Life in the New: The Popović Family

Standing on the rooftop of a 14-story residential block in Blok 63, the horizon is mainly layers upon layers of parks, recreational spots, and more buildings. Apartment buildings reach towards the sky, low-rise slot casinos and shopping malls are sporadically spread around in the landscape, and there is a mash of concrete and greenery as far as the eye can see. The sky is blue, veiled only by a smog-like haze, not enough to shut out the face-melting sun. Fourteen stories down, even the doves have sought cover in the shade of the trees.

“He was the crazy one during the 1999 bombings. He was insane! He went up here!” Ana Popović says of her father, Zoran, looking out on the horizon. “I was scared only once,” he says, “when I saw this anti-aircraft artillery shoot one of those Tomahawk missiles.”

He thought it would be safer if Yugoslavia’s 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade didn’t shoot them down, explaining that the enemy’s missiles knew what they were targeting, predominantly military targets in Belgrade. “If you miss or just damage it, you don’t know where it will fall.”

“It was amazing how everything was still functioning during the bombardment,” he continues, “we used cell phones and shared information. We knew when the missiles crossed the border and that they would be here fifteen minutes later. So you could wait for it and see it come, you know.”

When NATO attacked the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the bombs fell over the city, the area’s bomb shelters were filled with dust and for years used only as storage for the tenants. “Nobody thought people would ever use them. It was some silly rule that every neighborhood must have a shelter,” Zoran says. Ana says, “It was not silly at all at that point.” “No, during the 80s and 90s, we thought, ‘why do we need those bomb shelters,’ but in 1999, it was very useful,” he responds with a wry snicker.

When they realized they needed to use them, neighbors painted the shelter the same day the bombing started. Today, most bomb shelters are repurposed into gyms, slot clubs, and activity spaces. “I mean, we went there for maybe 15 days. The other days we were just sitting here watching the bombing from the window,” Ana says. The bombing lasted for 78 days, from March 24 to June 10.

Zoran is “retired but working.” He used to work for Energoprojekt, an engineering and construction company that played a significant role in developing Yugoslavia’s energy sector and was one of the country’s largest and most successful engineering firms. He started in the IT department in 1973. At his workspace in the living room, Zoran shows off black-and-white pictures of himself at work. He is posing next to a UNIVAC, a massive giant of a computer.

“Back then, Energoprojekt was the sixth biggest company in the world in its field. Now it’s not even in the top 100.” Still, Zoran cites quitting the company 20 years later as the worst day of his career. “As Tito died, everything started falling apart,” – including the company, which today is a shadow of its former self.

Two years after quitting Energoprojekt, he co-founded a company that specializes in service and maintenance for computers, monitors, and printers. Before long, they were the go-to factory service for well-known brands like Philips, AOC, and Fujitsu Siemens.

Back in their apartment downstairs, Ana’s mom Mirjana is misting her unfathomable collection of cacti and succulents that line the glazed balcony’s walls. “This is my Xanax, my therapy!” she says with a lit-up face.

Mirjana has a small notebook in which she records every cactus and succulent. She doesn’t have the exact number at the drop of a hat, but we’re surely speaking of a three-digit number. In the notebook, she lists how much they have grown, when she bought them, and at what price. They all have their own number—an index of life in growth.

Following a recipe Ana discovered on TikTok, Mirjana has just put a dish in the oven. A high-pitched whine of Formula 1 cars fills the room as they race across the television screen. They watch either that or MotoGP every Sunday during the season.

Mirjana’s childhood was marked by constant movement as her family followed her father’s military career around Yugoslavia. She has called Novi Beograd home since 1968, when her family settled in Blok 38. In 1987, she moved into their current apartment with Zoran. A year later, Ana was born. By then, Mirjana had moved ten times.

“Novi Beograd has grown,” she says. “It’s more crowded, and many parks are turned into buildings and parking lots. There is also an upside to the progress; everything you need is nearby. You don’t need a car to go to the doctor or to the market.”

“There is a dark side to this growing community,” Zoran chimes in. “Basic utilities – you know, heating, electricity, water, supplies, storage – aren’t keeping up with this expansion.” More buildings are built in their neighborhood, and the family feels the effects of the strain it has put on the infrastructure. “For the past three summers, as soon as we turn on the air conditioner to cool down, the transformer goes up in smoke,” Ana adds while flicking the ash of her cigarette in the ashtray.

“Still, it’s a good place to live,” she says. “Your neighbors will always help you if there is anything. Everything is within walking distance. Supermarkets, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, fresh meat, the river. Everything. It’s funny to me that it’s more complicated to get from here to the other side of Novi Beograd than to get to the city center,” Ana says.

Zoran weighs in, “Another problem is that you never know when the bus will come. I was frustrated when I was in Switzerland or the Netherlands. When the timetable says that the bus or tram will arrive at 7:35, it is there at 7:35.”

“But there is no thrill in that.”

Prints from Life in the New

See the price list for prints from my Life in the New book project here.