The Marshal Pub is located behind the Više Bosna in Belgrade, right next to Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra (many still think it is the same as the Alexander K., but it's not, but by Alexander O). I watched the last Champions League semi-final in the Marshal's garden, and the waiter complained that people weren't drinking as much as they used to. He said they only sold a few kegs of beer, and a few years ago they were pouring 12 kegs when the relegation phase started and the Champions League was in full swing. That means something. It means a lot.
Young people don't drink like they used to. They like coffee, the gym, tea, blended drinks, they smoke more than they drink. Maybe they don't seek solace in bad alcohol like previous generations, maybe they have more awareness and more choices. Who knows. But, the games are the benchmark, the sport is followed the same, but they drink significantly less, once 12 and now barely three spent barrels.
Not far from the Mashal pub along the Boulevard towards the Djeram market, there was the famous Wonder bar. An exceptional place, a pub with a wood-burning stove, a landline telephone, a long wooden bar, a record player and a toilet whose door opened like the door of a western tavern. It happened that someone would play the record “Ravno do dna” and go from the first to the last, then back in a circle and everything would be fine.
There was always a guy sitting at the bar who had a tattoo. Knut Hamsun on the forearm. True, the tattoo wasn't the best, for some the character looked more like Petković DisThe other guests, as well as the bartenders, were cut from a similar model as the guy with the tattoo, minding their own business and listening to good music. But they were all drinking heavily.
At the end of 2014, my aunt, a serious bibliophile, gave me the book “TH Raič - Who Said Long Live?” as a gift. Until then, I had not known about this writer. I read the book in one breath, underlining probably a third of the sentences. It is a map of the bohemia and absurdity of the Balkans and Belgrade. Wanderings from Boleč to Vienna, and the protagonists are characters like Jaše Grobarova. So, a spectacle! An ideal read for a harsh winter, when everything outside freezes, when you rarely go out and read a lot.
The recommendation on the cover is masterfully written by the author himself: “If you buy this book today, you will realize that there is no better tomorrow. When you buy this book, my life will be in your hands!” I was leafing through the book at the table under the stairs leading to the upper floor of the Wonder Bar when my friend, the recent winner of one of the 365 literary awards given out annually, arrived. He had nailed the award to the wall above the table we were sitting at. He was always under pressure and pressure because he was constantly divorcing his wife. He had a habit of opening the book at random and reading a sentence as if he had opened fortune cookie.
He took TH Raič's book "Who Said Long Live?" from the table, opened it at random and read the sentence "Who lives at the expense of a woman will earn every dinar!" He withdrew, seriously worried, ordered a double klenkovača and a small sour. For years after that, he stuck to that sentence and quoted it at many promotions. For him, it became an ideal of brevity, philosophy, essence, irony and truth that hurts but also sobers.
That sentence was written by TH Raič, a writer who also Balsha dedicated a column on Sunday. This important writer deserves to be mentioned this Sunday in ART. Miodrag Raičević, born in 1955 in Titograd, and died in 2025 in Belgrade.
He said "cheers"!
Bonus video:
