Nis Fortress Nightlife

Nis fortress walls. Disco to the left.

A day exploring Crveni Krst concentration camp and climbing Bubanj Hill to see a mass execution site can depress the average tourist.  Serbia has a simple, powerful solution to cure this depression: coffee.  Or if that's not strong enough: rakia.  The Balkans can easily convert a sworn coffee-hater into a coffee addict (and potential rakia addict.)

He's sad because the Mafia made him into a disco

Coffee and rakia are two likely reason you will visit Nis Fortress in Serbia.  Nis Fortress is not so much a historical site as it is an organic extension of the city center.  There is no charge to enter and it has been left open to the public to function as a decadent city park.  Local Mafia took advantage of the lenient rules and built a large disco-cafe, Klinika, directly on the fortress stones.

Some people would say it's a tacky, tasteless way to deface a historical monument, but it sure is a fun place to party.  If you don't care to join the beautiful people dancing in the open-air disco, just buy a few liters of Jelen beer at the nearby kiosk, grab your friends and dance on the fortress walls overlooking the disco until sunrise.  You can still hear the pounding music and watch the sun rise from the fortress walls.


I experienced Nis' nightlife for the first time in 2010 and loved it so much that I had to return in 2011 to do it again.  If it were possible I would return to Southern Serbia every summer for partying.  As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Balkan people's flair for living rivals any typical Latino's "vida loca" attitude.  Perhaps due to the Balkans proximity to Asia, there's also a magical Eastern mysticism there that Latin America lacks.  While the world changes, The Balkans seems trapped in a time bubble that remains the same every year.  This night I experienced could have been in 2010, 2011, 2012 or any year...you decide...

I was Couchsurfing with some friends I had met from the previous summer.  I had the good fortune that summer to surf with my friend when he had 2 nice Bosnian girls surfing with him at the same time.  When I meet the girls, they told me (teasingly) that they hated Americans.  Yeah right...  What started as teasing hate over dinner and drinks ended up as love (?) by the time we had arrived at Nis Fortress later that night.

My Serbian friend and I are sensitive modern men, so we cooked a lovely dinner for the Bosnian girls.  After much debate of USA-Balkan politics, foreign food, counterculture (and beer) one of the girls and I ended up kissing in the moonlight in Nis Fortress on that hot summer night.  She fascinated me for being what I wasn't.  She was a wild, dancing, free-spirited hippie who was an expert fire-thrower.  I had my guitar and watched her mesmerizing fire-dance as I sang on the top of the Nis Fortress walls.  The music from Klinika disco below us provided an odd trance accompaniment.

Unfortunately, there were many people partying in the park, including several other beautiful Balkan girls.  I became very distracted.  Dare I say Balkan girls are one of my weaknesses, and a Serbian medical student caught me that at that moment.  While the Bosnian girl was showing off her fire-throwing skills on the fortress stones, I began chatting with the student.  Many Southern Serbian girls get pretty excited when an American guy with a guitar shows up in their town.  I'm a complete liar if I said I don't take full advantage of the situation, and I love my Serbian friends for telling me this.  They are some of the few people I know who will tell me to my face what a complete 'American asshole/fucker/sonofabitch' I am sometimes.

...America, Fuck Yeah!

An "American Fucker" in Nis, Serbia

Rakia and beer flowed freely in the fortress park, and people drifted in and out of my memory.  We danced, drank, sang, reveled and eventually the Serbian and I left for a quieter place.  I didn't notice until the sun was rising what had happened.  The Bosnian girl wasn't happy to find out I had changed allegiances and was in a rage.  When I'm traveling, I can be the naughtiest American asshole.

The Bosnian and I returned to our shared Couchsurfer place in the early hours of the morning.  She was angry and refused to even touch me even though we had to share a bed that night.  Now what do I do?

The Do Absolutely Nothing Tour of Nis, Serbia

There's actually plenty to do in Nis, but the best way to enjoy this slow southern Serbian town is by doing absolutely nothing.  Find an outdoor cafe, order a black, Turkish coffee and waste the afternoon away.  After you're done with that grab a cold Jelen beer, sit by the river and waste the night away.  You'll learn a lot...especially if you're with the right people.

This is how I spent my last trip to Nis in 2011 so there's not much to say.  For those ambitious tourists who like to plan ambitious scheduled itineraries (boring), I'll share my big accidental Nis trip from summer 2010.  As follows...

Downtown Nis. What's the antonym for 'bustling'?

Nis seems to specialize in morbid, depressing tourism.  Here's a list of the uplifting, happy locations you can visit when you aren't discussing the uplifting politics of Serbia over coffee:

1. Nazi Concentration Camp which was ironically a Red Cross building
2. Bubanj Memorial where many of the camp prisoners were executed
3. Nis Fortress where Turks and Serbs killed each other
4. Skull Tower which is composed of the skulls of Serbs who were killed by Turks

Sounds like a lot of fun, right?  I only visited the Concentration Camp, Bubanj Memorial and partied at the Fortress. Perhaps the most depressing item is that Nis Fortress has been left in neglect, thereby allowing local Mafia to build - you guessed it - a disco on the fortress.  Serbians accept this as Mafia doing what Mafia does, and in fact the 'historical' disco is a great place to go out in town.

I will describe the places I've visited in more detail in the next few blogs...when I get around to it. People in Nis are never in a hurry, so I will honor them by not hurrying this writing.  When I'm in Nis I simply go with the flow and do what the locals tell me.  They mainly tell me to slow down, relax and drink more.  I'm happy to say that I'm doing that as I write.

So before we take a tour of Nis, here's a big Jelen Pivo toast to all of my wild Serbs:

  "Ziveli!! Aj De Breee!"