Corrupted party

The guy from Hong Kong was already in Sarajevo 2 weeks ago to join the Sarajevo film festival and later moved to in Serbia for the Exit festival. But as small as the world is, we met 4 people, he met at the Exit festival, just after leaving the hostel: 2 crazy girls from Norway and 2 party guys from the Netherlands. While exploring the city night we were a bit puzzled that nobody was in the clubs and bars. We asked locals where to go but nobody had a good idea because everything would be too dangerous. The reason was a football game between the FK Sarajevo and Levski Sofia. Two days ago, the other Sarajevo football club lost the Champions League qualifying game and afterwards many idiots trampled through the inner city starting street battles. Moreover some Sofian "fans" ran through the streets with posters of Milošević stating that he was a hero and some Serbian newspapers of course seconded that. So everybody expected blood on the streets. But Sarajevo won the game and you cannot imagine what suddenly was going on. The main streets were full of people dancing, crying with joy and drinking. The scenery was so exaggerated as if the had won the world championships. We could of course not resist, bought some beer at a street shop and joined the party.

Unfortunately we later left the main street still drinking beer when some some police men jelled at us that we are louts not respecting the culture. I did not immediately understand what the problem was and asked one of the policemen. His response was to kick the bottle out of my hand and throwing our other bottles into a litter bin. We ran away still not understanding the problem as everybody around us was drinking beer. It turned out that you can buy beer 24 hours a day in the shops and you can have a bottle in your hand but are not allowed to drink it on public places. Normally nobody cares but this night was special as these cops were from the Serbian part of BiH, not from Sarajevo.

However we forgot the trouble and went into some nice bars. My favorite was that one with an incredible Bohemian style:

In one bar they played a lot of music from the 90'2, like this one Pete Heller - Big Love - great! We had a lot of fun, especially when the the crazy lady from Norway explained me the tattooed signs on her arms: "v" stands for left and "h" for right.

Don't mix left and right - it would be light!

Da hood.

But suddenly the cops joined our party again and initiated a rough "negotiation" with the bar owner. As result everybody in the bar had 5 minutes to leave it. The cops were fully armed and protected and the locals said we better do what they say. The official explanation was that it is Ramadan and nobody is allowed to party. But the bar owner who was behind the bar that time is a Muslim. The opposite is the case - after dusk everybody starts to eat and drink and dance and often it ends up in a party. (In Sarajevo they shoot with canons as sign that Muslims are now allowed to eat and drink.) I told some locals our story and it turned out that policemen often go out after their work for racketeering money. The bar owner simply didn't want to pay. As these cops were only in the city because of the football match they probably invented the stupid story, normally they have more sensible explanations.