Serbia 14. Velika Remeta Monastery

I have been trying for a long time to get access to one of the old Serbian monasteries. It was through friends from the Radio Television of Serbia that I was finally able to visit Velika Remeta, a monastery established in late 15th century in Voivodina, the northern part of the country. These friends helped me tremendously with access and transportation. I am deeply grateful to Ljubica Lalic for her assistance.

Serbia 13. Slava.

The Slava is the Serbian Orthodox tradition of the celebration of a family's own patron saint. The family celebrates the slava annually on the patron saint's feast day. I photographed two Slava celebrations. I wanted to photograph this celebration both in a city and in a village. The first pictures batch of pictures are from a Slava in Belgrade. The second one are shot in a village called Porodin, where I got access thanks to a Romanian-Serb guy called Zoran Gruic, that I met while photographing the pilgrimage in Djunis last month. I am really grateful to these people for allowing me to photograph their celebrations.

Serbia 12. 1389

1389 is the year when the battle of Kosovo took place, where the Serbian army, led by Knyaz Lazar, fought against the invading army of the Ottoman Empire. After the battle, both Knyaz Lazar and Sultan Murad I died, along with most of their soldiers. Serbian epics says that Knyaz Lazar was visited by an angel of God on the night before the clash, and offered a choice between an earthly or a heavenly kingdom. Lazar opted for the latter, which is why many Serbs believe they are heavenly people.

1389 is also the name of an organization in Serbia, often called right-wing by the media and associated with nationalistic movements and implication in anti-European actions, such as the recent gay parade protests and clashes. They are strongly strong believers and consider Orthodoxy a core element of Serbian identity. That is why I wanted to meet them. The leaders of the 1389 agreed to see me. I explained a little bit about my project and they agreed to let me tag along with some of their members for a while in New Belgrade.

Marko's Romanian Teenagers

Great work about Romanian teenagers, for the World Press Photo's See Masterclass, by my friend Marko Risovic, a great Serbian photographer.

Ciocan. Christian Ciocan.

About a month ago, I had to photograph Christian Ciocan, the spokesman for Bucharest Police, for DOR magazine. He is an interesting character and we had fun shooting this.

Serbia 11. Around Belgrade

Serbia 10. Orthodox Kindergarten

Serbia has one Orthodox kindergarten. How is this different from any other kindergarten in the country? While the children study English, ballet or sports a few times a week, Orthodox religion is a class they have every day. They hear stories about their saints and get to learn prayers. The Patriarch himself comes to visit every now and then.

Serbia 09. Red Star vs. Partizan vs. Police

Historical football derby in Belgrade: Red Star vs. Partizan. The country's best teams, whose stadiums are a few hundred meters apart. Police presence at the game: 5000 +. Fans sang throughout the game, which was great to witness. Surprisingly, there was no violence after the game. Which the media attributes to fear of recent legislative efforts to outlaw the fan brigades.

Serbia 08. More Novi Beograd

Serbia 07. Novi Beograd

New Belgrade is a neighbourhood of Belgrade, built in 1947 on the left bank of the Sava river. About five hundred thousand people live together in this huge complex.

As I'm walking through with my friend Mladen, we talk of Ceausescu, who must have been so envious of Tito for creating the ideal communist development. Even though it seems cold and lonely out there, I get the same feeling I got in East Berlin: their communism was better than ours. While the tall, grey buildings resemble those in Romanian cities, there is more space between, more room to breathe. I'll try to get back to that fascinating area before I leave Belgrade.