The recently published book "Chronicle of Good Fun" by Maja Vukadinović and Aleksandra Mikata describes entertainment in cultural discos and clubs from 1967 to 2017, providing an answer to the question why nightlife is a Belgrade brand. Through the testimonies of numerous interlocutors - celebrities of public life and people who came out, as well as thanks to the research of newspaper documents, the Chronicle of Good Time depicts the spirit of the time and the urban way of entertainment, as well as the way of life of several generations.
When the first disco was opened in the German city of Aachen in 1951, few could have imagined that they would become a planetary phenomenon in the coming decades. The feuilleton "Belgrade at night - symbols of one time" by Maja Vukadinović, published fifteen years ago in the daily "Politika", was the first reading in our country that took readers back to the years when our capital revealed the conduction in the Western way.
The story of the emergence of the first discos in the heart of the Balkans, in Belgrade, seems romantic. The "Chronicle of Good Conduct" states that on April 24, 1967, Belgrade became the first city in the former Yugoslavia, but also in the Balkans, to boast of a disco. It is located in a small and modestly decorated basement space at 17 Lole Ribara Street, which belonged to the Šećerović family. Officially, it was the Red Star basketball club - because at that time, night gatherings of teenagers could only be opened under the auspices of a sports association or youth institution.
Unofficially, everyone called this disco without a name "Kod Laza Šećera", after the translator Lazar Šećerović, Milan's younger brother, in whose apartment unforgettable parties were organized before that spring, at which Belgrade cream was present. The guests of Belgrade in the late sixties were surprised by the fact that something like this exists here, and they were especially surprised by the information of young people and "hot" songs "taken" from foreign meters of musical popularity.
And all this was happening in a country that they thought was behind the "iron curtain". During the Fashion Fair, well-known models and creator Pako Raban came to this disco, who, just like the members of the Living Theater, compared this ambience with the Parisian disco "Castel". After less than two seasons, in the fall of 1968, a padlock was put on Belgrade's first disco: neighbors were bothered by noise caused by loud music, car rumbles and murmurs, and officials commented that "decadent trends from the West are poisoning our innocent and pure youth." .
The real heat of Belgrade's nightlife began in 1970. At that time, the work around the opening of the disco was still on an amateur level, but everything "smelled" of certain shifts in the understanding of the entertainment industry. For example, the appearance of the famous "Zeppelin" is well planned. The interior of the "Zeppelin" was reminiscent of the London cult disco "Lavalbon", from where the records that the disc jockeys released were purchased: soul, funk and rock. Film and television crews did not resist the image of meeting young, beautiful and successful people.
In the seventies, it was popular to go out to "Aquarius". This small rented space in Deligradska Street, in the house of the painter Mićo Trnavac, was the only real competition to "Zeppelin". In doing so, each had its own audience. While young people who were close to the way of thinking of the hippie generation flocked to "Zeppelin", somewhat more serious, wealthy and "make-up" members of the young generation appeared in "Aquarius". Maja Vukadinović reveals that in the 1970s, Monokl in Skadarlija was also held in Belgrade, and sometimes discos in the suburbs, especially in "Bis" in Resnik, as well as that local discos were opened in garages, atomic shelters and barracks in those years. … Such small, closed spaces were easy to create, but often lasted only one summer.
In the eighties, the obligatory stop on the city's alternative route was the "Academy". It can be said that, with the exception of "Zeppelin", it was the only club in Belgrade to which cult status was attributed. Few were indifferent to this club. As a rare place, the "Academy" strictly divided young people into those who spent time there like never before in their lives and those who did not even have the desire to peek into this space.
The "Academy" was at the epicenter of a new wave. Those who grew up at the time of this direction, regardless of whether they were involved in music, felt this place as their own. The Dark Club, only fifty meters from Kalemegdan, was perfect for rocker performances. Famous and lesser-known bands played, not only from Yugoslavia.
Across the Academy was the "Star," for which the unwritten rule "the better you look - the better your chances of getting in." The favorite place of people from the stage during the eighties was "Duga", in which everything was subordinated to celebrities. Maja Vukadinović and Aleksandra Mikata also write about the procession in the famous "Nana", where the companies were obliged to order a bottle of whiskey, and the waiters had an excellent tip. There are also vignettes about video discos, such as "Amadeus", "Bezistan", as well as interesting facts about summer fun: disco on roller skates of the eighties, party at swimming pools…
Following the example of Berlin and London parties, various genres and subtypes of electronic music began to conquer Belgrade clubs in the mid-1990s. Following the example of world mass parties in unusual spaces, rave happenings have started to be organized in Belgrade as well. Mass rave parties took place in the Tasmajdan catacombs, on the ski slope in Kosutnjak, on Ada, in the old power plant on Dorcol… First raves, and then the creation of a complete club scene ("Industry", "Underground", "Four Rooms") were response to criminal skirmishes in the middle of the day, confiscation of sneakers in schools, worship of silicone singers and the dominant turbo-folk mass culture.
Two thousand, according to the authors, were marked by eclecticism. Aleksandra Mikata says: "There has always been order in Belgrade: who listens to what, where they go out and how they dress. A new generation of millennials has disrupted that order - the same person could now start the evening with current pop music, sing EKV songs out loud before midnight, and AcaLukas after midnight. The thing would not be interesting if such a mixture of music is not played in the same Belgrade club!
During the 2000s, more and more young tourists from the former Yugoslavia and abroad started coming to Belgrade because of the nightlife, and reputable world magazines reported on the various club offers. Belgrade is a Balkan center of good conduct
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