It had been years since I arrived early for a flight, but after my previous flight and spending £300 on replacement flights, I forced myself to be early, arriving an hour and a half before departure, which was unlike me.

My destination was Serbia. Not a sexy hotspot nor on my ‘must-visit’ country list but sometimes I make promises on a whim, intending to follow through but at my tortoise-like, almost glacial pace. But this was one of those promises, a visit to my friend Pasha and his family that I had to keep.

Pasha and I met in Zurich, while we attended a “Dynamics of Strategy” day school, as part of our MBA program. I’d been to Zurich, but it was his first time there. At the end of the class, we caught the same train into the city centre and started a conversation on the journey.

Before this trip to Serbia, we had been all over together, mostly for studying, including glamorous cities like Zurich, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt, as well as the lesser-known La Linea de La Concepcion, Cadiz, Gibraltar, and Seville when they visited me on vacation.

On a drunken night in either Gibraltar, Brussels, Frankfurt, or Amsterdam (I don’t remember where), I promised him that I would visit him and his family in Russia, and he’s never allowed me to forget it. Pasha visited me in Gibraltar in February 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Before that, we would hang out every three months when we met at MBA classes.

But in the blink of an eye, we had two years of COVID-19, and once we could ‘go outside’ again, Pasha kept reminding me that I was supposed to visit. But then “Vlady the Baddie” Putin had other ideas and had started his pointless war. I decided that there would be no chance of me going to Russia, ‘not my black ass, nope, no sir,’ I said, so we started looking at alternative locations to meet up.

For multiple reasons and through a series of events that I won’t detail, I ended up on this trip to Belgrade, partially fulfilling my promise.

I arrived at the house, and I was greeted by a welcoming party! It was weird, but nice to see my friends after nearly three years. Even though they offered me accommodation multiple times, I decided to stay at a hotel a few feet away, and I took my bags over.

The hotel was something else, I should have known better from the name “Hotel N“. I imagine it was what a Soviet-era 4-star hotel was supposed to be, but it looked like a 4-star hotel built in the ’80s that never got renovated. The receptionist sounded like she had smoked a cigarette factory, with a husky old voice. She wanted to hold on to my passport until I checked out, something that was never going to happen. I had never stayed in anything like it, and that wasn’t a compliment.

After leaving the hotel, I headed back to the house to catch up, and by “catch up,” I mean drink! What else was I supposed to do in a house full of Russians? Later on, we went to this charming Serbian restaurant for dinner. The food was amazing and simple, but very, very good value and importantly, it tasted great. The next day, we headed to the city centre for a bit of sightseeing, while hungover. Not something I’d ever recommend.

We were both out of it and didn’t do much other than walk down to Belgrade Fortress, which dated back to the 2nd century and had an observation deck with views of the twin rivers and the rest of Belgrade. There was also an open-air museum, which had a lot of old military equipment on display.

I think the crisp air helped sober us up, and we made our way over to the main cathedral, the Temple of Saint Sava and it was stunning. While I hate religion and everything it stands for, I can appreciate good craftsmanship and architecture, the two things that are usually found in churches.

The Nikola Tesla Museum was a step away from Savada temple, but there were too many visitors and I was in no mood to queue.

Redstar Belgrade and Partizan Belgrade football clubs were a short walk from my hotel. I wanted to visit both but was too tired to.

Later that evening, we picked up supplies and continued drinking while watching Russian movies. They sang folk songs and songs written by Stas. Stas is a character, who speaks very few words in English but tries his hardest to communicate. Amazingly, he sings pretty damn well in English though.

It felt oddly surreal and throughout, I kept asking ‘Why the fuck is everything in Russia sad, depressing or about war?” I’m yet to get an answer that I find acceptable.

Before I knew it, it was time to head home. I hadn’t seen much of Belgrade, and my impressions weren’t that great. But I put it down to it being the middle of winter, and everything, including the people, looked grey and gloomy.

I had a stupidly early flight back to Spain and while queuing to go through the exit immigration, a guy fainted, and other passengers around him tried to help him. One guy started doing chest compressions and clearing his air passage, while others shouted for help from security. The security officers came, looked at the guy and walked off, giving zero fucks. Instead, they kept pushing us to go forward, keeping the queue moving. The other people kept shouting and asking for help, but up to the point when I cleared security, no help arrived.

I think that there is a lot more to that city that I need to explore, but if I didn’t have friends living there, there would be little to no chance of me going back. But with one of my closest buddies now residing in Belgrade, I’ll have no choice but to give it a second chance in the summer months.