Or should that be – good grief?

The late Patriarch Pavle was a modest man, often using the public transportation to move about.

His church colleagues, however, are not that modest. Being a priest in Serbia often means one enjoys life more than one’s profession recommends. Street reporters have managed to snap this photo of couple of priests doing some pre-funeral shopping at – Hugo Boss.

You don’t need Fashion Channel to know what’s good.

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Serbian Patriarch Pavle died yesterday, aged 95. What this means for Serbian Orthodox Church is that a new leader must be chosen in next three months, according to the Church’s law. For Serbian state, the first visible sign of Patriarch’s death is proclamation of three day mourning period, during which the Republic Broadcasting Agency decided to temporarily cut off all “entertainment channels” from the cable TV. This is the first time something like this has been done during a mourning period and it already has caused bad publicity for the Agency.

As for the Patriarch Pavle himself, his reign over the Serbian Orthodox Church can be described as positive, but only if we take into account the claim that it could have been much, much worse, considering that he was the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the most turbulent times of recent Serbian history – from 1990 until this day. But, just like Spiderman, the Serbian Church has great power and along with it, the great responsibility. Has this power always been used in a best way possible for the good of the Serbian citizens? Definitely not. Could the blame for this be put entirely on the Patriarch? Definitely not, for his power over the Church was not absolute, and while he definitely was not a reformist, it wouldn’t be fair to call him a hardline retrograde either. His biggest mistake was perhaps that he did not condone actions, deeds and words of some other controversial Church officials.

Critical points of view regarding the Patriarch’s decisions and statements during his reign are not forbidden by Serbian law, but it always was a somewhat controversial topic and will remain a taboo in the society. Just like many other religious leaders’, his stands on women’s rights, homosexuality and atheism were not in touch with real life. Even so, among the candidates for the Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch, he was considered a moderate – this means that there are two things certain about his successor: 1. his successor will not be a woman and 2. Serbian Orthodox Church will remain as rigid and dogmatic as it is right now – only if we’re lucky.

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The Berlin wall fell 20 years ago, and another one, our own private Balkan wall, is about to fall down – at least partially. On November 11th, the European Parliament will confirm the decision to cancel visa requirements for citizens of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. The visa-free travel should start from 19th of December 2009.

This “visa wall” is somewhat similar to Berlin wall in a way that it prevented people from going where they wanted to. You don’t really think about the freedom of travel until you lose it, and most Balkan countries lost that freedom some 17-18 years ago. In this period, the only Serbian citizens that had no problems whatsoever in getting a visa and traveling freely across Europe were politicians, high-ranking criminals and folks stars (which, ironically enough, were exactly the sorts of people the Schengen countries were trying to keep out).

Now that the visa wall is beginning to crumble, there is still one question – when will the Bosnians, Albanians and Kosovo residents without Serbian citizenship be allowed to travel freely? Surprisingly enough, this is the question almost nobody from Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia cares about – and we should understand better than many other nationalities what’s it like not being able to travel freely.

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The Avala TV Tower (Serbian: Avalski Toranj), located on top of Avala mountain near Belgrade has always represented different things to different people. To some, it’s just a TV tower, a giant antenna which helps even the most remote villages in Serbia get their daily fix of Big Brother. To others, it’s an architectural masterpiece. To some, it’s a sign that you’re approaching Belgrade if you’re coming from the south and that you better prepare yourself psychically for the upcoming traffic jam. And to some, it’s just a giant symbol for penis.

Anyway, that has all come to a stop in 1999, during the bombing of Serbia, because to NATO, the Avala Tower represented none of these things, but a powerful tool in Milosevic’s hands [but not in a giant penis kind of way], used to spread wartime propaganda which, arguably, has even worse influence on people than Big Brother. Even if we say that this is true, destroying the tower did not significantly cut the supply of state TV agitprop to households, so it’s pretty safe to say the penis was destroyed for no good reason.

Tower in process of rebuilding, video by Beobuild

But the good news is – it’s been completely rebuilt again. The bad news is it’s not very useful as most TV households today have cable. But the good news is it’s not just an antenna, there’s also a restaurant at the top. But the bad news is that it’s too far from Belgrade for lazy Belgraders to care about it. The good news is that the tower has been re-built so that it looks exactly the same as before. The bad news is that it’s two meters higher and slightly different color. But the good news is that now it glows in the dark, so there!

Among Serbs, the opinion on this matter is, like always, divided. While some [mostly Belgraders] find that the rebuilding of the Tower represents stubbornness and determination, others, mostly from other parts of Serbia than Belgrade think the money could have been spent more wisely and that Belgrade doesn’t really need yet another landmark just for the sake of it.

What do you think – money well spent, or not?

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...technically speaking, of course.

[Ad by Saatchi & Saatchi]

What do you think? Personally I think it’s well done [also technically speaking] but I don’t get the point.

Edit: User Ivic of Parapsihopatologija forums has come up with a response to this Saatchi ad:

Update 2: Making of – explanation, story behind the ad etc.

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Here’s a news flash that could possibly shadow over that questionable love relationship between Russia and Serbia: Serbian media are all buzzing right now that one of the city landmarks, Red Star stadium nicknamed Marakana, could in the near future get a new, official name – Gazprom Arena.

Judging by the public outburst so far, however, I would say that the Gazprom’s PR specialists may have to re-think this because they face another awkward situation resembling the one when they named the Nigerian Gazprom branch – Nigaz.

Stadiums getting a new, sponsored name, is nothing new, but it usually happens when a completely new stadium is built, or after a very large sum is thrown at the table. This time, however, the first information say that the price of this name change will be only half a million euros a year, which in football terms roughly translates as – zero.

All in all, if this deal goes through, it could even be understood as a sort of punishment for hooligans’ exceptionally bad behavior this year.

Photo by Belgraded.com

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Nice video made of pictures taken from web cam at Beograd.com over Terazije street in Belgrade:

video by Jazzva.

Another great link via @jazzva for you guys to check – 24 one-minute films depicting 24 hours of life in Belgrade. It’s a must-see.


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