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One strange phenomenon regarding Yu-gi-oh in the balkans: Due to the lack of knowledge on the english language amongst the youth, every single friend group would have a completely different set of rules on how the game is supposed to be played

A Balkan childhood teaches you all the important life lessons in a span of 10 to 15 yeras of your life - Don't be a dick, you will get beat up for it - Don't be weird, you will get beat up for it - Learn to live with your family, one day they won't be there anymore - Gambling with cards and other items is day 1 of a good school - Learn to ration, you might not have any left some day if you don't save

Growing up on Brasil is very similar, I think low income life is pretty universal. As the ancient Chinese said "Between the four seas all men are brothers"

KZfaq age restricted the video for a dumb clip. Had to censure it & reupload it. Appreciate you guys rewatching it🙏

Western people may find this strange, but we didn't have any opportunity to buy lunches in school. Only the kids who lived in the boarding school could eat in the canteen. I ate a sandwich each day, which my mom made, and most people did the same. The school had a little shop where we could buy snacks, like chocolate bars etc. We ate the sandwich, and than ate a big lunch when we went home.

My Balkan childhood was awesome! I started smoking at 14 and drinking at 15. Somehow, i managed to avoid harder drugs I had a badass group of friends, literaly the coolest kids in the village! We were absolute lossers. The only girl "person" who could tolerate us was my sister, who later became the only famale in our group I had a huge colection of Yu-Ghi-Oh and Duel Masters cards, all original, made in Deutschland. Until my alcoholic grand-grandma threw them into the fireplace Every sathurday i had to walk 6 kilometers with my friends to the nearby town to play Counter Strike 1.6 and GTA Vice City at the internet cafe. that until i got my first PC at the age of 11 and i could play from home, but then i realised i didn't have something called "Internet" and i had to play 1.6 with bots for a few months until my dad figured out what the internet is and why we need it. The same alcoholic great-grandma i talked about used to traumatize me with a lot of shit... For example, a polecat once killed one of our chickens and i remember her holding that dead chicken by it's legs and cuting it's head off with a hatchet. She then preceded to show me that there's "No blood coming out of the chicken" because "The polecat drank it". She also told me that if a polecat bites you by the balls, you'll die an agonising death. I got robed by gypsies once or twice... Yeah. Fun childhood.

I’m of an older generation and can remember having to sing a pledge to Ceausescu’s picture in my school every morning (in Romania) My parents also took me over the border to Hungary to smuggle back goods like coffee. Oh and sitting in the Commie block in the dark because the electricity (and water) was shut off randomly. Whenever there was water, we had to fill up the bathtub and random containers so we could cook and flush the toilets. Fun times 😂

You missed the applied physics enthusiasts who liked to check whether they could swing their swings in a full circle by swinging the swings really fast....while still on them

Slavic people - Describe the most trauma inducing and near-death childhood experiences in the entirety of the western world Also Slavic people - "Man those were good times"

Thank you so much for this video. I grew up in Moldova and the whole concept of "curent" was killing me. We still have fights in our family due this disease making machine.

If you grew up in Bosnia after the war, you can proudly call yourself a survivor

Childhood in the Balkans was like playing Doom on survivor mode. I remember there was this crazy old vulture in one of the appartment buildings that would throw bricks at us when we were too loud. We responded by throwing eggs at her windows. Another thing that I remember was when we were kids, we decided to climb on our neighbour's Lada. The dude caught me and slapped me so hard on the back of my neck there was a red spot there that didn't go away for two weeks. Ding-dong dashes were an absolute must. Street phones (yes, kids, there were phones on the streets once) pranks too.

In spite of the crazy babushkas, the packs of stray dogs and getting beat up for literally looking the wrong way at an older kid, my Romanian childhood was the happiest time of my life. Also, it is crazy how similar my childood was to yours (for example, printing Yu Gi Oh / Duel Masters cards at home) The Balkans are one big country. Thanks for the nostalgia.

Damm only parents and grandparents? I lived in Kosovo for a couple of years as a kid. People there lived in giant houses with all their living relatives, and when their kids got married they just made their house taller.

It was just as good the second time. Merry Christmas to you and all in the Living Ironically in Europe Community.

I do remember getting a pretty bad bruise playing on an old rusty playground. Actually it was some abandoned farm equipment sitting in the field

This feels like a perfect description of my growing up in northern Greece. Honestly it was a good time, gave everyone a bit of a backbone.

I grew in Ukraine, and i still live there. It's the Zaporizhia region, which is currently ~75% occupied by russian army. Life near the frontline is complicated, but you can get use to it. In general i can tell its similar to what you've showed in the video.

As a Bulgarian I can honestly say the video was both true and hilarious ! Growing in the 90s was fun!!!!

This is strangely similar to growing up in Latin America

My childhood in Brazil: - Walking shirtless and barefoot when not in school - Playing football in the street, using flip-flops as goal posts - Interrupting the match when seeing a kite falling (you gotta try to catch it before someone does) - Drinking that glowing soda from car-shaped or revolver-shaped packages - Not being allowed to sit close to open windows even during summer 'cause grandma was sure I'd get pneumonia - Getting mad when mom calls you for dinner but it's actually soup (soup is not dinner) - Your whole family fighting for a space in your sofa to sit and eat lunch sitted down - Your dumb cousing trying to slice something and flipping the plate over someone - Your uncle yelling at you so you don't kick the beer cup he left on the floor

The childhood that doesn't kill you makes you stronger 💪

I remember while me and the other kids wore playing hide&seek hiding in the weird places like:under cars,in broken down cars,in trees and my fav was in a under costruction building that even to this day it is still in construction. Man i love the Balkan Childhood

I see the fear of a bit of draft in the house isn't limited to Germany. I thought we were the only ones who would suddenly become afraid of a light wind if it's indoors.

My wife grew up in Romania and her whole family are absolutely petrified of having a draught running through the house because we're all going to get bronchitis if there's anything but stagnant, unmoving air in the house. Didnt know it was a wide-spread thing.

as eastern european , this is still relatable.

You get it wrong about dem couches my friend, Yugoslavia was a power house of furniture production that they actually exported it all over, big part of why those all in one wall covering sets of furniture we call "stena" were so popular all over eastern EU is due to being mass produced in YU. Yes,yes YU furniture was once as big as Ikea is today.

I'm from Poland, so no Balkans, but close enough and this video sparks nostalgy 😢❤

1:35 or "ȚARĂ ȚARĂ VREM OSTAȘII!" WOOOOOO. Basically, kids would split into groups and form a human knot by holding hands, then yell out the chant, pick a kid from the opposite side, who'd have to running into the knots. If they broke through, they pick one of the kids to come to their side. If they didn't, they joined to opposite team. Repeat till one team is fully out. And me being the fat, I was a menace at this game

You forgot about visiting your slightly rich relative(son of the second cousin of your grandma's uncle) twice a year and seeing all his cool shit, and mastering the english language on his cracked copy of gta san andreas on their family computer fron 1973 😂 that was always fun

i once nearly got hit by a jar of pickles thrown from the 8th floor with a 90% accuracy towards my head, all for playing ball in the parking lot behind the 10 store apartment building i lived in. good times, i thought it was funny when i was 10 but i shiver thinking about it now

That's an interesting video, and I not expected how similar experiences in the balkans and in the post USSR country's in general. I live in Kazakhstan, and my childhood in the late 90's yearly 00's and I can relate to many things, like cheap Chinese cards, ding-dong all comiblocks, collecting cheap stuff from your local shopper and living with grampy grandma or grandpa, scared of the open windows.

My parents travelled a lot, and my mum was a babysitter in America for like 4 years, so despite living in the Balkans I was raised in a very western way. This lead to a big "cultural" shock when I went to highschool, since most of the students were raised more or less how you described it here, and I just couldn't adapt

My parents kept me in line by telling me if I misbehaved, they would send me to the Balkans. That straightened me out fast.

In my elementary school in a small bulgarian town every week we had race wars where we would split in two team- bulgarians vs gypsies and just started fighting until a teacher comes. In winter we swiched it to snowball fights (i used to put a small rock or piece of ice in the snowballs for max damage)

Man, I'm from Romania, they had a fight championship in the school going on for like a week and they js found out today on the last day of school💀💀(love your videos, keep up the good work)

You forgot to mention all the tragedies that happen in the public transport like grandmas yelling at you for opening the window , highschoolers smoking inside and blasting music , the whole buss smelling like onions from the bazar, the seats falling off, some busses not having heating , fights breaking out in the busses ... so nice

To tell y'all. This man is spitting FACTS. 7 years ago Yugio Yo was popular and we'd collect cards, both real but cheep Chinese printer ones and make up powers, since I'm still now currently in childhood (I'm 14) I do go with my homies in abandoned buildings, go around and such

I've grown up in a small beautiful Bulgarian city! Best childhood I could have. Only if I had the power to go back in time... There is no better place!

This video really sums up the childhood in every Balkan country, I'm from Romania and i have done everything that comes on this video, I still do the ding dong ditch on the apartment blocks too

Merry Christmas from Romania.

The fear of the terrible draught is not only typical in the Balkans as you say, but also in Russia. This cultural convergence between Slavic peoples is curious, so say the least. That makes me think that it's not a legacy of the Ottoman occupation, but something completely different.

My balkan brother, you have summarized EXACTLY my entire childhood on this video !

exploring old abandoned ex jugo factories was the highlight of any boy in the 90's

Good lord man, you really didn't mention the students knocking on their desks to trick the teachers into thinking someone's knocking on the door.

I'm an older American (39) and it was kind of like this in the 90s. I wasn't poor by any means but we would collect whatever flavor of the month toy there was. Some kids would play Magic or Pogs & Slammers. I never did Ding Dong Ditch but I did used to egg houses. If you acted weird or said some stupid thing you would get beat up. Yes fight, makeup, fight was a thing. I lived in a neighborhood that was just being constructed so the kids would play on the construction site with our bikes. Basketball in the front driveway and days at the public pool. We had all the legal cards and stuff but what we did was sell CDs. CD burning was an emerging technology so you would pay kids with those burners to download songs off Napster and burn them on a disc for a price. A mix tape of sorts. It was fun times.

Growing up in good ole Appalachia we loved to explore abandoned factories and mines, teenagers love an abandoned place anywhere in the world I reckon lol.

The Balkans are the best part of the world to grow up in. No grooming at all. You get beat tf up for doing stupid shit, you learn how important family is, you have 10 years of work experience at 9 years of age, and you drive basically when your feet reach the pedals

4:18 Knowing the Balkans, I wouldn't be surprised if the coffin of Andy and Leyley took place there

Dude, you're so accurately describing my childhood! But honestly, I've never seen those "toys of the month". Nothing like that was on our markets.

A road trip in the balkan was like the long drive

as a bulgarian i was living in a calm neighborhood but there was an abandoned building 200 meter away and a big dog pack was living in it and so basically every day from 10 am to dark we was out playing or doing some dumb shit getting yelled from the grumpy grandma for being too loud while they are smoking on their balcony but if u stay outside after it gets u will get chased by dogs then as we grew up a bit we started getting in the abandoned building and were stalking the dogs and they were chasing us then they moved out cuz the land got bought and ppl started building and so ye it was funny childhood i had

Real asf. I remember when I lived in Poland I used to go out into the playground. There were 4 pieces of metal in a square pattern sticking out of the ground, which were avoided by whoever mowed the lawn. My glorious, developing slavic brain decided to run through the overgrown spot when I played chasing with the other kids. Obviously I tripped and slit my skin in a line from the knee all the way down to the ankle, which left a bruise for months. Good times, 10/10 would live in a commie block again

The incredible thing is that I grew up in Southeast France near Lyon, in a (upper) middle class suburb, and our childhood was really similar to what you describe except the appartement part. Chinese goodies, big fights, explore abandoned areas and ding dong unify Europe 🤙

Pretty much accurate but two things you forgot to mention about Balkans. First is known as the scariest thing you could find on Balkan which is also known as first childhood trauma for every Balkan kid, some of them known them by the name of kopriva whike others by nettle. Second thing is the famous Balkan cure that every babushka would recommend for pain, known as rakija or any kind of alcohol depending on where are you coming from.

As a romanian that grew up in a village with a population of 30 people, most of those being relatives who were either alchoholics or chain smokers from the ripe old age of 15, i can confirm i got beat up for being a weirdo and got robbed by gypsies for my lunch money multiple times, didnt even know what internet was until i was 8. Definitely gave me a sturdy backbone. Good times, but i dont regret fleeing that shithole.

My childhood was like that but with at lot more explosions and gun shots. There is no place like the Balkans.

I remember when I was 11 or less my mother wasn’t home but my dad was so I asked him for help to do my math homework and since my dad know’s Serbian but I don’t because I am Macedonian I was so confused and him in anger asking “5 PUTA 6??” Almost tearing up from pure confusion

I was born in Moldova but thankfully moved to Germany at 4 years old 🙏 my family still brought some braindead superstitions and complaints like opening the window wasting some heat would be financially devastating

Regarding "the current", my experience growing up is Hungary is the complete opposite. We're a lot closer to Germans when it comes to opening windows. They have a term for it: "Lüften". You cannot spend half a day in any environment in any weather without someone nagging you to let fresh air in, be it your mother, your teacher or colleague. They legit think you're gonna suffocate otherwise. Really pisses me off tbh...

Snow wasn't a common occurrence where I'm from (northern Greece), but when I was in middle school, the yard was full of pine trees, so we threw those at each other. We also used to pull out grass patches from the ground and throw them at each other, mainly because there was dirt in the roots. We used to always fight each other, for alleged or actual cheating in games. There was like a daily fistfight and we had an agreement not to rat anyone to the teachers (although we did end up getting yelled at by the principal in his office an abnormal amount of time anyway). Summer was the best time ever, because I lived in a village, so we just took our bikes since we were like 7 years old and pissed of wherever we wanted and no one cared.

6:28 In Austria, we are well acquainted with the phenomenon of death-by-slightly-opened-window. We call it „Zugluft“, „Luftzug“ or just „Zug“ („drawn air“ / „draft“). I guess this is why so many people from the ~Baltics~ Balkans chose to settle here, especially after the wars. Speaking of which, my brother used to have a Bosnian(?) refugee girl in his class, and at some point my mom was worried that she would get PTSD flashbacks if she were to accompany her friends to watch the 1997 live-action _Spawn_ movie (in hindsight, anyone who got PTSD from that movie probably did so because it just wasn‘t very good).

*As a Balkan guy playing Gogos with the chechens in my class in some school in the outer district in Vienna and then fighting after someone won, GOLDEN TIMES 🥹*

We had this metal swing in the back of the garages, should have been three but only one was still hanging. We learned that if you swing hard enough while standing you can do a 360 with it. So naturally we competed on how many we can do without passing out. Oh and ofc in winter we did a huge pile of snow and swung ourselves flying in the air, coming out of a 360 and trying to land on the pile. That damn broken rusty and indestructible swing gave us so much fun...sometimes also broken bones.

An Oldman got so pissed at me and my friends for playing soccer close to is home that he started throwing boiled potatoes at us. We were five years old.

Growing up on Brazil and another Latin America countries has almost the same feeling, I went to very similar experiencies in my childhood and sure another latino-american kids grew up in the same way

The correct title, is growing up in the Hungarian provinces was different

Activates growing up in Balkan during 90's - football players sticker collecting or animals from Zivotinjsko carstvo if you where a girl , loaning VHS from your local video store and copying it home, later it was DVD's so you own this sh*t forever, ditching school classes so you can go play pool/foosball at closest bar , getting use to smoking during big recess at age 14+, having all out war during weekends with rivals from other neighborhoods or village !

As a Hungarian I can confirm, that this video is talking about my childhood too.

You poor poor Serb, you visited my glorious gray town of Varna, WE HAVNT SEEN SNOW SINCE 2002

i know you grew up in serbia too but it still amazes me how you literally nail everything down so perfectly.

This was unironically fairly accurate on what kids would do in tha Balkans. I did not have the luxury (for better or worse) to experience some of these things, but hearing Yu-gi-oh, and how you explained it was perfectly accurate. I still have all the cards I got through out my childhood, in varying conditions and some how, all in english. I guess we were all just, stupid to comprehend the foreign language. I would like to add, at least for where I grew up in (which is Croatia), a lot of us back in middle used to collect stickers, of any kind, those which were sought out are during soccer world cups or just anything soccer in general. People trade or even straight up gamble their dupes or even sought out stickers to complete the album. I guess it could be slightly compared to that one game from the start of Squid Game, but with slight difference, where, all wagered stickers would be piled up, then who ever needs to go first, they have to flip all or as many stickers as they can with their connect hands. I am not sure how to best explain this part, but it sure was interesting, but also, generally respected. I tried to indulge in it once, saw it as pointless and just stuck to basic trading or exchange. The novelty did wore off as we were finishing up primary school. And, another thing to add that, football/soccer matches were very important, to the point it felt like a small war, just between two different classes. If you were interested and bit skilled at it, you will get lot of praise, if not well, you better have been prepared to be not liked or even have the ball shot in your ass. Oh and, obviously, any goal was praised, no matter what. Well, thats about it on this

You forgot to mention the group fights between neighborhoods of kids all cause one slapped the other at an internet cafe for a lucky headshot in counter strike.

Brate, I'm so happy you're uploading with some frequency... mn blagodarq, you bring me joy in a pustinq of prostaci (BG).

bro, that's crazy. I literally relate to every single thing you mentioned

Beyond Yu-gi-oh, Duel Masters was also really popular for a while in Romania (before Yu-gi-oh coming back for a bit). Duel Masters had even worse issues with unbalanced cards/rules: - knock-off cards costing a lot less mana than they should (2 instead of 5 for that 6000 attack light blocker, if people remember) - blockers being able to atttack when some couldn't at all (many water ones) - blockers who could attack (many light ones) attacking shields when they weren't supposed to - "tapping" not existing, so being able to attack then also block next turn, being able to attack untapped creatures - people not realising you need to use at least 1 mana of the same element as a card to play it - people not realising you're supposed to have 40 cards in a deck, not a gajilion (at least as far as I know) - people not knowing you're supposed to put mana down, summon and cast, then attack, then end turn. Because we did everything in whatever order we wanted, cards that killed a random/chosen by enemy monster became much more powerful, for example Declaration of Death -- because you could kill all your opponent's other weak monsters and then use that card to kill his strongest monster. While in reality you had to play it first and give your opponent a chance to choose his weakest monster to sacrifice.

Being a Russian, living in Belgrade, I connect with everything you shared. Especially the drafts: close the windows!

That math homework with dad, sure brings back memories...

Your videos are always really funny, but I really appreciated the more sentimental angle of this one! :)

5:39 oh God, I still have back pain from these couches

I’d love to see the universe where the Bosnian war happens in the 2010s and a Serbian soldier breaks through a Bosnian kids window and bares witness to crazy hamburger without any context.

Oddly enough, what you describe sounds quite similar to my childhood here in Mexico, of course with the exception of the winter temperatures and snow.

Thanks for the childhood nostalgia

I also grew up in Balkan, Turkmenistan

2:04 i live in a suburb, in 2015 when i was in third grade i remember riding my bicycle, it was December and there was snow, there were like 5 dogs that spotted me and started chasing me, they chased me for an entire kilometer, thankfully i managed to escape them but i fell off my bicycle (thankfully no major injuries) and i broke it completely. The 2010's in the Balkans were insane, but also the most fun in my opinion :D

This channel is a gem

Spot on my man :D every balkans kid childhood was different but you nailed the main points

Man I laughed because this is all too accurate. No joke, too many will relate to this video, we where all poor but we had fun, fully unaware yet of the injustices and corruption of our political systems. Live, laugh, ignorance is bliss, spend all day outside in questionable environments all sharing same football we save from the most of strangest places. And all the fights and bruises, we all had fun making everything out of nothing.

The more I watch you, the more I feel Southern France, Southern Italy and Iberia is just Balkan extension

As a romanian who lives in Portugal and hasnt comeback to the motherland in a long time, I almost forgot about the stray dogs, got bit by one when i was 6 and almost died, not from rabies but from the location of the bites, got the vaccine for rabies and after that i was good, crazy times, hope to go back home soon

We also had pvc tube with paper darts that we used to play with in the summer. The tube would come from a construction work that you dad did in the house and the paper darts ( or cones ) would always come from your notebooks from the school year that just ended. We would hide in the bushes and hunt the old buses that didn’t have ac and rode with the doors opened. The purpose was to hit the busdriver with one of the cones that you blew , Indian stile , through the pvc tube. The wealthiest of us could afford more tubes that they tied together with a tape and made like a multi barrel shotgun that could shoot more darts faster. And the darts you would wear behind your ear like a cigarette.

Looks just like us in northern Russia. Btw, Janos, i just wondered what vn i should download through torrents this week, and you gave me an idea...))) Keep up the good work, man.

Bro basically grew up in the projects but worse

i love your use of the papers please song because playing that game is the most authentic eastern european feeling i've ever had.

Thank you for bringing up all the memories János! Merry Christmas 🎄 And BTW you are well aware about that Hungarian workplace. It just happened a few weeks ago.😢

Don't know about yugioh, but in Romania I remember that the duel masters craze set in for quite some time, and the same rules applied to it: knock off cards, printing them yourself etc. Though because of the anime being *dubbed in romanian* , kids actually knew the rules so making up effects wasn't as prolific (though we generally forfeited mana because not everyone had cards and most kids played with one kid's deck cut in half)....but there was still cheating as children are creative. A kid I played once in the part kept beating me with the same strategy over and over because I didn't catch that he was putting his cards back in the same order every time. Though I also had those knock off yugioh cards.

It's funny because somehow I can't relate to this because I grew up in switzerland, but on the other hand I can because of the times I visited my family and went to see how the school is or where my cousins played in their freetime. Nevertheless, a great video as usuall.

My childhood was exactly like that, and was wonderful, won’t trade it for nothing! That’s why balkan people are the toughest!

Fortunately, I lived my first years in a village . At least I could breathe and I play a little easier because there are not many cars and there are more green spaces.