In Belgrade the “good morning” lacks

To land in Belgrade is not as to set foot in an other European city. The people on the bus which brings to the center of the Serbian capital city have a dark look, it’s not full of that joy you usually feel coming back home.

Bread and poor fried pastries are selled in little stands and kiosks, in innatural contrast with international brands of beverages and snaks. The “Good morning” lacks. The smiles lack. A tram passes with a deafening clatter which distracts my attention from a building pierced by a bomb, never rebuilt again. I’m maybe the only one to take it with the ticket. The few persons on board leave the foreign people to pay it, the ones who can do it.

The museum of militar history represent in the best way the place where I am. In this city of confluence of Sava and Danube rivers, where the meeting of different waters could represent the meeting of cultures and traditions, what stands out is the result of the fight.

In Novi Sad this air is less evident, maybe for the proximity to the Hungarian influence. But in the province, little villages like Čoka place in the heart a sense of nostalgia and anguish. Air with metal smell, desert streets, shops without products and people without enthusiasm, maybe without hope, still tested by the so war, so recent and so present in the life of every family.

A girl tells me her story. As me here in visit, she came to see again the place where she lived. Bosnian, she came here from Sarajevo when she was a child, to escape from the bombing that twenty years ago were destroying her city. She, little innocent girl, victim of the destruction around her, now is part of those numerous youngsters who want to give new life to the place where they’ve born.

It’s the hope in the eyes of new generations what helps to forget the sadness read in the old people eyes. And while the briks crushed by the bombs take aback, the sun, while sets, burn the abandoned train cars on the old railway, ending the day as a fire which purify the past mistakes.

Andrea Cuminatto

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