes they say to me like, oh, this word sounds Turkish to you,

to Serbian, but

to me it doesn't sound Turkish because it's a very, very old word and

I do not even know

what it means.

But I think it's also something unique between Serbia and Turkey.

So in history, I mean, not only history, but I think

jokes are also a big part of daily life, especially about different Balkan countries,

right?

So is it still like, I know the older generations use them more,

but do you still hear jokes about, I don't know, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Albanians,

neighboring countries? yes you can

hear them i mean not i i me personally i don't now maybe before

when in school it was more

frequent but one joke that comes into mind is that montenegres are lazy of

course there's all stereotypes and not not proven in real life uh

other than that i can't really think of any other

joke yeah montenegrins what i heard most as well i think also albanians are

used a lot in the jokes

so that's fine but um some of them are based on stereotypes i'm not

some are just pick those characters because why not yeah and all countries do

that yes and you as you lived together in egoslavia i think this is

more common i mean in turkish for example we have also jokes a lot

about you know one guy one italian one french one british like that kind of

we have but with

neighboring countries we do not have that many you know so that's why i

realized maybe it's because of the effect of living together years and years ago.

Probably, yeah, it makes sense.

Yeah. And I think in daily life, Komšiluk is still active,

like being neighbors is important, I think, in Serbia, right?

Komšiluk is a neighborhood.

Yeah, neighbors are important because they help each other,

you keep close with your neighbors.

But again, it depends on if it's a good or bad neighbor.

they have of course like bad neighbor is one of the worst things you

can have right exactly exactly

but in smaller towns uh i think it's really um a big thing in

syrpia yes in smaller town when

houses like in the suburbs yes um you neighbor can come into your house

and that like um

without notice

yeah just appears and says

let's drink coffee and usually it's fine

if you don't have a problem with that yeah so that can happen exactly

they come mostly for

coffee right coffee iraqia

okay good and I want to move

to balkan fashion

I know that

Right now, traditional clothing is not, of course, a thing.

But when you go to smaller places, I think you still see men

with shajkača. Is it called shajkača?

Shajkača, yeah.

Villages, usually, like older generations, some people still wear them.

You can buy them in Knezmihajlova if you walk down the street, you can

see them. I just want to say that original shakacha doesn't have any emblem

on it, it's just a green hat

without any emblem

or any

how do you call it, mark

other than that, there are versions

with emblems but those are some other

stuff, historical stuff that usually

are popular to sell if you want to buy

a proper hat, shakacha

by just plain green one and you can

see them in folklore dances

Folklore children in Serbia, they train different sports.

And when they learn dances, traditional dances over Serbia,

and wider than that, maybe Macedonian and stuff like that.

And they wear those clothes.

It's really nice to see.

Exactly. I think it's a nice thing and it's unique in the Balkans.

Kids at school have this access to folk or dance clubs.

And I think it's so common.

And there are always competitions, like some tournaments.

competition exactly go to represent serbia in different countries so it's still a huge

thing yes it's a it's a nice experience to have and it's also it

is kind of like a sport as well

because it can be a very draining very physically hard to do and dance

yeah yeah hours of standing

and moving all the time of course yep cool and i just know charape

because uh cruciate with the socks are

very famous in Kruşovas.

But these words, for example, are Turkish to me.

Like çarap, fustan, opan, yelek.

Okay, yes. So fustan, zubun, I haven't heard much before.

Çarap is like socks.

There's no other word for it,

I would say.

Maybe nazwitz, but that's something else.

Yelek is pretty common.

Opensi, those are

shoes made of usually leather.

Very unique shoes.

People were wearing back in the past,

but now Opensi are usually

made of rubber.

People still use Opensi, but just in a

modern way

for work in villages like in field or around the house.

Are they in general black?

They're usually black, yeah.

But back then when made of leather, they were yellowish.

I see. Good.

So you can, I mean, the listeners can just Google them

and see how they look like later.

When it comes to Prava Serbia, of course,

we should mention sports and the famous athletes.

I mean, there's so many famous athletes in the world from Serbia.

But I just picked the ones that I'm more familiar with.

But feel free to add more.

And what I found interesting also, I mean, compared to Turkish again, Serbia has

different words for esports, almost esports.

You know, for example, basketball is similar in Turkish.

Volleyball is similar.

But here we have hosarka, which is basketball.

Different word.

Odbojka for volleyball.

So this was really interesting for me.

Like, how do they come up with their own words?

I mean, they had this before, you know, English affected Serbia, probably.

They had these proper names.

probably something like that

yes or maybe it was a little bit

more forced to make your own name out of it

and then later on

it was not as important

for some words it's the same as in English

for some not

but yeah so about sports of course

Serbs and Serbs

is proud of their sport

and athletes

of course Novak Djokovic is one of the best athletes and sportists in the

world and actively Serbia promotes sport

promotes sport to youth many young people there's many

many organizations many clubs you can join and

it's heavily promoted by

the country so that's one of the reasons we have a lot of sports

athletes and people like watching

football basketball that culture around like cheering for your team is very very popular

serbia as well yeah so i mean as a foreigner i definitely was amazed

in

by the fact that municipalities offer such great uh facilities sports facilities uh

almost in every city like an olympic pool in public facility in kruševat and

funny prices like one euro or something like

and you can act like yeah you can do sports so easily if you

are willing to do it yes yes there

is a lot of children playing around there's usually at least one state football

stadium everywhere in any place that has people living,

like even a village.

So kids go out and play a lot.

Yeah, basketball court in every Klamshluk, in every neighborhood exists in a very good

shape.

Yeah, basketball is still less popular than football, obviously,

but in bigger cities, especially like Belgrave, Novi Sad, it takes less space to

build a basketball court, right?

So people play basketball, usually three versus

three, right?

We call it basket.

That's one of the reasons we have a very good basketball culture, basketball players

as well. Exactly.

So I personally love Djokovic.

for many reasons.

Also, Jokic, I think, right now, nowadays,

is one of the most famous athletes and funny ones.

One of the most funny ones.

How do you see the characters of these athletes in general?

Do you think they are all proud Serbians, for example,

or do you think they feel like more European,

or do you think they are still connected to Serbia a lot?

Of course, they're still connected.

Yeah, they're proud.

Novak Djokovic expresses that in every game, in every interview.

It's very obvious that he is very proud of being Serbian.

Jokic as well, of course.

And Novak is a different

player, but when he appeared, very different from others.

So that's what made him stand out.

Maybe made him unlikable by some people being used to tennis, to view tennis

as something more like a high fashion sport.

But Djokovic changed that a bit.

And Jokic is a character.

it's on it he's very funny because he had the he has a big

love for horses and horse racing

uh he wants to be a jockey but he was a little too big

for that and he's such a character it's

yeah the one thing that i will i think never forget in an interview