Balkans:
Yesterday I went to the Belgrade Racecourse and the barns and was happy to meet many of my old friends, including my old trainer (with Professor Steve Steve below) as well as some good new kids, including two sisters who...
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Posted on April 29, 2008 9:23 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Today is Orthodox Easter. Most everyone here will have lamb for lunch today. We did something different.... First, for breakfast I had snenokle (here is a recipe from a delightful Balkans food blog Palachinka) and I ground some chocolate on...
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Posted on April 27, 2008 10:24 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I walked around town a little bit these days. My feet know the way, even if all the names of streets were changed from WWII National Heroes to saints and medieval princes. It has changed a lot - there are...
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Posted on April 26, 2008 6:45 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
After the 1999 Clinton/Clark bombing of Belgrade, almost all of the ruined buildings were quickly torn down and replaced with modern buildings, perhaps out of spite (which is the national character trait). After all these years, the city is unrecognizable...
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Posted on April 26, 2008 6:30 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
There were quite a lot of events and actions in Belgrade for the Earth Day last week. I came in on that day so I did not have time to see anything. But I loved the balloon they placed in...
Posted on April 26, 2008 6:02 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It took a century to build the St.Sava Cathedral. I remember playing on its foundations as a kid - a great fortress to play in. But the enterior has just begun to be worked on - I am not sure...
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Posted on April 26, 2008 5:10 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Last night's dinner - crepes filled with a mix of cheese, eggs and sugar, baked in the oven with some sweet cream:...
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Posted on April 26, 2008 3:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I was kicking myself all day yesterday because I forgot to take my camera with me for most of the day. First, my mother and I went to the bank to do some business which, of course, made us hungry...
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Posted on April 25, 2008 10:52 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
OK, I posted a lot of pictures of Belgrade and my Mom's food so far, but the real business was on Tuesday, when I gave two talks about Open Access, PLoS, Science 2.0, the future of the scientific paper, Open...
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Posted on April 24, 2008 4:07 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Yup, as soon as I land in Belgrade, I will be giving two lectures about Open Access and the Science Communication in the Age of Internet. The first one, this Tuesday at 11am, will be in the beautiful hall of...
Posted on April 20, 2008 11:39 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This post from May 07, 2005, was one of the rare personal posts I have ever written. Under the fold.......
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Posted on April 11, 2008 4:49 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
You must have noticed that there wasn't too much effort on this blog over the past couple of weeks (except for the elaborate and too successful April Fools hoax). I've just been so busy lately. So, here is a quick...
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Posted on April 5, 2008 10:25 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Since I will be in Belgrade in April, this song is quite appropriate: You can find the lyrics in Serbian here and a pretty decent translation here. I remember this song since when I was a little kid. Thirty five...
Posted on March 28, 2008 10:08 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Hristos Vaskrese...
Posted on March 23, 2008 3:45 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Over the weekend (a civilized day of the week to hold elections - Saturday) Boris Tadic won (actually retained) the Presidency of Serbia. Sure, there were some better candidates, but this is a much better outcome than what could have...
Posted on February 4, 2008 7:44 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The 176th Carnival of the Recipes is up on The Common Room and guess what? My recipe for Stuffed Cabbage is not the only one! There is another recipe for it there so you can compare and contrast!...
Posted on January 13, 2008 11:40 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Coming up tonight at midnight, according to the Julian calendar....
Posted on January 13, 2008 1:39 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Pekinška Patka - Biti Ružan, Pametan i Mlad The beginning of Serbian punk:...
Posted on January 13, 2008 5:53 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Rokeri s Moravu - Ja Tarzan a ti Dzejn (Morava is a big river in Serbia) Yes, this is a parody of "newly-composed folk" music of the 1980s Serbia:...
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Posted on January 12, 2008 12:40 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Oliver Mandic - Pitaju me This was years before Boy George. Yes, a patriarchal kind of guy in Belgrade broke his TV screen when he saw this. The older generations could not really stomach the whole transgender experiment, but the...
Posted on January 11, 2008 5:58 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Another oldie: Magazin - Da Li Znas Da Te Ne Volim...
Posted on January 10, 2008 5:55 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Azra was the best and most popular Croatian band ever:...
Posted on January 9, 2008 5:57 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Bajaga - Zazmuri...
Posted on January 8, 2008 5:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Sorry to keep you all waiting so long, as there was other work to do, but here is the method for producing the most authentic sarma. As some steps may be too difficult, I will be adding tips and tricks...
Posted on January 7, 2008 9:51 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Poslednja igra leptira - Decko hajde oladi It is always difficult to watch this spot as Nesa, the male singer of the band, died of cancer just a couple of years (in 1990) after this was filmed. She, on the...
Posted on January 7, 2008 5:56 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The first Eurovision contest that I remember, back in 1974:...
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Posted on January 6, 2008 5:57 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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Posted on January 5, 2008 5:53 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Zabranjeno Pušenje - the beginning of the New Primitives:...
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Posted on January 4, 2008 6:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
YU Grupa - Crni leptir:...
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Posted on January 3, 2008 5:53 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Another one from 1985......
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Posted on January 2, 2008 5:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A friend of my Mom's asked for it, so here it is, Oliver Dragojevic and Skalinada:...
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Posted on January 1, 2008 5:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Idoli, the best of the Yugoslav 1980s New Wave....
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Posted on December 31, 2007 5:58 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Zdravko Čolić was hugely popular in the late 1970s and 1980s. I was a kid when he filled the Red Star Stadium (which normally seats 90,000 people for the soccer games, when the field itself is not full of people)....
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Posted on December 30, 2007 5:56 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Plavi orkestar (Blue Orchestra) is one of the most popular bands from the territory of former Yugoslavia. Founded in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hezegovina in 1983. Plavi Orkestar / Blue Orchestra is described by music encyclopedias as one of the...
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Posted on December 29, 2007 6:04 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Yup, I had sarma for dinner tonight. It's been a while since the last time I had some, but Mrs.Coturnix fixed it today, inventing her own recipe along the way. It was delicious!...
Posted on December 28, 2007 10:23 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Galija was a popular band from Southern Serbia....
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Posted on December 28, 2007 5:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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Posted on December 27, 2007 5:55 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
For old Yugo-nostalgics:...
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Posted on December 26, 2007 5:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
For the origin, see the comment thread on this post:...
Posted on December 25, 2007 5:54 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Bijelo Dugme (White Button) was the most popular rock band in Yugoslav history, and their most popular song (and they had dozens of mega-hits) was this early silly love song:...
Posted on December 24, 2007 5:50 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Yugoslavs will start crying now:...
Posted on December 23, 2007 8:01 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Last night at the wedding, DJ went around asking for song suggestions and I thought back about Serbian weddings and how many songs there are that are inappropriate for weddings there - so many songs are sad, melancholic romances about...
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Posted on September 23, 2007 10:30 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Watch the entire thing:...
Posted on August 12, 2007 9:56 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Otpisani ('Written Off') is probably the most popular Yugoslav TV series of all times. It is surprising to me that there were only thirteen episodes - this was a cult production. We played them as kids (instead of cowboys and...
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Posted on July 29, 2007 2:19 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
People have been cooking in Belgrade, Serbia, for weeks now. Last time I am aware of that the temperature was this high was when I was in pre-school. Today's pictures:...
Posted on July 24, 2007 3:59 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It's been a while since I last blogged about the Bosnian Pyramid (I did follow the story superficially, though, but was sick of trolls attracted to the topic), but I have to break the silence for this piece of good...
Posted on June 30, 2007 10:56 AM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Not that it costs anything to have one... Yet, the Konsortium of science libraries in Serbia is seriously contemplating shutting down their KOBSON blog, an invaluable tool in science communication in the region. Danica, who the regular readers of this...
Posted on June 29, 2007 5:37 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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Posted on June 16, 2007 2:34 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Graduate of the University of Belgrade (Serbia), City University (UK) and UNC-Chapel Hill (USA), with a Masters from University of Belgrade, Danica Radovanovic is currently in Belgrade without a job and she is looking for one either in Serbia, in...
Posted on June 4, 2007 8:42 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
From John I learned that Serbia is becoming a birding hot-spot! Two species of pelicans (Pelecanus crispus and Pelecanus onocrotalus), which used to nest in Serbia before but were driven out by draining of marshland for agriculture in the late...
Posted on June 2, 2007 10:45 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
First, as I reported earlier, Archy persuaded PZ Myers to host a one-time carnival about the opening of the Creation Museum - and here is the carnival - a lot of good stuff to read. I especially liked the only...
Posted on May 27, 2007 1:05 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
An interesting poll came out of Gallup yesterday: Despite Kosovo Intervention, Serbians Favor EU Membership On May 15, the Serbian parliament approved a new coalition government led by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and President Boris Tadic, both moderates who would...
Posted on May 26, 2007 8:01 PM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Stronger together. Should have thought of that back in 1991. But, perhaps it's not too late......
Posted on May 23, 2007 8:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Via Snarkmarket, I found this (probably incomplete) Wikipedia list of the oldest companies in the world that are still operating today under the same name. The oldest one, a construction company in Japan called Kongō Gumi, just went belly-up after...
Posted on May 21, 2007 12:07 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
After all those years that I actually cared about this, now that I don't any more Serbia finally won the Eurovision contest!...
Posted on May 13, 2007 1:38 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A very long, meandering post, full of personal anecdotes. But there is a common theme throughout and I hope you see where I'm going with it and what conclusions I want you to draw from it.
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Posted on May 9, 2007 12:34 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Tatjana Jovanovic is a fellow escapee from Serbia and a fellow biologist. She got her MS in Biology at the University of Belgrade and has collected enough data before emigrating to be able to immediately get a PhD if someone...
Posted on May 6, 2007 11:55 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A guy 'jebo jeza', ahem, literally fucked a hedgehog in Serbia and ended up in the ER. Do kids there these days don't even know their slang? 'Jebo jeza' means something along the lines of 'being in big trouble' or...
Posted on May 1, 2007 8:25 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Oh, that explains it why Superman did not intervene in the recent Balkan wars!...
Posted on April 24, 2007 8:39 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Yes, the Orthodox and Catholic Easter fall on the same day this year....
Posted on April 8, 2007 1:42 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I really did not have time to follow up on the whole case, but Alun has so check out his latest.... And you can always be up to date by following the postings on the APWR Central blog. I wish...
Posted on March 31, 2007 10:05 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Long time ago, I mentioned here something about the Belgrade Zoo. The power of Google brought a Belgrader, Sonja, to my blog, who alerted me to the dire conditions in which the Zoo is right now and the existence of...
Posted on March 27, 2007 2:59 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Osvaldo_Cavandoli aka Cava, the author of the amazing and hillarious cartoon La Linea, one of my childhood favourites, has died about two weeks ago. Here is the very first episode: There are several more available on YouTube (I just watched...
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Posted on March 17, 2007 3:46 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Apparently, it is so. Veljko Kadijevic, a former Yugoslav General who was indicted for War Crimes (mainly for the brutal destruction of the Croatian city of Vukovar early in the conflict) was never brought to justice (or even pursued by...
Posted on March 16, 2007 10:11 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Belgrade blog, Neretva River and Japan Probe solved the mystery of a couple of pictures (and discovered many more from the same source) depicting Japanese people wearing Serbian and Croatian uniforms - images that greatly disturbed many Serbian and Croatian...
Posted on March 16, 2007 8:55 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Zoran Djindjic, the first person I ever voted for, was assassinated on this day four years ago. He had the guts to deport Milosevic to The Hague and he got paid for it with a bullet....
Posted on March 12, 2007 12:17 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
How? By driving a three-foot stake through the heart...of Slobodan Milosevic!
Posted on March 9, 2007 8:38 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 9, 1991 was the first, and the most violent day, of the five-day protest in Belgrade (then Yugoslavia, now Serbia). This was the first anti-Milosevic protest in Serbia, just a couple of months after the first multi-party elections that...
Posted on March 9, 2007 8:37 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Back in May 21, 2006, Montenegro seceded from Serbia. Here is what I wrote:...
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Posted on February 20, 2007 1:27 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
They are the last ones who should be playing with this fire: Croatia probes Hitler likeness, jokes on sugar packets: Small packets of sugar bearing the likeness of Adolf Hitler and carrying Holocaust jokes have been found in some cafes...
Posted on February 20, 2007 1:15 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Ten months later (this was posted first on March 22, 2006), he has a tenure-track position there. Not a bad idea to give a good talk at various places.......
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Posted on February 13, 2007 10:53 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A study that would have been much better if the authors could have had free access to the literature...
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Posted on February 5, 2007 11:54 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Perhaps not as bad as Zeno, but close. At least I used to watch, when I was a kid, whenever Yugoslav national teams in various sports played at big international competitions like Olympics, World Championships and European Championships. I watched...
Posted on February 3, 2007 9:01 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
(August 10, 2005)...
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Posted on January 31, 2007 10:51 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
