Tatyana Kekic is a freelance journalist in Belgrade, Serbia.
Belgrade There are two kinds of Balkan crises: the ones that actually happen, and the ones that feel inevitable until they fizzle out. Serbia’s current descent into street violence and political dysfunction is somewhere in between. Whether it ends in fresh elections, implosion, or continued chaos depends on one man. Sit-ins and marches have given
Serbia has been gripped by months of student protests in response to a tragic accident at Novi Sad railway station in November 2024, when the collapse of a concrete canopy roof claimed 15 lives. The protests have come to resemble a sort of May ’68 moment. Not in the sense that they are occurring in
Thousands of Serbs gathered outside the Palace of Serbia today to welcome the Chinese president Xi Jinping, chanting ‘China, Serbia’. Addressing the audience, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić thanked Xi for choosing to visit Serbia: ‘We are writing history today…[Xi] hasn’t come to Europe in five years and he has again chosen our little Serbia.’ The
Today, Russians in Serbia are heading to the polls to cast their vote and protest against what many see as a sham presidential election. A polling station in the capital Belgrade opened this morning at 8am, but many decided to turn up at ‘Noon against Putin’, a protest called by the late Russian opposition politician
It must be strange to be Russian and living in Serbia these days. On the one hand, Serbs are very welcoming. The country’s historic ties with Russia and their shared Orthodox faith means that most Serbs have been happy to see tens of thousands of Russians settling in their country since the start of the
Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, has followed in Vladimir Putin’s footsteps this week by blaming popular protests on western meddling to discredit the opposition. Protests over alleged vote rigging erupted in Belgrade after Serbia’s national and municipal elections on December 17. Vučić and his Serbian Progressive party (SNS) won an emphatic victory in the national poll, with 48
Serbia is heading to the polls, again. On Sunday, the country will vote to elect a new national parliament and several local assemblies, including in the hotly-contested capital Belgrade. This is the seventh time President Aleksandar Vučić has taken his country to the polls since he was first elected in 2012, and the fourth
