After almost six years I am back in Belgrade, Serbia for a period of seven weeks. This city has a personal attachment to me since my love was born here and although he left with his family, being a teenager , he has always looked back with affection to the memories and the first years of his life. For me, to spend some time in this city becomes difficult as I cannot understand more than three phrases in Serbian so I just have to let the communication disaster begin. 😉

Havana inevitably crosses my mind while walking the streets of Belgrade. The dirt and the decadence in the streets and the old beautiful buildings transport me to my beloved city and I cannot avoid to start comparing one place to the other, resulting in weird, mingled emotions. The glance of a Russian LADA passing by or blocks of Yugoslavian pre – fabricated buildings (model also used for construction in Cuba), do not erase easily the idea of this country’s communist past.

Of course, things are different and in constant change here and we are in Europe, not on a small Caribbean island, still with a Communist regime. In Belgrade, new and expensive capitalist establishments have flourished everyplace, despite monthly salaries are low, young people seem to move around more, locals might believe that the evolution is slow but there is no doubt that change does exist.

It is Saturday afternoon and we are about to meet some friends pronto… I will be back with more impressions later.