Belgrade’s derby: a multi-layered snapshot of local and global tensions
Draw at Red Star keeps Partizan top of Serbia’s Superliga after a match fraught with ultras, the underworld and political dissent
It is a warm, sleepy Sunday afternoon in block 61. Most of the alleys between New Belgrade’s grey, looming 1970s towers are virtually deserted – a permanent state of affairs in some cases, if the buildups of litter and vegetation are any barometer. The area might look unloved but life hums along inside the thousands of apartments, families taking lunch and washing hung on balconies.
At ground level graffiti daubs almost every wall and doorway. Children playing mini-football can do so flanked by a mural spanning the side of the concrete pitch that reads: “Russia and Serbia, brothers forever”. Then there are the numerous reminders of a turf war that, under cover of darkness, is marked out slogan by slogan. “What is the life of a Grobari?” asks one inscription, painted in Red Star’s primary colour and taunting Partizan’s notorious ultras group. “During the day they run, during the night they scribble”. Somebody has crossed a thick line through those letters in the black of Partizan.
