From Dusk Till Dawn

The bus to Tuzi, near Podgorica, leaves at sunset from a town in central Serbia. It has only a few passengers, mainly the driver's relatives. It doesn't take the shortest route to its destination, it goes along the Drina river. Passengers who board the bus in Brcko, Zvornik and Bratunac are refugees from western and central Bosnia and the former RSK, only a few of them are from Serbia proper. Once it's full, the bus leaves for Tuzi. It is less than comfortable, but no one is complaining. On the contrary, many passengers - who know each other from previous contraband trips - act as true masters of ceremony. Trash folk music and cheap brandy bring them from a lively and cheerful mood to a state of exaltation, interrupted by occasional stops when someone wants to go to the toilet or throw up. Early in the morning, Montenegrin police check the bus, which reaches Tuzi at the break of dawn.

THE FLAG: The passengers wait for the market to open in what is called a bar. The "bar" is a makeshift object made of stiffened cardboard and wooden poles. The waiter, an Albanian (like most local businessmen), holding a mobile telephone in his hand, says that the planes carrying cigarettes have landed and that the price has not yet been determined due to a sudden change on the black market exchange rate. As we leave the "bar", we enter the market. Endless rows of makeshift counters offer chocolate, tinned sardines, underwear, fake Zepter sets, blankets, cosmetic products, shoes, toys, felt pens and - of course - a mountain of cigarettes. Walls made of Marlboro, Dunhill, Bond, Partner, etc.....We meet an Albanian "merchant" with the reputation of an "expert" for trade in Tuzi. The supply and demand has dropped considerably, but the Tuzi market will keep operating, he says. "Some 30,000 carton-loads of cigarettes are about to arrive from Albania ", he reassures us. Each load has 500 packets. Trash folk music can be heard everywhere, as the makeshift counters are getting bigger by the minute. Buyers are all over the place, the quality of the goods is vouched for by an Italian flag hanging on a pole at the entrance.

All buyers are after cigarettes, everything else is bought to conceal the cigarettes so that police at checkpoints can't detect them. About 100 carton-loads of cigarettes are packed in a bus whose passengers are allowed to declare a total of ten. First they take the cartons apart and put boxes of ten into clothes, shoe-shelves, rags and bags, and then open the remaining boxes and put packets into their pockets, socks and just about every hollow spot they can find in the bus. Cigarettes are hidden inside and under the seats, in bunkers and special compartments built only for this purpose. When the entire load is stuffed into the bus, it seems that there is no room left for passengers. But they somehow board the bus, leaving only a mountain of carton behind.

THE BORDER: A different route is taken on the way back, to avoid police checkpoints in Prijepolje.

Why?

Because, they say, Serbian police in Prijepolje has not only confiscated all their cigarettes, but also humiliated them using the most brutal and vulgar methods. "They would spit at us, call us cattle and tie up our arms and legs to poles as if we were common criminals", says a fat young woman. She is originally from the Bosnian town of Konjic, but now lives in Bratunac. She says that she has not experienced such hardship even in the Bradina concentration camp, where she was held in captivity by the Moslems for five months. "The police at the Prijepolje checkpoint pushed their hands under my skirt, made me say I enjoyed it, I will never take that return route again", she says. So the cigarette smugglers return from Montenegro to Serbia via the Serb Republic in Bosnia.

In Niksic, the passengers decide to return via Trebinje. It can't be as bad as Prijepolje, they reckon as the bus approaches a police checkpoint in this Bosnian town on the Montenegrin border. The customs officer is kind and understanding, he acknowledges that hard times and poverty have forced these people to do what they are doing. "How many boxes per person ?", he asks. "From 25 to 30", the passengers answer. He says that only half as much is tolerated at the Trebinje checkpoint, but adds they can go this time. "Why are you taking the longer route ?", he asks again. The collective answer is that the police in Serbia proper "are all scoundrels harassing them innocent folks while Slobodan Milosevic's son Marko smuggles tons and tons of cigarettes into the country. Once again they played the right music to the custom officer's ears. He is in a very good mood as he conducts a "routine check" in the bus. He steps down with a smile and several boxes of Marlboro in his hand. The passengers wave him good bye and he waves back.

The border crossing at the Serb Republic in Bosnia is nothing but a checkpoint with a ramp. The guide warns the passengers that they need to produce a total of 3,000 dinars and a few boxes of bond cigarettes for the customs officers. Disabled persons and self-supporting mothers are excluded from paying "tax". The "operation" goes well and smooth, everybody smiles as the bus leaves for Bileca and Gacko. Deep into the night we approach Mostar, but the driver takes a turn and heads for Foca, Cemerno and down to Tjentiste. There are hardly any vehicles on the road, only a bus carcass to remind us that the war ended not so long ago. A discussion about erotic matters reflect the passengers' mood. As we take the "Milosevic corridor" en route to the SFOR-controlled town of Gorazde, the driver has to pay "compensation" to "understanding" Bosnian Serb police patrols along the way. We reach Serb Sarajevo around midnight.

The passengers are tired and exhausted by the long and arduous journey. They lie down, on or beside the cigarettes, some even on the floor. We start a conversation with Marinko Lazarevic, a disabled war veteran living in Zvornik, in a house previously owned by a Moslem. "This is all a truckload of shit, I live to survive. I have a wife, two kids and no income. I lived in Loznica, Serbia, before the war, but I ended up on the frontline for 15 months. I was disabled even before the war, and it only got worse in Bosnia. I am trying to make some money for surgery, but I spend all of it on feeding my family. It's all f.... up, so many people got killed for nothing. There is a lot of money in this business and the people are hungry. Thieves are everywhere, even in the Red Cross", he says.

"They call this contraband but it isn't contraband, it's survival", he says in conclusion very loudly, so that everybody can hear him. They all approve, especially his relative sitting next to him. Disabled himself, he says he found it easier to fight Moslems than battle it out with customs officers. His nerves are gone, he says.

The journey is three days old, it's early morning. Most passengers get off the bus on the Bosnian side of the Drina river. As we approach the Serbian border, two men start a discussion about potency. "Two brandies, a glass of wine and I unload", one of them says. There are hardly any passengers left or goods to declare on the Serbian border. The customs officers accept a small gift and wave us good-bye. The long and arduous trip is almost over. We have covered about 1,300 kilometers and toured the entire Serb Republic in Bosnia to avoid paying "tax" and other "duties". As we approach the outskirts of Belgrade, a rare and tired passenger sums up the adventure which kept him sleepless for three days, from dusk till dawn. "Fuck this country, where you have to travel for 40 hours to avoid paying tax on goods you bought in that very same country. It's as if I bought a pair of underwear in downtown Belgrade and took a trip back home, which is two blocks away, via Novi Sad and Vrsac.