Two weeks before local elections in Zaječar, students are organizing a protest to shake up abstaining voters and highlight the burning problem of corruption throughout the country.
Although they are not participating in the elections in the largest city in eastern Serbia, they are saying "Freedom comes from the east" with their Saturday rally.
More than 40.000 Zaječar residents, elects a new city government on June 8th, and the same day, voting will take place in Kosjerić - these are also the first elections since the beginning of the six-month student blockades.
The Serbian Progressive Party is in power in both places.
SNS leader Miloš Vučević hopes for new victories, but adds that it won't "be easy".
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Protest in the shadow of the campaign
Once an industrial city, with more than ten factories that employed thousands of people and were the pride of the former Yugoslavia, like Kristal and Porcelan, today resembles an average Serbian town.
Of the former industrial giants, in the city where the Black and White Timok rivers meet, only a few factories, such as a brewery, are operating, with far fewer employees.
The atmosphere in the city is colored by the campaign, reports Nemanja Mitrović, BBC reporter from Zaječar.
The opposition group United for the Salvation of Zaječar, led by leader Dveri, held a conference on Friday, while a van belonging to the group We, the Voice of the People, Branimir Nestorović, drove through the central city streets.
There is also traffic in front of the offices of the Progressive Party, who were left without an important player for these elections - the current mayor. Boško Ničić.
Ničić, a member of the SNS Presidency who has changed various party affiliations in his decades-long career, has stated that he will not run again.
For the last 20 years, with interruptions and formally different functions, he has been at the head of the city and "enough is enough," he told Danas.
The previous week in Zaječar was marked by the story of a potential new copper mine in the immediate vicinity.
While citizens fear the pollution of groundwater, one of the city's symbols embodied in numerous fountains and thermomineral springs in the nearby village of Nikoličevo and Gamzigradska Banja.
Meanwhile, preparations have been underway at the high school center since Friday to welcome students for a new protest.
Throw, push and relay
Arriving in Zaječar, the students seemed to be practicing athletic disciplines.
A group from Novi Sad and Belgrade hiked from Petrovac na Mlavi via Žagubica and Bor.
Some ran from Kladovo to Zaječar via Negotin, and some opted for a relay race (in shifts) from Paraćin.
Ahead of the rally, some elementary and secondary schools in this city refused to accommodate students without explaining their decision, the informal group of students and youth "Zaječarci u blocadi" told BBC Serbian.
Although the principal of the elementary school, Ljuba Nešić, initially allowed them to have the first aid center in the gym, she changed her mind at the last minute.
"We received a generic response that they are not in charge, but the city administration, and that they are just users of those premises."
"The city administration says they are not responsible," says Milica Marić, a member of the group, adding that they have not had these problems before.
The BBC requested comment from the school principal, but no response was received by the time of publication.
Exactly two months have passed since the largest gathering in eastern Serbia, which was organized in Zaječar.
With the message "there will be protests until the demands are met," a protest march was held on February 23, as well as a tribute to the victims of the Novi Sad tragedy.
Students have organized large rallies in recent months in Belgrade, Novi Sad, They are not, Kragujevac, Novi Pazar, Kraljev, Subotica, Čačak.
They are demanding, among other things, that criminal responsibility be established for the Novi Sad tragedy, which killed 16 people, and the government reiterates that everything has been fulfilled.
Among their last demands is calling for extraordinary parliamentary elections.
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