Putin Visits Belgrade
Holy cow!!!! We had been reading and hearing about Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia’s, planned visit to Belgrade Serbia for some time, but who would have ever thought it going to be such a mess. My wife checked the morning of his arrival and found his itinerary was not near the downtown pedestrian street where we needed to go to finish opening our new Serbian bank accounts (more details on that in a later post). So, we got in our new Serbian car and headed off downtown. Today, we parked in the parking garage under the Rajićevic Mall on the Pedestrian Street in downtown Belgrade. This after parking in the wrong spot the day before and getting a parking ticket on the day before that. You must really pay attention to details in Belgrade.
No one was downtown. I have never seen it so empty. Traffic was very light, and we rolled right in. It took us two hours at the bank and then a few drinks in the hotel atop the mall as this was the first day, since we arrive, that you could sit outside. Mamma’s, the hotel bar over the mall, has a wonderful roof deck, were we could enjoy the sun for a while. It was only on the way home that everything was a disaster. The Serbian government had provided for busses from all over Serbia to bring in citizens to welcome Putin. Think of an Alabama vs Aruban football game and all the busses in the parking lots, then multiply that by ten. The busses where lined up everywhere. Up and down the main streets through Belgrade there were busses. We had to finally stop and wait an hour to let the traffic die down a little and even then, so many of the roads out of the city into New Belgrade were blocked by the police. Once we finally got on the free way there was still people walking over the bridge for several mile to get to their busses two to three miles away from downtown.
It was a zoo.