Anti-Imperialism Bar in Kragujevac, Serbia

Spent the weekend down in Kragujevac, Serbia.   Kragujevac was the first capital of modern Serbia (1818–1839), and the first constitution in the Balkans was proclaimed in this city in 1835. It is currently the 4th largest city in Serbia with a population around 150K people.

A few of my best buddies are Palestinians who study at the medical and engineering university in Kragujevac. It had been ages since I last saw them so I took the early afternoon bus from Novi Sad to Kragujevac. I arrived in Kragujevac around 4;45PM. The first thing you see when entering into Kragujevac is this massive cross that dominates the landscape. A few meters after the cross is a massive “Fiat” logo in the center of a roundabout.  Fiat has a major production factory in Kragujevac after they purchased Zastava.

Fiat purchased  a 67% ownership of the Serbian automobile manufacturing company, Zastava, back in 2008. They manufacture the Fiat 500L at this Serbian automobile plant.

The city has a lot of beautiful buildings and a great night life. These are a few pictures that were taken by Slavoljub Radojevic.

My buddy, Sharar, met me in front of Hotel Kragujevac and took me to his apartment for lunch. His girlfriend prepared us a wonderful dinner of chicken, potatoes, and salad. We decided to go out on the town for a few drinks. One of the best things about Kragujevac is the nightlife.  They have a ton of lively bars, kafanas, and nightclubs all over the city.

We chose the Rakija Bar which has every single flavor of rakija that you could ever want. I chose a premium dunja rakija. It was terrific. We left the rakija bar and headed down to smoke a little bit of nargile with our other buddy, Ramzi. We smoked a few different flavors, drank some beers and then one of my friends took his girlfriend home. I went off to eat with the other dude. We found a wonderful little pljeskavica shop and chatted with the owner for a bit. My other friend returned and we hit up a couple more bars and ended up at a some nightclub. I have a major phobia of being crammed into a small space and not being able to move so we left that place and found one that had a little bit more space. We ended ended the night around 3:20AM and drug our butts home.

I was roused from sleep around 11:30AM by my buddy. His girlfriend had prepared a wonderful breakfast for us.
We worked on a couple things for girlfriend and then he wanted to show me some little bar that was a few blocks from his apartment. I’m always up for exploring new places. The bar is called “Buena Vista” and is located in a little passage close to the main walking street. 

The entire bar is decked out in Cuban flags, pictures of Fidel Castro, little models of Cuba, Che, and lots of posters against American imperialism.

The drink menu is about as thick as “War and Peace” . There are an endless amount of mixed drinks with some really unique names like ” Go Home Yankee” , “Fu*K USA”, and “USA Collapse” …

This might not be the place to bring Obama or any other government employee. 🙂 The bartender was an absolute pro too. He suggested a variety of different drinks with many different liquors in them. They place a big slice of fresh fruit in each glass also. We were stunned at how cheap the prices were! The majority of the drinks were around $3!

This bar is a must if you are a westerner visiting the center of this awesome little country! Tell them that Charles sent ya. 🙂 Check out their Facebook page here!