Bridges of Serbia: From Bread to Courts

I hadn’t ever given Serbia much thought. As a child growing up in a hushed German town, it was just another name on a map — a place entwined with the news, far-off headlines, stories that seemed remote. Balkan conflict. Serbia news. Reports that read as if they were too complex to fully grasp. 

But I began to feel differently the day I stumbled upon an old picture of Belgrade travel, a city of ancient streets and modern towers with a river snaking through it — a city of contrasts, of contradictions. There was an organic energy there, some edge to it, something human. I started reading. I learned about its Serbian people resilience, about how Serbian traditions had persisted in the face of years of strife, about the sports passion that united everyone from children in tiny villages to global champions. 

A question began to occur to me: What is Serbia, really? Not as the newspapers had told me. Not what politicians had been fighting about. But what the people of Serbia retained in their hearts — their songs, their tables, their courts, their hopes. So I thought I’d start to look for it. My plan was simple: rove around Serbia and talk to people; listen to their stories while tasting their food and watching their games. I wanted to know how a country as defined by conflict could still believe so strongly in hospitality, in community, in pride. 

In a divided world, perhaps this journey could teach me something about building bridges — across cultures, across languages, across memories of hurt. That’s what I wanted to do – to hear, to learn and to give. And at the start of this story materializes this story, a tale of tradition and sport and soul — and the people who carry them forth in Serbia.

Tradition & Culture

I was struck not by the grand monuments and the wide urban boulevards of the capital city of Serbia, but by the small. A woman across the way sweeping the steps to her house early in the morning, giving me the nod. A grandfather tying fresh herbs above his door, to bring good luck. The scent of baking bread, combined with the smoky wood fires in shantytown bakeries.

Tradition here is not a relic in a museum. It’s alive, it breathes in all corners of everyday life.

I was asked to a Slava, a family celebration honoring a family’s patron saint. And there I witnessed the depth, and the ancientness, of the rituals. There was a candle, prayers, bread broken carefully and passed out to every participant. The host warmly welcome me as if I were his relative,a stranger.

The table was laden with food: Roasted meat, homemade cheese, plates of pickles, honey, and small glasses of rakija that never seemed to empty. Every time I attempted to respectfully refuse, a grinning uncle forced another glass into my hand.

“Drink,” he laughed, “for today you are family.

There was music as well — old folk songs sang softly at first, and then more loudly, more exuberantly, as the night went on. A man produced a little accordion and in no time at all, everyone was singing along, stamping their feet, clapping their hands in time.

They later taught me to dance the kolo, the circle dance where neighbors join hands, step by step, as the circle appears to hold the entire village together.

I remember thinking, How powerful that was. That in a land touched so deeply by hardship, people still had a way of standing together, of joining arms and taking the next step forward, however small.

At the market the next morning that spirit of hospitality was maintained. Women gave me samples of jam they made in their kitchens; a man boasted about growing his own peppers from seeds his grandmother gave him. Another woman demonstrated how to make ajvar, a slow roasted red pepper spread made over open flame.

No one seemed rushed. Each transaction was also a conversation, a small gesture of connection.

It was there that I came to understand that tradition in Serbia is not history. It is in resistance to forgetting. Each shared dish, each dance, each blessing, Muniz said, is a way of saying: We are still here. We still care.

And watching children soaking in these dances, sweeping old people telling old stories around a flaming log fire in a hut, I saw something I hadn’t seen properly before: tradition was not the prison of Serbia. It was taking it forward, large and strong, like an old melody that was doing good to hear.