A Show of Balkan Poverty

A foreigner getting off a train in Novi Beograd and waiting for a tram there would wonder what part of the world he’s in. Reasoning, the train ticket and elementary knowledge of geography would tell him he’s in southeast Europe but everything else would seem like the poorest suburb of Calcutta: an unbearable high-pitched racket which can’t be called music, many loud, dirty, dark people, a fat layer of dirt covered by piles of garbage

and blankets covered in all kinds of cheap goods; in short a festival of microbes, the carriers of the plague, cholera and who knows what else. If the confused stranger is lucky some local will explain he is dangerously close to the Open Trade Center or Belgrade’s flea market which marked its second anniversary this July 7 but wasn’t honored by a visit from Prime Minister Marjanovic or President Milosevic. They don't come to places like this.

Traders selling out of cardboard boxes line the pavement on the way to the entrance. Selling is banned on the sidewalk but they do a roaring trade because everyone has to go past them.

More serious deals are done inside the market. Some stalls stock goods found in good shops and there’s even more in the cars and vans parked behind the stalls. The number of items sold are too numerous to count.

To most people in Belgrade the flea market is the only place they can get spare parts for their hopelessly outdated appliances. Clever traders developed a profitable business and they can even get parts from Hong Kong or Singapore. Some pass out business cards with the number of their stall at the market.

"Recently a regulation was passed to register a company on the basis of a reserved market stall or parking space," market manager Dusan Sobot told VREME. "That gives them a chance of operating legally and paying taxes."

The market covers 4.5 hectares and has 1,249 stalls and 560 parking spaces. Besides the 30 or so employees it has another 20 security guards from a private company. Another 20 street cleaners start work every afternoon after the market closes. Two police inspectors are always on duty along with a doctor. Everyone has a lot of work over weekends when 50-70,000 people got through the market. On week days half that number are there depending on the weather.

Sobot insists on the official name Open Trade Center (OTC). "The difference between this and other centers in the city is only that this one is outside. This isn’t a flea market, the flea market is outside our fences and we have nothing to do with it."

What Sobot called the flea market is the field and sidewalk described earlier where there’s no grass, only dust and dirt.

There are rules to the game outside the market as well, there are good and bad spots. The best spots are taken by Romanies who sleep there in tents.

The state media have been indicating that all forms of smuggling will be combated now that the sanctions are gone. The state has decided to take what it feels it has a right to and danger has come to the market. The republican market inspection service said in June it wants the government to ban the sale of new goods. That means only used goods will be sold at the market or goods produced by craftsmen.

What will happen is uncertain but it’s clear a ban won’t stop anything but only force smugglers to find other ways to sell.

The flea market is best school of survival and market economy: just look at vital grannies baking cookies and cakes on Friday night to sell on Saturday morning. Flea market prices don’t rise even amid panic like when Avramovic was ousted; traders invest in the future to attract more buyers. State trade companies have a lot to learn there.