12:46 This point really suprised me 🤣 You clearly where unlucky and talked to the wrong people, Serbia is popular for almost every young / middle-age person speaking English.

Unfortunately betting on sports is a cultured addiction in Serbia, despite there being laws against minors doing it, kids start in elementary school. It is disguising, but it is great for money laundering for narco cartels that have deals with our government, same as the rampaging abundance of new development all around the city. Real estate is really good for that too.

A useful tip for tourists visiting Belgrade. If you need a cab ride at any time, you need to have CarGo phone application! The ride is very affordable, much cheaper that ordinary taxi services on the streets, like Pink Taxi and others. And when you want to order food online, or anything else, you need Glovo phone application. And Volt, too. So, in Belgrade they don't use Uber, but those three instead: CarGo, Glovo and Volt. And public transportation with buses, tramways, and trolley buses, you know, electric buses, are great, too. Very affordable, a daily ticket is around 2 $, buses are frequent, numerous lines to take you to any part of Belgrade, day or night. And there is also a bus number 72, that takes you from the Belgrade airport Nikola Tesla, straight to downtown.

The dog poop is more of a Dorćol thing. I feel ya, had school for 3 years down there. It was a "land mine" on every step. 😂

That wind is called Kosava

So glad you enjoyed Serbia. You are always welcome back.

About the taxi... It's not a scam it's actual price for everybody. There is night and day prices and depending on the company they have different rates. It's expensive yes but it's not price for tourists. I never use night taxi only in case of life or death... it's super overpriced also during day but especially night when buses don't work. In rest of Serbia Taxi is pretty ok priced but not in Belgrade.

You two are very nice people and I am glad you are in Serbia! Hope you will stay 😊

At the airport, at the departure exit, there is an information service providing taxi tickets for three different areas in Belgrade. You get the vaucher there for your area in Belgrade where you will be staying, and at the exit, every taxi driver is obliged to accept and drive you to your address without additional paying. This service operates 24/7 at the airport. Be mindful the taxi driver usually standing in front of that info desk, and they want to trick you into following them. Do not listen to them, but wait at the info desk to get your vaucher. You will be paying than to taxi driver but choose only those taxis where you can pay with the card, as the legal ones they have card chip payment devices.

Great honest video! I’m glad you mentioned your love of the Serbian people - I see from the comments and some of the stories you’ve shared, that they seem very caring, passionate, informative, accepting and welcoming! So glad we could tag along on your journey of Belgrade! Now we want to go see it for ourselves! 🇨🇦

The casinos you mention are actually mostly sports betting shops, which usually just have several slot machines, but the primary focus is on sports betting - they aren't really full fledged casinos. There are also casinos like the Canadian ones you mention on the outskirts of the city here. But I definitely agree with you, there are too many of them, and they are also an eyesore for me as I walk down the street and see them on every corner. I would definitely prefer if all of them were turned into coffee shops/bakeries 😂 Unfortunately, sports betting is normalized here, and most guys I know have bet at least once. Personally, I think the economic situation in the country has contributed to many young people trying to make money this way and also the fact that the state does nothing to prevent the spread of betting shops, because the owners of most betting chains are from the ruling party, or related to it. Anyway, the video was really interesting, as a local I definitely agree on a lot of takes here, and it kind of made me appreciate some things that are good here and I took for granted. Thanks for sharing Gizmovići and safe travels!

glad you had an overall positive experience, BG is a mixed bag and you def. could use a car and/or befriend someone to act as a host as interesting things are diluted throughout the city, in one day you can visit beautiful hills around it (Avala tower and Kosmaj), ride the bike near two rivers (Danube/Sava), swim in the lake (Ada), walk the dog in forests, roam old streets and medieval fortress and hit the nightlife in the evening (clubs or rafts near the marina) belgrade is unique because it accepted everyone, sadly not all accepted BG hence you get to deal with dog poop/basic and peasant behavior (not an insult to honorable farmers) in general... a lot of people speak english, even more than russian (ger and fra prob a statistic error)... but its usually younger gen regarding steps, we really like our vantage high points with good views and most of us would prob. find flat prairies a bit boring and depressing, but if your older - city centre is mostly flat for taxi, most people use apps for that or call designated numbers, so they cant scam you food IS pricier like its the goddamn berlin but you have cheap options (nothing beats afterparty 4 AM warm burek and cold yoghurt) city used to be even prettier, and most 'natives' oppose modern souless glass/metal building/malls/sportsbets that are emerging everywhere like mushrooms ---------- if you ever visit Serbia again i would even recommend some decent trek sneakers and hitting the Tara (Uvac zigzag canyon) and Stara (Old) planina with wild horses, as the raw nature is really beautiful and unique, yet you don't have to be afraid of the wildlife... safe future travels

Thank you Gizmovici 😊

I probably watched all of your videos, but I don't comment regularly. Anyway, I am glad that you had a positive experience in Serbia. It's also a nice hub location for visiting the rest of the Balkans, that I also recommend. Some ideas: Kotor, Dubrovnik, Plitvice, Zagreb, Bled, Piran, Sarajevo, Ohrid...

Hi,You have to visit Subotica and lake Palic. most beautiful town in Serbia. the buildings will amaze You . food is awesome.

Great video, all the best to you .

Thanks guys! I wonder if Belgrade is more hilly than San Francisco? 😅

Wish you luck Gizmovici

English! Almost every young person in BG - and other cities - does speaks English. Older folks are usually not bilingual, however, if they do speak any foreign language it would be German. People tending F&V stands at numerous local farmer-markets throughout the city are peasants from neighboring villages who seldom speak any other language. Also, government jobs are usually gotten through relatives so it's a hit-'n-miss in regards to communication with foreigners. Also, all the doctors in former Yugoslavia do speak Latin, starting in high school; all the written communications and prescriptions are in Latin.

Taxi is a big problem in Belgrade.

about the english language, you are right. everyone THINKS they can speak English because they UNDERSTAND English, which are two different things. in order to SPEAK any foreign language well, YOU MUST PRACTICE SPEAKING. and almost no one does that. I'm writing this using google translate. I could never put these sentences together on my own. but I understand English quite well even with various accents. we all understand English and more or less speak it because, like a large part of the world, we have been exposed to the English language for generations through movies, music, fashion, technology, the Internet and other forms of American domination.

I am local and they tried scamming me for so many times. Once i was going to the railway station, trying to catch the train to Novi Sad, and driver, once i told him where i was heading, offered me to get me there for 11.000 dinars😂 Another time, i was going from the bus station to my home (15 min drive, around 800 din on average), asking drivers at the station about the price, and each of them offered me something between 1200-2000😂 Finally, i ended up calling the call center and paying 800 din😂

I am from Novi Sad, and the things you mentioned that you dislike about Belgrade, I personally have a problem with too. I am in pretty good shape, but it's way to hilly, especially compared to Novi Sad which is super flat. I've heard stories about tourists getting ripped off in Novi Sad too, but taxis are in general ridiculously expensive in Belgrade (a few years ago my friend and I were charged 1000 rsd for a 10-minutes ride, whereas at the time a 20-minutes ride would typically cost me 500 in my home town). Someone told me there was a Uber-like service in Belgrade, but I am not sure if it can still be used. Dog poo is an issue everywhere, but definitely not to that extent, that is surprising to hear. About our English, older generations might have learned German or Russian at school, while younger people should know it better. However, you can still meet both plenty of younger people who speak English almost as well as a native, and those who can barely help you out with directions. I apologize to people from Belgrade who are super nice, but my experience in Belgrade compared to my home town is that people in general are less likely to want to help if you ask for directions on the street. I was once ignored multiple times while asking for help in Serbian as I was trying to figure out where to wait for a bus (before Google Maps). Glad you enjoyed your stay and sorry to hear you got sick while there!

I am glad that you guys had a great time in Belgrade and you nailed it on many topics. Unfortunately, the biggest scumbags choose to drive taxis for some weird reason, but the government is starting to crack on it. Other than that, you guys seemed to have a great time. Serbs are known for and their hospitality and friendly attitude towards foreigners.

Good 😃

All the best guys

Location, Location, Location, you live cheap in Belgrade but you are ~1h flight from Budapest, Athens, Istanbul, Rome, Montenegro Adria, ~1.5 h Paris, Berlin, London, great health care, great food but buy vegie at the farmers market not sugary junk in store than you can make 10 flights of stares.

Serbia loves our honorary Serbians, Ryland and Nikola Gizmovic!! ❤

Yeah I also feel you were extremely unlucky with English speakers here, most of our younger generation nowadays at least from my experience knows English on some level.. cause its like mandatory to learn in evry middle school and high school

You should know that betting is abundant in any low-economy county. An average citizen does not make ends meet, and there are those aware of it, they take advantage of their situation. This is why the betting is all over the place. If only these clients were able to fly to Monte Carlo to take a chance, but here, you can get in in your slippers, so to say.

Thanks very much, really helpful info...on our State Department webpage for visiting Serbia...the only two specific pieces of advice as to what to avoid are : political protests and sporting events. 🤷‍♀ I can see not getting involved in a protest or demonstration...but the warning was that sporting events can also get dangerous 😯 But no worries for me...I am not into sports. 🤣

These casinos that you have seen are more a reflection of the transitional period and the current time, when capitalism is just beginning to establish itself well and since everything is not currently regulated by law, some individuals take advantage of the opportunity to get rich. This phenomenon was also present in Slovenia and Croatia during the transition period, but now it is much more regulated in Slovenia and as a result has largely disappeared from the cities, and has moved to large casinos far from the city center, so I believe that these anomalies will change for the better in the near future.

About gambling it's not that people gamble but gather there to make crazy tickets so they watch soccer with more passion... it's just like cafe thing with putting some joke money on your favorite clubs so it's not that people gamble that much money there... it's more like cafe for soccer or sport lovers that love to discuss the games and maybe make some money if they have luck... Serbian people have lot of passion of soccer so this is why there is so much small cafe like betting places... very few actually gamble most just bet to hangout

I am sorry you had bad experience with taxi, but during night time it is much more expensive even for us locals.

For ppl that speak english i really have to disagree, you really had bad luck ☹ i can't believe you didn't mention smoking, its definitely the worst 🤣

I watched many videos simillar like yours,and almost everyone was surprised how people here is talking very good english. I don't know with whom you talked to.

You didn't miss on train traveling. The one to Novi Sad is the only fast one. The rest of them are all from Yugoslavia. There are plans to renovate them all to be like Soko. If you want the slow train ride and you are going to Montenegro, the Belgrade -> Bar one is the best. It's old, extremely beautiful and slow as hell (~13h ride). Definitely check the trains in other European countries, especially in more developed ones.

16:12 those are not Casinos what you see those are local sport betting stores with some poker machines on the side maybe for fun. The real big Casinos you describe we have aswell.

When it comes to trains, sadly, Soko is basically the only one that's actually good. Belgrade to Novi Sad is about 100 kilometers and 36 minutes by train is amazing, on the other hand, Belgrade to Niš is about 200-250 kilometers and it takes over 6 hours without the delays.

So odd about the gambling...I never would have thought they would be so into casinos...in the USA gambling is very controlled, probably the same as in Canada 😊

Serbia has a problem with applying laws. There are more or less adequate laws but they are never enforced. I regularly see people driving like crazy literally in front of the police and the police just ignore it cause they cant be bothered.

Dorcol got dog poop cuz owners are mostly a poop emself . Some other parts of city got less. Also try to ''befriend'' a normal taxi guy, he will ether drive you if he works or give u number of a normal colleague

In Serbia there are only one price for everyone ! No matter who is resident or foreigner. But there are a bed people, like bad Taxi driver ! I don`t have any problems with price of Taxi drive and is very normal much lower than in most of western EU ! But when they see foreigner on airport they know to overprice !

Taxi here has tariffs, tariff 1 is for regular working days, 6:00 do 22:00 , tariff 2 is for night hours, weekends and holidays. Start in both is 3.39 CAD, one km in tariff one is 1.20 CAD and tariff two is 1.57 per KM, this is a price for PINK taxi but all of them are similar. Airport to your place is 18km, making this drive 31.65 CAD. Airport taxi service has a fixed price of around 3000 RSD or 2500 depending on the tariff, that is around 30 to 38 CAD as a regular price. I wrote you before already, they used to scam tourist for 200 euros for that same drive. While that is indeed around 17 minutes drive with no traffic, in most hours during the day, it can take 1+ hours easily. Dog poop and hills are the issue in the parts of the city where you were staying, but those parts are also cleaner then 'suburbs' . I am surprised by your English speaking experience, most of the young people here speak decent to very good English, people in services are usually less educated, and their English is bad . To wrap this up, you mostly visited town center areas, that is probably less then 20% of the city, you missed some of the cool spots which are outside of the city center. I am not a Taxi driver btw :D , and yeah i agree that taxi is very expensive here in general.

🍀🌄😺😊

Unfortunetly we do not have that amount of grandious huge old buildings like Hungary or Slovakia or Romania, Italy... because our history. Constant wars. Belgrade is bombarded 192 times, last time before 25 years, 1999.. Probably the most bombarded city in Europe. 40 times ruined to the ground, to the zero. 40 times all churches in Belgrade was converted to mosques and mosques to the churches. Novi Sad also. But, we are full of stories, full of nonmaterial history. Also, some of the most important archeological locations about ROMAN HISTORY and PRAHISTORICAL EUROPEAN CIVILISATION was located in Serbia. 18 roman emperrors wwas born in Serbia. About locations. VIMINACIUM, FELIX ROMULIANA, IUSTINIANA PRIMA, SIRMIUM, MAGNUM ILLYRICUM, LEPTIS MAGNA, NAISUSS(city where is born Constantin the the great founder of Constantinopole and Byzantine Emipre, founder of Christianity in Europe) . First european civilisation, first writing, first lot of that, was founded in Serbia, location called VINCHA, near Belgrade, 5 000 or 6 000 years old. About rest complains in your video, i agry with you.

Unfortunately, dog poop, taxis and casinos (mostly sport) are the wounds of all Balkan countries. Most owners clean up after their dogs (although there are some who don't), but the biggest problem are stray dogs in our country and all countries around, for which there is currently no real solution. For taxis, you need to know which one are the best because there are a lot of them and some are very expensive and charge unrealistic prices for the distance they drive. For English, you were unlucky to ran into someone who doesn't know or doesn't want to speak or is a tourist. Serbia is among top non-native English speaking Countries / English as second language in Europe after Germanic countries which are at the very top such as Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg. Belgrade has 17 municipalities and all of them are different and unique in their own way. Some municipalities are more hilly, some are less hilly and some are flat. I see that most people from Canada or the US complain about getting tired when they come to European cities which is understandable because they have a dominant car culture and cities are made that way that they are mostly unwalkable. On the other hand, european cities are walkable, have pedestrian-friendly Infrastructure and accessible public transportation. For those who can't walk for long, Belgrade has buses (ordinary and electric), trams, trolleybuses, BG Voz an urban rail system (commuter rail network) which is something like semi metro.

MaxBet , Meridian, Admiral and others are more for sport bets than mini-casinos, like black Jack , rullet and such. Over 90% pepole going there for sports bets. Sit , fill a tickect drink something coffee , soda or beer and thats it , not like some hard gambling in big sums of money. Of course that there is a few real ``big`` casinos , but that is from different story , not this mini ones.

It's going to be a cold beach day. No swimming.

taxi mafia is on 🔥in Serbia

you know, dog poo is like holes in the road. You learn to look for them :)

Those "casinos" are not real casinos like in the West. They are sports betting shops. Betting shops and cafes combined. People gather there to socialize, watch matches, and place bets. Anyway, there are too many of them.

yeah i dont like those Casinos as well, thats deffinitely something i dont like about our country

Belgrade air is terribly polluted with the junkers everyone is driving. You probably wont have the asthma in Montenegro any more, you just had a reaction to incredible concentration of smog.

You are very nice, as guests should be, but some things you mentioned, in order to explain them I have to go into unpleasant topics. Taxi-mafia and casinos/betting are part of the very bad political situation we are in. Serbia is a client-state of the USA, and the USA is not a friend of the Serbs and Serbia, quite the opposite, their goal is not to help us but to set us back, and that is why, through the puppet authorities in practically colonized Serbia, they carry out harmful practices that can be summed up in three terms: corruption, impoverishment, moral collapse. The government, although it has patriotic statements, in practice makes moves that are in the interest of the USA and against our interests. That's why nothing is done to suppress corruption and crime, and casinos/betting are part of it and spread social pathology, gambling/betting is a bad social phenomenon just like drugs.

Other Serbian trains are not like Soko, don't be tricked. They are much slower and often arriving late.

I went to a football match with a cousin in Belgrade back in 1985. What shocked me was the amount of swearing… and such bad swearing words too. The ball fell into the moat around the field, and the stadium employed young boys to fetch the balls. Many in the audience were swearing at these little boys (they weren’t fast enough), but what really stunned me was the language they used! At first I was shocked and then started laughing. Then I said to my cousin… why are they swearing at those kids? Why? They’re just children for gods sake… does the audience have to use swear words using a family member’s anatomy and what should be done with that anatomy? People in Belgrade swear way too much! Foreigners wouldn’t understand the words… thank god for that!

Serbia is a relatively poor country once you get out of the city center and into the suburbs. A lot of people I know gamble their salary away on sports betting. They hope that they will hit the big jackpot one day, getting more and more addicted to it. Meanwhile, the state cashes out big due to taxes, as casinos are among the most profitable businesses in Serbia.