September 12, 2015
Tourist in Belgrade: I get a look at the Syrian migrants
After a good night's sleep and then breakfast in the hostel, I went off to a walking tour of the city. It was a pretty good tour. The guide, Zeljko, talked really fast and in a monotone, but shared lots of good information in the three hour tour.
We walked around, admired some of the fancy graffiti,
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saw the Bohemian district where Zeljko shared his grandfather's rakija and taught us to drink it,
the fortress
and the view over the rivers (Danube and Sava) and their merge.
We also saw the famous naked man statue in the park in the fortress.
We had quite a history lesson, from early Belgrade in the B.C. ages through the Ottoman occupation into Tito's Yugoslavia and modern Serbia.
After the tour, I walked down to the bus station to enquire about buses to get me and my bike out of the city. On the way, I marveled at how natural enemies can get along.
Then I saw some scenes that reminded me of how badly we can treat each other.
After saying that I haven't encountered the migrants and didn't really expect to, I found them in full force. There is a huge encampment in the area around the bus depot. The depot itself is full of families sitting by the walls. There was a big line of port-a-potties (our American name) and I spotted a medical tent. There was a big police presence, too, but looked to me like they were trying hard to ignore the situation.
I asked at the hostel, and was told that the migrant population has been growing steadily for about 3 months. Belgrade is a stop before Budapest, and since Budapest got clogged up, people have not been moving on from Belgrade. The government doesn't want to acknowledge the people and offer refugee status, so they aren't doing anything
However, the migrant population is large enough to be causing real problems. According to the hostel owner where I'm staying, some of the Syrians have tried to stay in the various hostels in the city, and some hostel owners have taken advantage and charged them twice the going rate. They cram in, and other residents in the buildings have become upset. There is a proposal that will go before the legislature in February to require approval of 51% of a building's occupants to allow a hostel to operate in a building. The owner here is anticipating being forced out of business. All in all, it's a mess.
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