Smokin’ in Serbia

The city is a nice change of pace from the dreary capitals of Eastern Europe where I’ve been spending time. The center of the city is quite clean and scenic with the beautiful Sava river, wide pedestrian streets, and elegant orthodox churches. The Women When I lived in South America, other digital nomads would tell me that two cities in the world had the most beautiful women; Medellín, Colombia, and Belgrade. Well, yet again Medellín has set my standards so high that other cities fail to measure up. There are some very beautiful Serbian women to be found in swanky clubs, bars, and the cosmopolitan shopping district downtown, but the stereotypical knockout, big-boobed Serbian beauty is not so common. Young Serbian women are on average skinny and doll-faced. Booty is a little more prevalent here, but if you are really into curvy women you’ll need to head to further south latitudes. The City This hilly Grad has a well-developed center; big boulevards lined with trendy shops, cafes, and restaurants. I didn’t need to use taxis or public transportation much because it’s such a walkable city center. For being an aesthetically very cosmopolitan city overflowing with bars and cafes I was somewhat disappointed in the networking scene there; a big part of my game is attending public events and meetups, where it’s easy to build a social circle and make friends. There’s just a single weekly couchsurfing meetup that’s well attended and a couple of Facebook groups I joined that seemed to put on well-attended events. Check out…https://www.facebook.com/groups/bgfvc/https://www.facebook.com/primera.belgrade/https://www.facebook.com/timbaocubanosalsa/ Unfortunately, as beautiful as the city and its women are there are a few significant issues that I think disqualify it as a lifestyle city that I’d like to spend more than a few weeks in… 1. The Smoking Serbians REALLY like to smoke, when they wake up, before they go to bed, after lunch, before dinner, while strolling down the street, on their lunch break, with a beer, while driving your taxi, at trendy “healthy” restaurants, while dancing at a disco, before foreplay, after sex — it’s pretty fair to assume they just give them to their children as soon as little Serbians are capable of lighting one up! In this otherwise nice country, they maintain the totally backward policy (Serbian authorities keep teasing an indoor smoking ban) of allowing it indoors in 90% of bars, cafes, and restaurants.The first Serbian girl I had an instant date with smoked about 8 cigarettes in 45 minutes while showing me pictures of her cat on her smartphone — yes, it was brutal! The things we do for love… If you intend to come here and pick up Serbian chicks prepare yourself to swim deeply in the taste and scent of cigarettes, as clouds of second-hand smoke will embrace you in nearly every social setting. If you’re not cool with that, don’t come here. This is a major strike against Belgrade because at least for me it disqualifies Serbia as a place to meet wife-material or long-term relationship material, I really can’t imagine myself being in a relationship longer than a few nights with an ashtray mouth. While I disdain smoking, I'm a big of nicotine, check out this video about it that I made there in Belgrade... I found this semi-accurate list of non-smoking venues on the Belgrade Facebook group:Cafe Moskva — hotel MoskvaCafe knjižara Delfi — ResavskaKlub studenata tehnikeGreenet — NušićevaCafe Zmaj, corner Zmajeve, and Čika Ljubine, basementKorto in Nušićeva, bottom floorLeila records and books in Kralja Petra 41, bottom floorLorca organic cafe, bottom floorVesele domaćice — Cvetni Trg, a separate roomKošnica/Hive in MlatišuminaUšće shopping centerSuperNatural Bar — Gospodar Jevremova 23Belgrade Art HotelDelfi — Trg republikeApropo knjižaraSmall TreeGreenet — Beograđanka 2. The Wi-Fi In contrast to a lot of the capitals of Eastern Europe, the wifi is generally ni dobre (not good) in Belgrade. I visited several trendy coworking spaces that had surprisingly bad wifi. I had to pound cement and search quite a bit for the minimum 20 megabits up/down that I require to do my work, I eventually found it at the Snack Bar at Jump Inn Hotel, but I’ve yet to find a place that qualifies as a real digital nomad friendly cafe with fast wifi, good coffee, a place to stand, decent service, comfy seats, and NO smoking. 3. The coffee is quite bad Damn you Medellín for spoiling me! Only Uzitak Coffee came close to meeting my lofty standards for the dark nectar. I guess I’ll stick to black tea and smart drugs. The Culture Serbians in general are not very friendly. One way I gauge the friendliness of a country is strangers’ willingness to greet you passing on the street. I figured out that the formula for getting a positive response on the street is to make eye contact when they are about 10 meters away, smile just a little bit, and at about 3 meters greet them. They should respond just as you are passing each other.In North America and certainly in South America if you say good afternoon, good morning, or good evening to a perfect stranger passing on the street, they will respond in kind, often in Latin America, you will even get into random conversations with people.Here in Eastern Europe and especially in Serbia, this doesn’t work though, I make eye contact, greet them in whatever language is appropriate and they just give me a fuck off, foreigner look. Same thing when trying to greet your neighbors in the elevator or on the stairs of your building. Older people are grumpy and perhaps a bit skeptical of foreigners. At least amongst the trendy young people that I spent most of my time with there was no perceivable anti-American sentiment despite our relatively recent bombing of the country during the Kosovo conflict. Serbians are relatively religious for being Europeans. I remember the Serbian girl who led the walking tour stopping at a cathedral and declaring basically that the Orthodox church was the truth, the way, and the life here — a stark contrast to the flimsy belief systems that most European nations subscribe to. Serbians are pretty good at making babies, while daygaming you’ll be dodging plenty of mothers pushing their baby carriages down the boulevard and little whippersnappers running around. Thankfully, young single mothers are pretty rare in Serbia, I haven’t met any. Turbo Folk is like the reggaeton of Serbia. Young Serbians pretend to hate it until they’ve had 11 shots of Rakia. Check it out… And this lovely music video captures a day in the life of the average young Serbian girl you are going to be gaming… The Language Where Serbian and its dialects are spoken Serbian is not really worth learning as most of the people you will want to talk to speak English quite well. A couple of useful phrases worth learning anyway… Opa — My favorite word, it’s an expression for something novel or fun.Drago Minye — Nice to meet you.Koala (Yes, like a koala bear) — Thanks. Transportation Taxis are very cheap, just make sure to negotiate the rate before getting in the cab or just use the Taxify app. Dating and Marrying Exotic Foreign Women — is it for you? As an 8-year digital nomad dude/nomadic seducer, I encountered dozens, if not hundreds, of men who traveled to exotic places and then failed to get girlfriends or even get laid. In the book, I have a deep dive chapter breaking down just what they did wrong on their international skirt-chasing missions. If you’re going to spend the money and time to come to Serbia (or elsewhere in the world) with the aim of seducing the local girls, at least read the chapter, Dating and Marrying Exotic Foreign Women. You’ll also want to listen to this podcast, a witty and in-depth discussion with my hot Bulgarian wife about Western men dating abroad, seeking asylum from modernity with the unashamedly feminine women that can be found… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jonathanroseland.substack.com/subscribe