The Krov Center is located in a small top floor apartment under a roof in one of the ordinary residential buildings in the center of Belgrade. This apartment is reminiscent of a mid-70s beer bar somewhere in West Germany. Activists representing various cultural initiatives from the Serbian capital usually gather here. Today, about 30 women and men sit in folding chairs in front of a makeshift stage. They speak Russian here. And whoever wants to can come to the microphone and sing something.

“We had to leave Russia”

“I came from Moscow in April. With a one-way ticket, my team and my cat,” Ilya Pinsker, organizer of the Open Mic, told DW. Together with other actors, Ilya opened a recording studio in Belgrade, which produces various audio products: from soundtracks to advertising. “Since the Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24, the situation in Russia has become increasingly unbearable. We had to leave,” says Ilya.

Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ilya, while in Moscow, along with his colleagues and friends, started supporting Ukrainians on Telegram and other instant messengers. “We told a girl in a chat how to drive a car so she could get her family out of the war zone. Her mother had panic attacks and she couldn’t drive,” says Ilya. Such actions in Putin’s Russia are considered treason, and traitors face long prison terms.

However, Ilya never thought of doing anything against this war. “This conflict is very, very close to me,” he says. “Many of my friends and colleagues are from Ukraine, their relatives live there, some have Ukrainian passports. I have to help these people in some way.” But after a few weeks, it became clear that such an activity was too risky in Russia. “The fear that someone will knock on our doors and come after us is growing every day. The regime has become more aggressive since the annexation of Crimea, since 2014. Of course now, when Putin is waging a war, it will be even worse,” says Ilya.

In Serbia, Russians open accounts and register companies

But why do Russians go to Serbia? Although the Belgrade government condemned the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine, Serbia did not support sanctions against the Russian regime. Most of Serbian society feels its connection to Russia – through similar language, through a common Orthodox religion, so it’s not just right-wing radicals who openly support Putin’s war in the Western Balkans.

Katya Khazina

Despite this, according to some estimates, between 30,000 and 50,000 Russian citizens have moved to Serbia since the end of February. There is no official data, but it is known for certain that, since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, tens of thousands of Russians have opened bank accounts in Serbia. More than 1,000 companies whose owners hold Russian passports have been registered with the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the majority in the IT sector.

“I decided to go to Serbia because it is one of the few countries where Russian passport holders can and still can enter without a visa,” says Katya Khazina. “But regardless, of course, it is schizophrenic that I, an opponent of Putin, ended up in a country where there are so many people who support his regime,” says the 34-year-old Muscovite. hang in there because I know how incomparable it is to what people fleeing the war in Ukraine have to go through.”

In Russia, Katya worked for a feminist publishing house. For several years she actively opposed the Putin regime. In Belgrade, the activist joined the NGO “Women in Black”, which in the 1990s protested against the war in Yugoslavia, and since the end of February this year – against Russian aggression in Ukraine. But Putin’s Serbian supporters also regularly come out to demonstrate — in support of the war against Ukraine and Putin’s victory.

“Relations between Serbs and Russia are very strange”

“The Serbs’ attitude towards Russia is very strange,” says Katya. “Actually, few learn Russian in Serbia, hardly anyone has been to Russia. Many Serbs don’t know what prejudices Russians have towards them. food, that their standard of living is very low.” The Serbs’ love for Russia is due to the fact that “they know nothing about Russia, not about repression, not about cruelty, both against Ukraine and against opponents of the regime, or about massive propaganda”.

Graffiti in Belgrade depicting Vladimir Putin

Katya doesn’t have a very high opinion of her fellow countrymen in Belgrade. “Our demonstrations are regularly attended by 50 to 100 people out of tens of thousands of Russians living in Belgrade,” she says disappointedly. “Most of them went to Serbia because Spotify and Netflix no longer work from home. among them far from politics.

A Facebook group called “Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Serbs together against the war” has just 3,624 members. “But that doesn’t mean anything,” Peter Nikitin is sure. “Most of the members of our group are Serbs or people from other Balkan countries. The purpose of this group is to inform Serbian society about the war against Ukraine, in which the Russians are participating.” “Counter-propaganda” – this is how Nikitin designates the group’s task.

What causes dissatisfaction among Serbs

Serbs need information about Russia and Russians, because in addition to the widespread sympathy for everything Russian in Serbia, one can also find those who categorically reject everything related to the former USSR. A waiter at the Mala Slavija restaurant admits that he “hates Russians and Ukrainians alike”: “They are rude and think that everything is allowed to them because they have money.” He does not believe that there are immigrants from post-Soviet countries in Serbia who behave differently.

Many Serbs are upset because people who have recently arrived from Russia complicate the situation in the real estate market. In Serbia, the choice of housing is small. Basically, Serbs after the end of the era of socialism acquired modest real estate, in which they live. Even before the war in Ukraine, it was difficult to find affordable housing in Serbia.

“Russians occupying Belgrade?” – asked a provocative question in April 2022, the tabloid newspaper Blic. “Russians buy apartments and country houses and don’t look at the price.” And realtors claim that rent prices in the Serbian capital have doubled since the start of the war in Ukraine.