As I get older, I pay more and more attention to who is “on the post.” It's not just those who marked my childhood and youth who are leaving, but, unfortunately, those much younger than them as well.
Many famous personalities passed away in the world and in the former Yugoslavia in 2025.
A great cast has passed away: Brigitte Bardot, Claudia Cardinale, Diana Keaton, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman and Richard Chamberlain, as well as musicians Ozzy Osbourne, Roberta Fleck, Chris Rea and Ornella Vannoni, Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, former world chess and boxing champions Boris Spassky and George Foreman, Olympic amateur boxing champion Nino Benvenuti, Pope Francis, former presidents of Uruguay José Mujica and Romania Ion Iliescu and Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano, English writer Frederick Forsyth, fashion designer Giorgio Armani, Dutch football coach Leo Benhacker, Soviet and Scottish football players Nikita Simonyan and Denis Law, French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, parachutist Felix Baumgartner, etc.
The Yugoslav regions were saddened by the deaths of writers Ljubomir Simović and Filip David, directors Zdravko Šotra, Arsenije Jovanović (professor at the Faculty of Arts), Mihailo Vukobratović, Branko Ivanda, Milorad Milinković, the best searcher in "Pottera", playwright Igor Bojović, a native of Nikšić, former director of the "Boško Buha" Theater, tennis player Nikola Pilić, musicians Vojislav Simić, Saša Popović and Matija Dedić, composers Stipica Kalođera and Alfi Kabilj, excellent singers of various genres Gabi Nobak and Halid Bešlić, actors Josip Pejaković, Erol Kadić, Milka Podrug Kokotović, Enver Petrovci, Čkalja's son Čedomir Petrović, Momo Pićurić... Tito's grandson Josip Joška Broz, prof. Dr. Mirjana Miočinović, two decades of life companion Danilo Kiša, chess publicist Dimitrije Bjelica, political scientist Prof. Vladimir Goati, academician Milivoj Solar, literary theorist, academician Dragan Micić, endocrinologist, basketball players Dražen Dalipagić and Nemanja Đurić, journalists Milorad Komrakov, Nadežda Gaće and Teofil Pančić, film actor and producer Dobrivoje Tanasijević (Dan Tana), general Nebojša Pavković, politicians Dr. Slobodanka Gruden, Kaćuša Jašari, Branislav Ivković, Jugoslav Kostić and Nedeljko Šipovac, former mayor of Cetinje Slobodan Puro Đurić, judoka Slavko Obadov, art historian Aleksandar Čilikov, poet Miodrag Mijo Raičević…
We also said goodbye to a good football attacking five: Marijan Čerček, Dušan Maravić, Andrija Delibasic, Rudolf Belin and Vasil Ringov, with the proviso that we moved Dinamo captain Rudi Belin from right midfielder a little forward...
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In both happy and less happy marriages, women generally outlive their husbands. Statistics show that women in Montenegro live, on average, five years longer than men, 80,3 years compared to 75,3 years.
And it's a good thing that it's like that. Women, when left alone, age more easily and with more dignity than men.
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The government has adopted a regulation stipulating that a student cannot be awarded the "Luča" without excellent grades in the external semi-matrimonial, matura or professional exam. I believe that in the future, the "lučobrosi" will be reduced to the right measure, despite the degraded and devalued education, since many "father's and mother's sons and daughters" received, out of protection, all A's, which, if there was no cheating, was clearly registered in the final, external exam.
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I watched the decisive points of Novak's victory over Siner several times on Facebook, with great pleasure. Since the defeat against Alcaraz in the final, I haven't seen a single clip from the Australian Open, nor am I interested in that Grand Slam anymore.
If Novak ever retires, I will think about tennis just as much as I do about table tennis.
Just as I haven't thought about skiing since the breakup of Yugoslavia. Nor am I following the Winter Olympics, which are currently taking place in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo.
I remember cheering for Bojan Križaj and Mateja Svet, as if they were from my alley. If we were still in the same country, I would be proud of Slovenian Domen Prevc, the winner of the New Year's Four Ski Jumps tour. You know: Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bišofshofen. I saw this success of the twenty-six-year-old ski jumper by chance, I was glad and nothing more. And I didn't even register that Primož Peterka, in 1997, and Domen's brother, Peter Prevc, in 2016, had achieved this success before him, nor had I ever heard of them.
In the 1980s, Miran Tepeš and Primož Ulaga, the best Yugoslav ski jumpers, whom I wholeheartedly supported, never even came close to the podium, except that Tepeš came fourth in 1987.
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The Barbican Performing Arts Centre in London, the largest of its kind in Europe, hosted a retrospective of the tetralogy of Yugoslav and Serbian director Mladomir Puriša Đorđević in January. His four films, “The Girl”, “The Dream”, “Morning” and “Noon”, were presented to British audiences as some of the greatest European war dramas ever made, alongside the works of Roberto Rossellini and Andrzej Wajda.
The Barbican hosts concerts of contemporary and classical music, film screenings, theatre performances, and also contains a library, a glasshouse and three restaurants. The concert hall, which seats 2.000 spectators, is the home hall of both the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Đorđević's films were shown in multiple screenings, and the ticket price was 14 pounds, or 16 euros.
The creator of the retrospective was Dr. Mina Radović, from Goldsmiths University in London, an influential British film scholar, and obviously, our top list.
The great Purisa Djordjevic, who makes us proud even after his death, was a year and a half short of reaching his full age. He died in November 2022.
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On the plane to America, I look like Mr. Bean in that church sketch, because I closely follow the passenger I perceive to be experienced and repeat everything he does regarding food, drinks, lowering and raising the seat, the makeshift table, the screen in front of me, headphones, etc.
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What can be said about the 0,38 percent pension increase, other than the old-fashioned, healing: "Wheeeep!"
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It is not known who first exclaimed: "Home, sweet home!" (Home, sweet home), the artificial intelligence mentions a certain John Paine, an American writer who popularized it in his poem from 1823, but I think that this famous and generally accepted expression originates from Montenegro. Family tradition says that when, after many hours of walking, my great-grandmother, when returning to Ljubotinj from the market on Vir, where she tried to sell some crkavica, said: "Go everywhere, come home!"
Bonus video:
