Crisis? What Crisis?

Though there may be fewer Christmas gifts under the tree this year in the rest of the world, the city’s retailers say they haven’t felt the effects of the global slump.

If you were in Belgrade last year during December, you may remember how crowded the city’s shops and malls were when the pre-New Year sales started. This year, though many stores have started their sales already, the shopping districts and malls seem nowhere near as packed and the shopping hysteria we saw during the 2007 holiday season seems to be missing.

Whilst retailers across the world seem to be in meltdown, predicting some of the worst Christmas sales in decades, Belgrade analysts and retailers say that there hasn’t been much change in sales volume when compared to last year, adding that the global financial slump hasn’t yet affected Belgraders’ spending.

In the US, despite heavy discounts and limited-time deals on goods, the average holiday shopper has bought much less than last year, according to a survey by the country’s National Retail Federation which showed that over 47 per cent of shoppers had not yet finished their gift shopping by the second week of December. A massive 41 million people haven’t yet started shopping. Moreover, according to another survey published by America’s Research Group and UBS, over 40 per cent of shoppers say they will spend less this year.

The situation is much the same in the UK, where iconic brands such as Woolworths have slipped into receivership and retailers have been frantically scrambling to re-negotiate lease contracts and payment terms. According to a Confederation of British Industry survey, 67 per cent of retailers reported lower sales in the first two weeks of December, compared to the same period last year.

But, it seems that shoppers will keep buying in Belgrade for the time being. Bosko Trmcic, of Serbia’s Ministry for Statistics, said that he expects consumption to plummet much later than it has in the rest of the world. Though discretionary spending statistics for November and December haven’t yet been published, he added that he doesn’t expect to see change much from this time last year.

“We are expecting a slight fall in consumption in November, but the financial crisis hasn’t affected the country yet as it has the European Union,” Trmic said.

“This fall happened in the EU over two months ago, and I’m not sure when it will happen in Serbia. It will, just not yet,” he added.

Trmic said that November discretionary spending is nearly always smaller than that of October, and he expects that the numbers this year will be slightly lower, but not significantly.

In 2007, 22 per cent of Serbian household income was spent on discretionary goods. By the third quarter of 2008, discretionary had nudged ahead by .5 to 22.5 per cent.

Retailers agree with analysts that the financial crisis hasn’t affected holiday shopping.

“Currently we don’t have any pre-New Year discounts, but nevertheless, we haven’t felt that shoppers are spending any less than they were spending last year,” said Lidija Pintic, manager of Mango at Delta City.

Jelena Bukazic, manager of the Esprit store in Delta City, echoed Pintic, saying “We have started to discount because we do this every year and not because of the financial crisis. There really hasn’t been a change and people are spending as much as they do every year during this time.”

Gay Belgrade Remains Locked ‘in the Closet’

Serbian capital’s small lesbian and gay community has learned to safely maneuver what they see as often hostile streets.

Graffiti declaring “Send Karadzic to The Hague” had appeared one day on “Eifranloo’s” street. Later that day, walking back home, a man he describes as a neo-Nazi was standing next to the graffiti.

“He started yelling: ‘Do you know who drew this? I’m looking for the person who did this because only a fag could have written this, and you look like one. Did you?’”

Eifranloo, 20, who wants to be referred to only by his nickname, says he just kept on walking, ignoring the thug’s comments. He says he has learned how to avoid conflict of this sort.

Eifranloo has been living in Belgrade for over a year, and avoids outright expressions of his sexuality in public. When walking on the street with his boyfriend, he certainly doesn’t hold his hand.

“Belgrade is pretty anti-gay, but also anti-anything that deviates from the Balkan norm,” he says. “However, I don’t feel unsafe. I’ve learned how to act, but I think that if a foreigner came to Belgrade and wasn’t aware of how to keep his sexuality hidden, he’d run into trouble. In this city you have to think hard before you make any move.”

Many activists, and people, from the gay and lesbian community, echo these sentiments. They say that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender scene in Belgrade is very small precisely because of the unwelcoming and often homophobic atmosphere. They believe this is rooted in several systematic failures, such as the refusal of the police to offer adequate protection and in the unwillingness of most politicians to be associated with “anything gay”.

Public attitudes in Serbia have yet to reflect the sweeping changes that have been made in Western countries in recent decades in relation to lesbian and gay visibility.

A study by the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy found that 70 per cent of Serbs still see homosexuality as a disease. More than 50 per cent of people in Serbia think state institutions should work to prevent homosexuality, and 50 per cent also think that homosexuality poses a danger to society.

Recently, however, Queeria, an organization for the promotion of queer culture, received a €3,000 grant from the Ministry of Culture for the development of a website. This was the first time an LGBT group had received any funding at all from the Serbian government.

“In this country, we experience violence, we experience hate, we experience discrimination, but the problem that Queeria tries to highlight is political disqualification, which is by far the most damaging,” says Slobodan Stojanovic, a member of the organisation.

“To be honest, this is a fairly small grant, but the minute this became public there was a discussion about who works in this ministry, and whether they are gay, or married,” he said, adding that the tone of the discussions only highlighted the way in lesbians and gays remained outside political life.

Predrag Azdejkovic, also of Queeria, echoed Stojanovic’s statement, saying that the reasons that contributed to the small size of the gay scene in Belgrade went very deep.

“The gay population faces many negative messages on a daily basis, which differ in intensity from attacks on one’s dignity to death threats,” Azdejkovic said.

“These messages lead to fear, retreat from public life, and hiding, and often result in you starting to hate yourself,” he added, explaining that this was why many gay Belgraders chose to remain “in the closet”.

However, Azdejkovic said Belgrade was still less homophobic than other Serbian towns and cities such as Jagodina, Krusevac, and Cacak.

Boris Milicevic, an LGBT activist and program manager of Belgrade’s gay club, Apartman, said the city had a population advantage over Jagodina, Krusevac and Cacak.

“The advantage of Belgrade is that it is a city of 2 million, so you can hide there more easily than in smaller towns. And since Belgrade is the capital, LGBT groups can more easily pressure the government,” Milicevic said.

Milicevic added that although Belgrade’s gay scene was small, it did exist. There were now several clubs like Apartman, Toxic and Black.

A source, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not an “out” activist, told Belgrade Insight that gay clubs in Belgrade were neither public nor mainstream for safety reasons.

This 22-year-old student from New Belgrade added: “The scene here is pretty undercover. If everyone knew where these places were, who knows what might happen?”

He agreed with Eifranloo that he has learned to act in order to stay safe in Belgrade.

“I can’t hold my boyfriend’s hand when we’re walking down the street, I’m used to that,” he said. “I don’t expect this to change. This the Balkans, after all.”