Mid-day disaster under Terazije

The very center of Belgrade, Terazije, is a large type of avenue where several major streets converge, and it has a couple of undergound passages for pedestrians to get across the main street without stopping traffic. Some Belgraders jokingly refer to these as the city's Metro system.

These underground passages contain a handful of stores and the occasional street performer or gypsy beggar, but mostly an ever-constant flow of people moving all around. You can also find, on most days, a small group of pirates plying their trade down there.

Media pirates, that is. They sell every possible movie that is out in theatres or ever made, new video games, etc. Although copyright laws have officially caught up with Serbia and made this business illegal, it still thrives in Belgrade, and Serbia in general remains (allegedly, but I don't know how anyone would quantify something like this) one of the world's most active "pirating" countries. CDs sell for 200 dinars, and you if you buy five you get one free (or so I've heard, ahem...)

Although the crew down there does fine business, and it is no big secret to *anyone* who spents about 2 hours in the center of Belgrade that they are there, they still apparently operate on the foul side of the law, which I realized finally when I witness a particularly humorous incident.

I was simply crossing the passage as I do every day for some reason or another, and right as I was walking past the CD stand, a relatively loud alarm sounded. I realized later this was from a talkie walkie, and it was a warning from some lookout on the street. "Panduri!" (COPS!) one of the sellers shouted.

Instantly, the CD vendors slammed closed their entire apparatus (basically two gigantic cardboard boxes that open up like a book and allow them to lay the CDs out) and ran for dear life into one of the shops right nearby. No exagerration, it was all so sudden I was momentarily alarmed that something dangerous was happening.
Only, one of them was a bit too hasty and... Tripped, dropping the entire large box and vomiting CD cases all over the entire passage, like a cardboard cluster bomb splaying plastified shrapnel everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. It was really a spectacular fall and fumble.

A whole slew of cursing and swearing was heard all around from him, his colleagues, and the two women who were working the "hideout" shop, before they all got down on all fours and started frantically gathering up CD cases. Some people actually helped them, some grabbed some CDs for themselves, some laughed or sympathized with "uuuuuh, jebote..." (oh snap!), some just ignored the whole mess like it never happened.

The CDs were picked up in stunning time though. I think a food relief van in a Sudanese refugee camp wouldn't be pillaged so quickly, but they pulled it off somehow, and the last guy ran into the store with his arms overflowing with CDs *just* as a pair of policemen walked down the stairs into the passage. The two female accomplices had already lit cigarettes and put on a show of smoking them and looking bored in the doorway of the store. 5 seconds slower, and they would have all been busted.

I found the whole thing quite surprising and amusing. I had no idea that these people were taking such risks by selling their wares down there, but I guess that's the only conclusion one can draw in the face of such panic. Not to mention how organized the whole thing was, I mean, really, lookouts in the street?

Still, they continue to sell every day, so I guess their precautions work for them. I have no idea what happens if you get "busted" with pirated software in Belgrade.