Byzantine Blog

Enough Gold to Boost the National Reserve

This glorious August Sunday Serbs around the world get a much needed respite from the grimmer side of reality and political pressures that have been bogging the tiny European nation down for almost two decades.

Serbian athletes of all stripes have been bringing so much gold home from the world and European competitions that the nation’s treasury could get a nice boost if the medals weren’t kept in individual chests of drawers.

To mention just the few of the very latest triumphs of Serbian athletes, after the national water polo team has qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games yesterday, they went a big step further today to become the water polo world champions, defeating Hungarians 9-6 in the finals of the World League in Berlin, Germany.

The avalanche of Serbia’s young basketball players who have been sweeping the gold in top championships has continued with today’s win of the European U18 title in Madrid, Spain, when Serbian team defeated the Greek 92:89. This is the fourth European/world gold won by Serbian junior basketball players this summer.

Novak’s Overwhelming Triumph Motivates Ana to Win

But the latest feat of one Serbian athlete instantly topped the successes of the golden teams: Novak Djokovic is not only the new Rogers Cup champion, but the first tennis player to knock off the top three players in the world in the same event since Boris Becker in ‘94.

Breaking the Nadal-Federer stranglehold at the very top of the world tennis, Novak ousted Andy Roddick (3) on Friday, Rafael Nadal (2) Saturday and Roger Federer (1) Sunday. The spectacular triumph allows him to pass American Roddick in the ATP ranking, so Novak will rank third from Monday (up from 4th place on the ATP list), in addition to celebrating the first time he tops tennis king, Swiss Federer, who has been ranked No. 1 a record 184 consecutive weeks since 2004.

“He is definitely one of the best players in the world and he deserved to win today,” said Roger Federer after a grueling 2hrs 15min face-off with the fiery Serb.

The Montreal Masters is Novak’s fourth title of 2007 and the sixth of his young career, indicating that the best things are yet to come for the exceptionally talented 20-year-old.

Motivated by the splendid win of her compatriot and a childhood friend, 19-year-old Ana Ivanovic slashed through the finals’ match with Russian Nadia Petrova, to win her second title of the year in the Los Angeles Classic tournament, just couple of hours after Novak’s triumph.

Guca Festival: This is The Life!

Today, even the Serbian political heads have managed to steal a desperately needed breath of fresh air by freeing themselves from the chokehold of neckties, locking their Belgrade offices and whizzing off to Guca Festival, where the colossal five-day annual party was nearing its end.

“Guca is the capital of Serbia and its largest town right now,” said Premier Kostunica to some 600,000 visitors gathered at the Brass Band Capital of the world, upon arrival.

Officially opening the final competition of 20 brass bands for the Golden Trumpet Award, Republic of Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said that Guca Festival unites Republic of Srpska with Serbia. “Whoever loves Serbia, loves Guca too,” said the head of Bosnian Serbs. He also announced that the number of contestants from the 47th Guca Festival will gather at Banja Luka performance towards the end of the month.

A festival that was rocking the south-east Europe with trumpet blasts for the past week has passed without a single incident, even though the greatest portion of flood of visitors this year, as before, are young people. According to them, one of the highlights of the latest Festival was the two hour midnight concert of Goran Bregovic, few clips of which are available on YouTube.

According to Belgrade daily Blic, which happens to have unexpectedly good coverage of this year’s festival in their small English-language section, visitors from France have topped the numbers of foreign guests attending the Guca Festival this year. Slovenians, who were the most numerous visitors from abroad last year, are right below the French this August.

There is no doubt that Guca owes thousands of French fans to celebrated Serbian director Emir Nemanja Kusturica, who introduced Guca trumpets through his movies and is reportedly more popular at the renowned Cannes Film Festival than most Hollywood stars.

“When I hear the trumpet playing, it ‘raises the hairs on my head’ [...] that’s what a Serb told me they say here when something is really cool. I am honestly thrilled, and so are my friends; not only with the trumpet but with the entire festival — the exhibitions, the stalls, the people... Guca is special, but it’s beyond words, you need to live this. I can hardly wait to share some of my experience with my friends in France so they can come next year too,” said one of the young French visitors to the Blic reporter.

Famous Chivas Regal’s This is The Life tourist guide to the most interesting places in the world dedicates a separate chapter to Guca Festival in Serbia: “Forget Glastonbury, Reading, Burning Man and Cochella: the wildest music festival on earth is a cacophonic and crazy brass band festival that takes place every summer in the tiny Serbian town of Guca (pronounced “Gucha”) in the western region of Dragacevo.” Those who have come from far away and experienced the Guca Festival atmosphere have shared some of their impressions on this page (scroll down to Visitor Reviews).