Foreigner brilliantly explains Serbia after 15 years

🚗 Click the link to check out Ralf’s tours: https://ibikebelgrade.com

This is Ralf. 15 years ago he moved from Netherlands to Serbia, where he married a Serbian wife and opened a bike rent in Belgrade. Today with renting bikes he does Yugotours – a tours around Belgrade in an old Zastava through Yugoslavian monuments and buildings. He shared how kafana explains life in Serbia, the main lesson he learned about working culture from Serbs, and how you can find unpredictable warmth in Serbia in the most unsuitable for it situations. Ajmo!

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WATCH NEXT:
► How Serbia changed this American forever https://youtu.be/ng5SLiYPfH0
► Why young people are leaving Canada https://youtu.be/g-z8zWZIS58
► Dating a Serb as a Canadian (honest experience) https://youtu.be/EaS1Zt24DKg

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 INTRO
00:36 – Rakija for a car scratch
02:23 – Shocking culture shock in Serbia
02:55 – “Srpski zet” is like a golden ticket
06:09 – Serbian wedding
07:56 – Serbian kafana
12:26 – Story of coming to Serbia
15:26 – Changes in Serbia
17:15 – Zastava
18:12 – Biggest lesson from Serbs (Serbian magic)
24:41 – Opening a bike rental in Belgrade
29:27 – The most challenging clients
30:52 – Russians
34:37 – Most valuable thing in Serbia

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#ExpatLife #AtticLife #Serbia #Balkans

Only in Serbia somebody could give you a bolarakia because you hit his car. This is Ralph. 15 years ago he moved from the Netherlands to Serbia where he married a Serbian wife and opened a bike rental business in Belgrid. Today besides renting bikes he also runs yoga tours tours around Belgrid in an old zasta by exploring Yugoslav monuments and architecture. He shared how Kafana explains life in Serbia, the main lessons he learned from Serbs about work culture, and how you can find unexpected warmth here even in the most unlikely situations. IMO, we have three Zastava cars which we use to show the city to to our guests to old. One is like almost 50 years old and there’s a little bit of slope in front of the shop here and we put stones uh behind the wheels to to stop them from rolling back. So, one of my guides one day, a few few weeks ago took the stones away and the car decided to already start rolling backwards. Uh the handbrake didn’t work. It was in first gear, but it just didn’t want to stay and we couldn’t do anything. It was just rolling in front of our eyes and it’s a very busy street here and we just saw it going on the street. it would be a huge traffic accident. Luckily, some guy just turned here on this parking and it ramped the car in the front and it also scratched uh another car. Anyway, long story short, the guy uh who we hit, we gave some money and it wasn’t that big damage luckily. And then the other car that was parked here and it’s was scratched pretty badly. Uh the guy wasn’t there, the owner. So, after an hour or two, uh I was working in my shop and I saw him getting into his car. He didn’t even notice it was scratched. And I came came to him. I said, “Sir, sir, uh, sorry, you know, I scratched your car and in my bed Serbian.” And the guy said, “Okay, yeah, what can I do? You know, the the guy who hit my car is gone now.” He said, “No, no, no.” We had to explain it again. We hit your car. You know, that’s our car there. It hit He still didn’t get it. He said, “You waited for me. You’re coming to tell me that your you hit my car. You’re telling me?” But instead of getting angry and and everything, he opened the hood of his car, the back of his car, got out a bottle of rakia and gave us a bottle of rakia because we were so honest to tell him that we damaged his car. Only in Serbia somebody could give you a bottle of rakia because you hit his car. This Dutch couple came to Ralph’s place to take a tour around Belgrit in one of the zast ofas. Of course, I asked them about the biggest shock in Serbia and the answer really shocked me too. Did you have any cultural shocks here? There’s one. People are waiting for the red light. Oh yeah. Before uh crossing the streets. Before crossing the streets. Yeah. In the Netherlands a red light is more like an advice. Like we advise you to stop but basically everybody just walks on. And here people wait up until the green light and then they walk. That’s Yeah, that’s a cultural show. Being akisette. Do you think it’s kind of a status here? Well, it’s like the golden ticket. I even tell my Serbian friends, you know, sometimes they should just act like they’re foreigner and saying they’re serette because, you know, it will in a kafana it will give you free get you free rakia. You know, if they know you’re gizette, the waiter will go. I don’t know why, but uh I was stopped a few times uh with the because I broke traffic laws, you know, speeding, but I never got a fine, you know, as soon as soon as I pulled out the the golden surfette card, they would say, “Oh, wait, your surf kiset. Ah, then it’s okay. Then you can go.” you know, they they think either we’re one I’m one of them, you know, or they feel so sorry that I married a Serbian wife and they feel like, “Oh, I’m so sorry that here I have Iraq.” Yeah. Don’t pay the fine. Was it difficult to overcome cultural differences between you and your wife in everyday life? Well, I don’t know if we overcame all of them. I think there’s some cultural differences you just have to accept and live with. For one thing, there there is enuties. I think Balkcon thing uh where people are so stubborn is not logical anymore. It hurts themselves. And I don’t know if it’s my wife uh because she is a woman, if it’s uh because she is Serbian or because it’s her character or it’s me, you know, because I’m not a nice guy or something. But sometimes this enut comes up or this this fights come up and I say like this is not logical. Why are you doing this? Stop it. And she will just continue with it. You know, in Holland, we don’t care so much how we look. You know, it’s it’s okay just to wear your old clothes. And for my wife, it’s very different. You know, she she wants me to to look okay when I go on the street. Yesterday, we were in the in the elevator going from the ground floor to our apartment. So, we saw nobody, but still, you know, I had to tuck in my shirt in my she just automatically she says, “Hey, tuck in your shirt.” Like, “Hey, we’re in elevator. There’s nobody else here. You know, we’re at home.” I but basically as with working culture I learned a lot from it. Uh I learn a lot from family culture and everything. For example, you have how how important family is. You know, family comes on the number one place above everything. Uh above work uh above friends. Sometimes it’s it’s irritating. You know, you don’t want to spend so much time on family or go to your funeral of a auntie of a cousin which you never seen, but you have to go through all this trouble. Um but you do it because it is family and it’s very big extended family and that’s how it’s a it’s a whole system kept in place. I mean weddings of three 400 people you can you can’t imagine in Holland you know in Holland you might invite 80 people but 20 for the wedding itself and then uh there’s a reception with 30 other friends kind of and then you invite another 15 for the dinner because you’re not going to pay dinner for our 80 people, you know. No, it’s all going to be too expensive. And you know, very regulated, on the money, uh, you know, not thinking, hey, this is the greatest day of my life. I want all my friends and family to spend three days of partying with me like it happens here sometimes. You have witnessed Serbian wedding. Yes. Yes. Several. Yeah. Yeah. I was I was shocked when I discovered that they have this custom of shooting the tree. I’m still waiting for my moment that that somebody will give me that gun and shoot the apple because I got married. But uh we didn’t do it in a traditional way. We did it quite quickly. So I hope to do it once big and and and shoot a gun because you know for a Dutch guy it’s great to shoot a gun you know once in your life like shoot an apple. But um yeah know all the customs are are crazy. I’ve been to really traditional ones you know. What shocked you the most? I think first of all the amount of people invited you know I’ve been been on weddings with 400 people like crazy you know and they’re all eating and drinking and they they start in the morning at 10:00 and I I remember one wedding it was really big it was in Anjel we were there at 10:00 in the morning already in a big hall and you know people were already eating and and drinking raia full speed you know and then the kum he came in with a you know a poor pick a full pig you know dead but like a bomb put it in front of the the couple like, “Yeah, here’s my gift, you know.” And then everybody was drunk and we drove in this caravan with, you know, all the cars uh with the gypsy band with trumpets in the car as well to get the bride and there they started shooting. Yeah. But I know there’s a tradition, I don’t know if you heard about it, but the next day um there somebody should climb on the roof of the house of the newly wet couple. I think it’s the kum and start demolishing the roof, throwing the towels on the ground and the couple comes out and starts offering him money to stop. I haven’t seen it myself because I haven’t been there, you know, the morning after the wedding night, but I hope it won’t happen to me. But so this is also a tradition. Okay. Kafana. Uh what what my favorite topic. Yeah. What what makes uh it so attractive for you? Do you have uh in Holland uh something that resembles kafana? No, you you have something like a bar, traditional bar. We call it brown bar because everything is dark brown wood and they start drinking there at 10:00 in the morning, you know, and just talking about life and everything. But there’s no food. So, it’s it’s absolutely nothing to do with the kafana actually. I mean, the only thing is that it’s old and traditional and people drink. But Kafana is a completely different institution altogether. You know, I I can’t see that working in in Holland or other any other country for that matter. My own explanation is the mix between the Austrian influences here from the past and the Ottoman influences. Kafana reminds me on the one hand of this coffee houses in Vienna, these grand coffee houses with big art on the wall and it’s quite luxurious and fancy ladies drink their coffee there. And then in in Turkey in Istanbul, you will have the small coffee houses where only men sit and they smoke all day and drink their tea. I think these influences come together in the kafana. They’re not these small coffee houses like in Turkey, but they are more like in shape the big gr cafes in from Vienna, but you know the men are sitting in it and smoking and talking about politics like they do in Turkey. So for me that’s the the cultural explanation of a kafana. Yeah, for me it’s it’s the essence of of of the Balkans and of Serbia and of Belgrade. Everything comes together there. The joy, the sadness. After a funeral, you go to the nearest kafana. There’s always kafana next to a graveyard. With a wedding, you go to the kafana. Uh when somebody is born, you go to the kafana. So, it’s joy, it’s it’s sadness, all these emotions come there. Uh it’s hospitality because you always been treat are treated really well by the waiters. It’s the food which is, you know, essential for Serbia and for the Balkans is great food. It’s the drink of course the raka and the beer that’s flowing unlimitedless you know unlimited and then there’s the singing which is bringing back going back to that culture of of togetherness and maybe the family everybody knows at least 10 maybe 50 Serbian songs there’s not one song you can sing in Holland that everybody knows you cannot go into a bar and start singing a song that people know from A to Z you know and here you can just start any song and people will sing it you to sit somewhere for hours and hours in a basically a restaurant, but uh long after you finish your food, the waiters won’t kick you out or the waiter. Uh sometimes you don’t even have to eat. Uh sometimes after 2 hours, somebody else will start eating. So there’s this freedom or just not not strict rules like in a restaurant, you sit and you know, you eat your food and then go again. It’s a social thing, you know. I can spend hours in a cafana, you know. It’s it’s fantastic. They always close too early. I don’t know doesn’t matter to what is the closing time a kafana will always close too early you know because you’re always in a discussion I never left the kafana before closing time because yeah there’s no closing time in that atmosphere you’re just you know all together and and speaking what is your favorite kafana in Belgrade they’re disappearing you know they’re disappearing and some lose their character kalanich was a brilliant kafana just old school near kalanich in brchar but they the quality went down and the prices went up so I don’t go there. There’s kafanas that been totally transformed and modernized. Horrible. So I think mourina these are some old school places that didn’t change in interior uh in menu in in atmosphere. Last night I was in Kotraana. It’s a wooden shack in New Belgrade between the blocks and fantastic food, great waitresses, elderly ladies who run the place for I don’t know how long. I don’t like the polished ones. I like the ones with the least decoration, so to say, where all about the food and the people. It’s Tito. Yeah, it’s Tito. Yeah, I think we have to buy a new calendar, but uh this is 2024, so a few more months. Still people buy them apparently, not just me. Uh we have a map of Yugoslavia. Here we have our This is our business card. It’s also detail on the Yugo tour. And what’s the medal? Uh the medal is was a championship for rowing. We rented some bikes to a German or Dutch rowing team and they won and they were so happy with the bikes that they gave us a medal. As a student or even as before studying when I was 16 15 I started traveling to Eastern Europe uh with friends uh just to discover it. It was still a bit unknown uh in in the west of Europe. We were told at school uh that uh it was very scary there in Eastern Europe. You know I’m talking about the 80s. I’m born in 1977. So it was still there was a big wall somewhere in Europe and behind that wall everything was in black and white literally everything was gray people were not nice they had a bomb and they want to throw it on us that’s how we were educated in the cold war you could say and uh I want to find out for myself and I discovered that everything was in color people are very nice nobody they want to hurt us was it emotionally difficult for you to overcome these uh stereotypes that you had uh in Western Europe about Serbia when you came here. I I traveled already in Eastern Europe. So you you maybe the first time I don’t remember that so good, but the first time I went there I was probably more afraid or a bit more cautious. Let me put it that way. Like okay, you know, you only hear the bad story. So what can I expect? But you know soon enough uh you you lose that caution or you see that people are just just you you know and and even friendly and you know uh so I think the first time in when I came to the Balkans I I I lost that tension a bit you know I traveled so much already. It was a very different period than now. You know it was 2004. I also traveled to to Kosovo where you know it was a very tense situation uh with a lot of militaries on the street. So that was quite uh new to me. But at that point I was studying sociology and international relations and I studied a lot about communism and the fall of Yugoslavia and so I think it it was very interesting for me more than scary. Uh I didn’t have that uh you know prejudices that that a lot of people maybe had. Do you remember any particular moment when you realized that it’s safe here? Well I never saw so much military in my life. It felt pretty safe. The first tank I ever saw was was here, you know, but that was back then. You know what you have your cautious like I said in the beginning, especially when I was traveling to Eastern Europe and I remember we were staying at some campsite with some friends outside some town in the middle of nowhere and some guy just offered us a ride to the train station where we had to go instead of taking a taxi. And as Dutch guys who, you know, we were like, I know what’s we’re going to get in this, you know, broken down old Mercedes with this big, you know, unshaved Eastern Balk Eastern Eastern European guy, you know, everything from the from the movies like, should we do this? Is this safe? Will he, you know, dump us somewhere and steal our passports or something? I remember that moment. And he just drove us to the station and we wanted to offer him money, you know, and he didn’t want to take the money. It was just friendliness and that was maybe a moment like that. like you think oh like all my you know the thoughts and the images you have in your head are are not right you’re confronted with your own you know prejudices how Serbia has changed during the time that you’ve been here well I can’t tell the change over 20 years it’s because it changes every day almost and that’s what I’m that what makes it for me very interesting you know there’s uh it’s changing in in a good way you could say in one way you know economically there’s really less poverty And a lot of people are leaving better than 20 years ago. I see as a sort of yugo nostalgic person that I am, you know, I find Yugoslavia very interesting. I find that period very interesting uh politically uh but also in a design way or in a matter of life. So I see that disappearing you know I see less zustavas on the street. I see old kafanas which I love disappearing. Uh so a lot of traces of the past are disappearing and what you see in a place like the Netherlands where I’m from people preserve the past a lot you know they do a lot of trouble to to keep old buildings uh standing and renovate them and everything they pay a lot of attention here on that there and uh here it seems sometimes the opposite you know old buildings even protected buildings being demolished just to place a new building so I think um maybe It’s a result of the urge of uh uh going forwards. You know, uh the Balkans has been on a standstill during the ’90s because of the troubles here. Maybe they tried to catch up and there’s development that goes very quick and the old is not cared about. you know, it’s like let’s get out with everything that’s old and and place replace it with something new, which as a nostalgic person like me, what attracted me also maybe in the first place, you know, that everything is a bit older and not everything is modern and developed and it’s different here, you know, uh that’s that’s a big change that you visually uh see. This car is an old one from 1977 and uh it’s still function and still running and uh yeah we keep them up to date and uh we use them like a time machine you know to get the real experience and feel of how was it living in Yugoslavia and well as we go into the car you might feel surprised how comfortable the car is as most of our tourists do. So let’s come right in. My first ride in Zastava. Okay. Uh the handle’s a bit shaky. Yeah. The thing is right now you’re with me in the front but people like to sit most in the back because there’s no seat belt in the back and well you know people feel the freedom like oh man when I was a kid I was driving in one car like this we didn’t have to put seat belts and everything so yeah yeah it’s a bit gives you more freedom let’s say it’s so you know mechanic oh yeah tell me about it the first time I drove it this power steering thing you know it’s like you don’t need to go to the gym afterwards you worked uh in NGO when you first came to to Balkans. What we were doing basically uh was helping young people starting their own business. Uh this was uh back then uh the way uh in Holland was fought about helping people in uh postconlict areas as it was still named this area. How do we help people? Not to by sending just money or building schools or something. No, but to help people help themselves, you know, by starting businesses and everything. We were working with local people, a lot local colleagues. Uh we didn’t want to come in as a bunch of foreigners who did everything. So, we we really had the team local was bigger than the team from Amsterdam where we were. Our goal was to help young people start their own business. But our hidden agenda you could say or our secondary goal was also to teach our local colleagues how to organize and how to work in a western way you could say or whatever just to how how to work good that emails should be answered directly that you should organize and plan ahead and all these yeah things that is very normal for us in Holland but not necessarily here but to my surprise I was actually learning just as much from the work work ethics here which we didn’t And I think that is in general a thing uh in in richer countries or more developed countries, western countries, they have a kind of we could almost call it arrogance, but because they’re richer and more developed, they think their their work ethics are the absolute best. And uh that’s why they want to teach others, tell others how to do it in this best way. But it’s not always true or there it’s not an absolute truth. Uh you can learn a lot from work ethics from other places too. So I learned to you know don’t take everything so s seriously uh have a meeting with a coffee on a terrace and not you know plan a meeting three weeks ahead in a special room reserve it for that meeting. No you can do the things in a more relaxed way so to say and enjoy enjoy work more uh don’t be don’t be the robot and the machine you know to to get to the goal but also make getting to the goal a more pleasant experience so to say. I brought a lot of that work ethics back to Holland and sometimes it went wrong there because I wanted to have a coffee with people you know on a terrace in Holland but they didn’t understand that you know what you also see is sometimes with foreign NOS’s or foreign companies they try to bring the system they use at home uh here and try to implement it here but that’s that’s uh also very hard and I learned that for instance in the Balkans it’s hard to plan anything but it’s super easy to arrange something I remember we had some And uh it was in Macedonia I think and we it was in a half a year. So we tried to find a transport company, a bus company to to work for us on that day, 6 months later, but there was no company that could make an agreement. Oh, in 6 months we will be the there and there and there on that spot. In Holland, you could do that. Of course, you can plan things two years ahead if you want. But we had to wait like for three days before the event, you know, and then call the company and say, “Hey, do you have a bus free?” you know, oh yeah, we can do it. Uh, and there was a lot of these uh kind of emergency or last minute situations which things you cannot plan, you know, because they’re just happening which couldn’t could not have been solved in a country like Holland, but here everybody knows somebody and has a connection and everything can be arranged. So nothing can be planned, but everything can be arranged. So you had kind of reverse cultural shocks back in Netherland. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve rolled back some habits also not just work things but also hospitality or friendliness or um you know here men still open the doors for for ladies because it’s nice or that’s how you should do things and I remember coming back in Holland once after a few weeks in the Balkans and I did the same I got used to opening the door for my female colleague and I just hit her head very hard because she didn’t see it coming and she didn’t expect me to open the door for her so that was really a culture clash literally you could say not everything that works there works over there and and vice versa of course. How did you get accustomed to this kind of unpredictability to not be able to plan ahead but to to be able to arrange everything? Well, I don’t give up on planning. I still try to plan. I work in tourism and I also I work with foreign clients 99% of the time and they expect things to be arranged a year ahead. Sometimes I get bookings, you know, now already for something that will happen in September 2026. So I what I can arrange myself I do, but sometimes you need partners and I I still try to plan uh but you just have to be aware that it’s not always plannable and that things might change. Uh and um be ready for that. Sometimes I plan things double. you know, I’ll if we keep stick to the the example of uh organizing transport for a group or something, I might, you know, organize two transport companies already a few months ahead, you know, and then I will cancel one a month before or something or something like that. You sometimes plan things double, you know, just to make sure that one thing happens. You also have to, you know, be ready for the disappointment. Don’t go into stress mode uh when something is canceled last minute, for instance. And uh I think well what I learned is you have to believe a little bit in magic. It sounds a bit weird. Uh I’m a very rational business guy. I guess you know when it comes to business but uh in the 15 years that I worked here I’ve been in so many situations where you think oh no you know everything is going to fall apart. This is not happening. And it all, you know, somehow did happen and it went well, you know, and our guest uh just didn’t notice anything of all the things that went back bad on the background. And I I really started to believe in kind of magic like, you know, how does how does it always work out, you know? Okay, we have customers. Yeah, good. Okay. Hi. Hello. Uh we have an interview here, but uh I can help you if you uh if you want to rent the bike, maybe. Yeah, we want but unfortunately I forgot for all my documents. No problem. You can leave your wife here and you can rent the bike and then when you come back you can get your wife back. No, not a good deal. The other way around. No, no, no. It’s it’s okay. Uh you can rent a bike. Do you have maybe some photo of your passport or something like that? Then we’ll just do that. Personally, I got the impression that Belgrade is not bike friendly city. How did you get this idea to open here a bike rent? I am from Holland so we always bike. We a bit naive I think you know or I was and I I see that with other Dutch people coming here as well. We can just think we can bike anywhere. So as long as you don’t think it’s impossible, it’s possible. You understand? Uh people who grow up here think probably okay it’s not possible to bike or it’s unsafe so you won’t bike. But if you’re stupid enough and come from Holland and you don’t know that, you just start biking and it is possible. I I I ride my bike every day through the city and I’m not an extreme good biker or something. And you just have to learn to be aware that people don’t expect you because there’s not so many bikes on the streets. Uh I always tell people from countries where biking is more normal. Then just know that people don’t watch their right mirror in their car when they turn right. they don’t expect the bike to come and if you follow these little you know tricks if you just look out for the other as well uh it’s pretty possible to bike not everywhere of course um but yeah I came here in 2011 and um I I I was missing bike tours here because everywhere I would go on holiday and to a city like Barcelona or Rome I would always first do a bike tour uh and that’s way you can see a lot of the city of a big city in a short period of time. And for me, there was always a good basis for starting uh exploring a city. And it was missing here. There was no bike tours at all in Belgrade. So I thought, why isn’t it here? Why shouldn’t I do it? and I could combine uh my knowledge about biking knowledge like this because it’s just I was born and raised with cycling because I’m Dutch and uh share my passion and interest in uh in the Balkans in uh Belgrade also in Yugoslavia. I wanted to live in Belgrade. I want to move here uh just because I wanted that. There was no other no really logical reason and then I had to do something here to make money and to do yeah this was for me a logical thing was very illogical for everybody here to start bike tours so I think uh bit naivity stupidity and just go for it mentality I took one month to get a buy a secondhand bike and I was just biking through the city I I’ve been working in the region for a while I knew Belgrade a little bit I had friends here as Well, but I just every day I got on my bike and got lost. I just biked till I couldn’t bike anymore or you know I just discovered a whole city every in and out. That was one of the luckiest the happiest periods of my life. I think I had an office job you know and I was always working for somebody else but suddenly I had the freedom. I was living in Belgrade which I loved and I had this independence and I was riding a bike every day getting lost discovering you know all these new places. So I took a month or something to develop the tours and um I made some flyers. I made a very simple website. So I think after two months of me riding a bike in Belgrade, I was the number one thing to do above Kamedon, above St. Saba, you know, Trip Advisor everywhere. I was the number one thing to do. So what is the most challenging thing for you in running business in Serbia? I never was faced with any form of corruption or somebody trying to, you know, make me pay for something. But I must say uh one challenge it was especially at the beginning when setting up uh bureaucracy wise actually was I wanted to pay taxes. I started uh I started with a secondhand bike standing on the street every day at 2:00 people would come to me and we would start biking. They would pay me in cash. I didn’t have any other way to to handle that. And I went to the tax office. I say look I start this business. I want to pay tax. I want to be 100% legal. And I had to struggle so much to to pay tax. You know, I went to the tax office six times. They said, “Yeah, but you you where do you work?” I say, “Yeah, I work on the streets.” And yeah, where do you make your payments? Yeah, on the street. You know, there was no other option for me, you know. I don’t have an office. I have a laptop. That’s my office. But the system is so old that they don’t understand that you can run a business without an office, you know. I I don’t you know, I hope they change it now because now a lot of people work from their laptop, you know, but back in the days at least, they didn’t understand that. And they came with an official answer at after a few months saying, “Okay, we found the answer. You have to buy a car, register at a taxi and then you can uh you know make uh receipts like a taxi.” I said, “I’m a bike company, man. I don’t want to buy a car for you to pay taxes, you know.” So that was just complicated. I don’t know. I got some accountant and we solved it and I’m nicely paying taxes now. Who are the most challenging customers to deal with? With no offense, let me explain this. but ser and that’s because they know of course you’re you’re telling something as a foreigner or something as my guides are all locals but uh when I was still guiding a lot myself and I was starting sometimes there would be a Serbian guest normally bringing foreigners uh on a tour and they would join themselves but you would always get in a discussion you know because I would say the SIF building the pedals of Serbia would be built in 1961 and then you know the guy on the tour from here would say no No, my grandfather helped building this and it was 1962 or something. I mean it more jokingly, but of course they they know more than you or they have a personal experience with things as well. That’s also it can also get delicate. Of course, if you’re talking about politics or even history is not so 100% defined, especially when you talk about Yugoslavia or the break up of Yugoslavia. Yeah, there’s a lot of opinions about it and different interpretations about what happened. So if you tell that story to a foreigner who knows nothing about it, they will believe what you say. But if you tell it to people from the region for instance, yeah, they might have something else other opinion uh about it. I’m not saying it’s uh not nice. It’s actually nice because you learn from it uh sometimes and this interaction is great, of course. So it makes it much more interesting than just telling your story and everybody saying yes, I believe you. Has the influx of Russians somehow influenced your business? Well, it influenced it um in kind of a positive way because the people from Russia that moved to Belgrade in the past years, there’s a lot of cyclists there much more than Serbians actually. I don’t know, they live here and they’re not the typical tourist uh but they want to go for a longer ride for instance and want to rent a good bike for for that. We had a lot of families with young kids uh suddenly. So I noticed I had to buy more kids seats uh because of Russian families uh coming. These are small things but that’s how I noticed. How do you estimate the influence of Russians who came here after 2022 in general? You know, there’s a sort of a general idea like, okay, these Russians, they all came together almost at the same time and they stick together and they made their make their own like city within the city. You know, they have their own cafes, uh, uh, shops, bakeries, hairdressers, everything and their own services. Um, which is a true thing. So, you don’t meet a Russian on the street so quickly or in a bar, you would say, because they stick to their own uh, crowd. when I meet them here in my shop personally I got a really different opinion really nice open people and we have very nice long discussions you know or talks and really friendly so there is this idea that it’s as a community or to me it’s a quite close community uh but the people are just very friendly and open actually uh I don’t know the historical cultural sociological explanation for that and if I’m right it’s just my experience but uh that’s how I notice it. Yeah. And I I studied sociology and international relations. So what’s happening with a move of one group of people from one country because of political reasons to another country? Yeah. It’s super fascinating for me to see this happening. I find it fascinating that you know you you have to go leave your your hometown, your home place uh and leave everything behind. But you see people starting businesses here and you know developing things here. You know, nobody knows how long you’re going to stay here. you know, probably most people were hoping it was like a few months and going back. But yeah, I’m quite uh impressed by the guys who start and girls who start businesses at least, you know, I think they also bring a lot of new stuff, you know. I think especially the guys from Moscow and St. Petersburg, it’s much more hip there. I think it’s a bit bigger metropol, of course, the kind of design they bring in their shops and everything. Uh the music they bring. I’ve been to some festivals with Russian music and bands which I never would have seen else and it’s very avanguard and very very cool and my maybe my guiding background you had the same influx of Russians in 1917 during the the revolution then it’s interesting the first uh ballet uh performance in in in Serbia was done then by Russians you know they brought ballet to to to Serbia if I’m correct what is the main thing that Serb about torture. They’re different, you know, can be different and you can be better off on your side, but it doesn’t mean that the other side is is is bad. I’m thinking of Holland as a country, as a rich country and a democracy and everything is orderly and everybody follows the rules and nice and we’re on top of a lot of things, you know, in the statistics in the world, you know, healthiest country, happiest country, richest country, and everything. That makes people feel better sometimes than people in other countries. And I learned there’s that’s just complete You know, there’s nothing to be feeling better about. You know, people here uh have just as much uh good things uh speaking for them uh as as people in Holland and even more maybe. What is the most valuable thing that you found in Serbia? Well, I have to say my wife, of course, cuz you will see this I think. But it’s true. my wife and and uh her family, you know, is yeah, it’s just amazing for a simple Dutch guy to be welcomed. Yeah, that makes me feel special always, you know, to just be there. And I’m still after 15 years in a foreigner, you know, and a strange as they call it. And it still feels like that also because I’m maybe not speaking fluently Serbian, you’re still outside or maybe I will always be a bit distr, you know, and I I don’t know. It’s maybe also going back to my Yugo nostalgia again. Sometimes I can be here in Belgrade or somewhere else in in the region or in Serbia driving in one of my old sustavas specifically and I nothing reminds me of 2025. But even when you walk drive to a little town or something and there’s nothing modern, you know, which you see as a positive thing, not that everything is old, no, but you know, you’re not com you can go back in time a little bit like, oh, it’s 1970 or 1980, you know. For me personally, that’s a very these are very nice experience which I can only find here and not in Holland for instance. You know, something can be old for a while. You know, there’s still streets call being called after Tito, for instance. I I like that. You know, it’s Yeah, it’s from the old days, but it’s still there. Do you personally feel Yugo nostalgic? Well, I wasn’t born in Yugoslav. It was already Serbia. I’m much younger than that. So I can’t really feel you nostalgic but you know I feel u from the stories of my grandpas and grandmas like that it was really nice to be there you know because you you had connections all over the country everybody was friendly everything was doing fine and u yeah you know like I’m friendly with people I like to hang out so I feel that now there is a bit of animosity right now but um for example I do have a friend from Croatia and One time there was a Ramstein concert in Belgra and he’s a huge Ramstein fan. So, um, we went to the concert and, uh, you know, I like the guy no matter like I’m Serbian, he’s creation, but we do connect, you know, and, uh, he’s a good guy, I’m a good guy, so why shouldn’t we hang out? But, you know, I I know that there are some people from Croatia and Serbia as well that saying like, oh, I would never go to Croatia. I would never go to Serbia, you know, and I feel that u it’s a shame, you know, that there is no unity anymore.