[Dragan]

Are the stereotypes true?

Few things I saw in Serbia and Macedonia this year:

Dude counting out 100's of pills and bills while pulled over by traffic cop. "Relax man, it's fun, and the police don't care."

Squat toilets--Had to spend the night in a girl's dorm. Smelled like shit. I don't care if they're better for your shitting posture, get some IMF loans so you can get some 1st world toilets.

Dude i know is delayed meeting for beers. -"Sorry man, I had something real bad happen." --"Oh yeah, really?" -"yeah got in trouble for drunk driving, blew a .10 (limit is .05)" --"How are you here, now?" -"They said I was good to drive, I'm really fucked with the cost of the ticket, $25."

Dudes stealing literally anything they can put their hands on in the store, including items worth like 50cents. Also, anti-theft devices on all liquor bottles more than 5 bucks.

[Wander]

If that's the worst that you have encountered then you haven't been in Eastern Europe very long

With regard to shoplifting, I think there is more in the West

[joost]

Never been to Macedonia but maybe you're hanging out with lower class people? I was in Serbia and never saw such toilets. I thought they were common only in Asia.

About cops receiving bribes, it's common in most countries, specially undeveloped ones. In Mexico you'll end up paying a bribe just for being a gringo*!

* Cop will give shitty excuse to bother you. And you can pay the "fine" directly to him.

[gework]

In Russia I witnessed Putin rigging the 2016 US Presidential election, Brexit and Catalan independence.



In Serbia I was being driven by a 68 year old plummer. We were stopped at temp. traffic lights. A loud scretching noise came from behind and pas the car, as a taxi decided he was going to jump the lights. The taxi crashed into a car coming the other way head on. The plummer got out of the car and started mouthing off at the taxi driver. The taxi driver came at him and the plummer got back in his car. The taxi driver began punching and kicking the plummer's car. The taxi driver was tall and gaunt and looked like he spent all his spare time inefficiently lifting weights in his house, while off his nut on meth. The taxi driver ran back to his car to get something and came back at the plummer. Not sure what it was as by that time the plummer was frantically getting us out of there.

I've not witnessed much craziness there.

[Beirut]

You won't see much of the craziness in the big cities. You'd have to be in the villages and nth tier cities to see them.

Usually you have no reason to be there except if visiting someone you know.

[sterling_archer]

(12-02-2017 11:59 PM)Dragan Wrote:  

Squat toilets--Had to spend the night in a girl's dorm. Smelled like shit. I don't care if they're better for your shitting posture, get some IMF loans so you can get some 1st world toilets.

Very common in ex Yugoslavia. I saw them last time here in Croatia in Zadar in some shithole (literally) WC near sea.

[Dragan]

(12-03-2017 07:03 AM)joost Wrote:  

Never been to Macedonia but maybe you're hanging out with lower class people? I was in Serbia and never saw such toilets. I thought they were common only in Asia.

About cops receiving bribes, it's common in most countries, specially undeveloped ones. In Mexico you'll end up paying a bribe just for being a gringo*!

* Cop will give shitty excuse to bother you. And you can pay the "fine" directly to him.

Well it was a dorm room, and i was told it was relatively common in the Balkans to see them. Especially in public restrooms and dorms. I think they get more common if you go into rural/poorer areas.

I wasn't hanging out with lower class people, just a lot of students in both Belgrade and Macedonia.

I never actually saw any bribing strangely enough. But I was told that customs officers at the airport will try to get bribes by telling you that if you don't bribe you have to pay an import tax on your expensive electronics (good luck getting out of that one if you don't have the original receipt) .

[Dragan]

(12-03-2017 06:07 AM)Wander Wrote:  

If that's the worst that you have encountered then you haven't been in Eastern Europe very long

With regard to shoplifting, I think there is more in the West

I was at a police station in Eastern Macedonia, registering my address. Woman walks in with her kid, tells the police her husband has been beating her, shows everyone the marks on her arms. The police tell her there's nowhere to go if she wants to leave the house. (Not so many domestic violence shelters).

Albanian taxi driver in Macedonia tried to drop us off in an albanian ghetto so we would get beaten up, knowing that my companion was Serbian.

[DigitalNomad]

Shaved head tatted up neo-nazis heiling Hitler in the corner of the bar in Ukraine is up there.

[reciproke]

Thankfully I have not experienced this myself. My Instructor was in the Special Forces and deployed to Yugoslavia when shit was going down.

His team had the mission to clear a house, where a war criminal was hiding - this guy was a known mass rapist. As a trophy, he tattoeed the name of the victim on his body - and he was full of tattos.

When they breached the door to his room, he was ready and pulled the pin of the handgrenade while he kept holding the greande One team member lost a hand, one lost a testicle (but was thankfully still able to father children later in his lafe), one's back got hit by many shrapnells and lost a lot of blood (but survived), and my Instructor was hit in the shoulder without too much damage. Needless to say the suspected criminal died.

Sometimes I forget how good things actually are when you are living in the 1st world. Wonder for how long it will stay like this. Shit like this really puts things into perspective.

[Rocha]

- General drunken brawl of around 50 guys fighting each other around Bessarabski Market in Kiev center, all of them from the Maidan militias. This was in June 2014, when the barricades where still not demolished and Kreschatyk and Maidan was a war zone full with the worst kind of people Ukraine has to offer.

- A guy laying down with face to the snow with -15 celsius, in Kreschatyk, he was probably already dead. Nobody gave a damn.

- A guy with really ugly open flesh wounds asking for money outside Lybidska metro station in Kiev.

- Multiple fights breaking down for no reason, in and around Stodolni street in Ostrava, some 20 one-on-one fights in the space of one hour. Wild place.


There is more, I think I will recall more stuff.

[Barron]

Going up the long escalator from the bottom of Khreschatyk metro station to the top around midnight:

There was an old couple up ahead of me about 30-35 meters and the woman was holding on to her husband. He kept wobbling around and was obviously drunk and tired. Right as they're getting to the top he full on passes out and just falls right back like some guy on a Holiday Inn commercial gliding back in slow motion onto a comfortable bed. Only his skull met the hard steel escalator steps followed by his feet coming back over him. And thus began the first of at least 15 backward somersaults on down the upward escalator, smacking his dome against the steps with a thud that sounded like someone was beating his head with a bat.

His wife started screaming and I started sprinting up the steps to catch him as I was the only one between him and the bottom, which I'm sure he would have rag-dolled his way down to because he was picking up speed and almost knocked me down with him. By the time I got to him he looked like Deadpool without the mask and blood was everywhere... his face, clothes, my hands and clothes as well as the escalator.

The stupid babushka working the booth that night thought it was a good idea to stop the escalator, so instead of waiting for it to get us back to the surface, I literally had to drag his unconscious fatass up to the top. Meanwhile his wife is crying and cursing and not helping. What I remember most about it was the sound of his head hitting the metal steps repeatedly. That sound of bone against metal.. I've seen fights, heard hard hits and even when someone slips on black ice and smacks their head on asphalt, but the sound of someone bashing their skull in like that over and over... goodness

[BangBoy123]

(12-03-2017 07:50 AM)gework Wrote:  

In Russia I witnessed Putin rigging the 2016 US Presidential election, Brexit and Catalan independence.



In Serbia I was being driven by a 68 year old plummer. We were stopped at temp. traffic lights. A loud scretching noise came from behind and pas the car, as a taxi decided he was going to jump the lights. The taxi crashed into a car coming the other way head on. The plummer got out of the car and started mouthing off at the taxi driver. The taxi driver came at him and the plummer got back in his car. The taxi driver began punching and kicking the plummer's car. The taxi driver was tall and gaunt and looked like he spent all his spare time inefficiently lifting weights in his house, while off his nut on meth. The taxi driver ran back to his car to get something and came back at the plummer. Not sure what it was as by that time the plummer was frantically getting us out of there.

I've not witnessed much craziness there.

Quote:

The taxi driver was tall and gaunt and looked like he spent all his spare time inefficiently lifting weights in his house, while off his nut on meth.

Sounds like this accordian player

[WeekendCasanova]

I was in Kyiv this past year when a defector (a deputy) was assassinated on the same street I was living.

I didn't see the shooting, but I witnessed the aftermath a few minutes later and you could hear the gunfire, along with the scene (cops, blood, news crews).

It was surreal.

[Mikestar]

(12-03-2017 06:19 PM)NomadofEU Wrote:  

Going up the long escalator from the bottom of Khreschatyk metro station to the top around midnight:

There was an old couple up ahead of me about 30-35 meters and the woman was holding on to her husband. He kept wobbling around and was obviously drunk and tired. Right as they're getting to the top he full on passes out and just falls right back like some guy on a Holiday Inn commercial gliding back in slow motion onto a comfortable bed. Only his skull met the hard steel escalator steps followed by his feet coming back over him. And thus began the first of at least 15 backward somersaults on down the upward escalator, smacking his dome against the steps with a thud that sounded like someone was beating his head with a bat.

His wife started screaming and I started sprinting up the steps to catch him as I was the only one between him and the bottom, which I'm sure he would have rag-dolled his way down to because he was picking up speed and almost knocked me down with him. By the time I got to him he looked like Deadpool without the mask and blood was everywhere... his face, clothes, my hands and clothes as well as the escalator.

The stupid babushka working the booth that night thought it was a good idea to stop the escalator, so instead of waiting for it to get us back to the surface, I literally had to drag his unconscious fatass up to the top. Meanwhile his wife is crying and cursing and not helping. What I remember most about it was the sound of his head hitting the metal steps repeatedly. That sound of bone against metal.. I've seen fights, heard hard hits and even when someone slips on black ice and smacks their head on asphalt, but the sound of someone bashing their skull in like that over and over... goodness

Did he survive?

[Super_Fire]

(12-03-2017 01:26 PM)Rocha Wrote:  

- Multiple fights breaking down for no reason, in and around Stodolni street in Ostrava, some 20 one-on-one fights in the space of one hour. Wild place.

Just another day at the playground for those guys.

[TooFineAPoint]

I saw a granny squat and take a piss right off the main street, less than 2 min walk from her housing complex.

I also saw an old woman selling one jar of blueberries for a few bucks. After noticing this a few times, I asked my ex "why does she sit there all day with just one jar, why not sell more?" and was told that these old ladies only have enough strength and time to pick one jar in the morning, and this is what they do to supplement their income since they relied on their govt pensions otherwise.

It was only fucked up in that it made me very sad and angry because really that woman (and those like her) are complete idiots for actually believing the state would take care of them, but when you see this little withered babushka you can't help but also feel sorry for her and all of the post-soviet world as a whole for their suffering.

[Barron]

(12-03-2017 07:13 PM)Mikestar Wrote:  

Did he survive?

Despite everything, he was sound asleep snoring when I dragged him off the escalator and leaned him against the wall.

[Rocha]

(12-04-2017 04:03 AM)NomadofEU Wrote:  

(12-03-2017 07:13 PM)Mikestar Wrote:  

Did he survive?

Despite everything, he was sound asleep snoring when I dragged him off the escalator and leaned him against the wall.

This guy probably

[This Is Trouble]

(12-04-2017 04:03 AM)NomadofEU Wrote:  

(12-03-2017 07:13 PM)Mikestar Wrote:  

Did he survive?

Despite everything, he was sound asleep snoring when I dragged him off the escalator and leaned him against the wall.

Bet that was a nasty hangover the next day.