Oh, goodie! Someone has resurrected the sparse and depressing concept of a Communist-era supermarket in Belgrade. Everyone, off to Serbia! Inside of what was the first discount supermarket in Communist Yugoslavia, a Belgrade design firm has arranged various relics of cold war life and reopened the space as a concept shop.

With repurposed refrigerators, a VW bus, whole hospital examination rooms, and even bathroom doors ripped from a derelict freight elevator, the ReMiks Supermarket reinterprets the ascetic aesthetics of the "Golden Years of Communism" in order to show off spectacularly designed consumer products for modern living. Cracked cement floors and white warehouse lights dominate the space, in order to serve as an "imperfect background for the educated consumers' perfect fetishes." Sounds naughty!]]> JetSetCD 2009-03-05T13:56:15-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/5/1/11951/52239

With the World Cup approaching, there will be much discussion in the coming months equating the behavior of fans to their national stereotypes: the English are drunk and belligerent, the Brazilians are drunk and naked, the Italians are drunk and enthusiastic, and so on. While we don't buy into those kind of stereotypes--we went to a school that encouraged sensitivity--there has to be some kernel of truth in them. After all, there's a book about it, called How Soccer Explains the World, written by Franklin Foer, who currently edits the New Republic.

Keeping those things in mind, we present to you this clip of the 1991 European Championships semifinal, played at Red Star Belgrade's home stadium. Americans may think their fans are tough, but all they do is hurl abuse, possibly some beers, or disco records. These fans have organized chants and their own pyrotechnics. Hardly seems in the same category. In a related note, whipping a bunch of Serbs into a frenzy in the early 90s didn't end so well. Maybe keeping soccer fans drunk and happy instead of organized is the way to go after all.

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·   World Cup Coverage [Jaunted]]]> AVB 2006-05-01T11:15:02-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/1/24/121032/549

Fantastic article from the Weekend FT, debunking the New York Times fantasy soufflé on Belgrade's nightlife from last year.

Belgrade's tourism board was making a hard sell on Belgrade, designating it as a clubbing capital of Europe. Sounds great, especially the famed party boats down by the river, right?

Not exactly. The Serbs are not free of recent history just yet, for starters. Those boats are not that close to town--they overlook Novi Beograd, an entire city of housing projects on the other side of the river. Service is still old-school Slavic. And the secret clubs, are, naturally, hard to find, all the more so for anyone without a command of Cyrillic. Belgrade is a fun town, but it's not Ibiza on the Danube.

On the flip side, the Hotel Moskva (home of the hardest scrambled eggs I've ever encountered) got a bad rap from the Times--it's a quality destination, without a whiff of boutique hotel to it. Think gold brocade on the comforters and you wouldn't be far off.

[Belgrade image via RSEanes/Flickr]

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· Hotel Moskva Reviews [TripAdvisor]]]> AVB 2006-01-24T15:32:34-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/