BLEDI LYUDI

An old railbus travels through the snow-covered landscape. A herd of sheep runs across the barren meadows, the scrap dealer drives his donkey cart past old industrial plants to the big rubbish dump. Many Roma are looking here for recyclable material. The region is going downhill, people say, and the politicians are to blame. But there have been serious economic crises, smuggling and the black market ever since the beginning of the 1990s, but, people somehow keep on managing to stand it here, even at 16 degrees below zero. The young people hang around in bars, one of them wants to make a name for himself as a rap musician. Two policemen investigate the metal thefts without any real hope of success. One of the thieves' coveted objects is the monument by the river, which commemorates the 600 to 1000 dead who were drowned under the ice here during the Second World War. In Tito's Yugoslavia, such memorials were a reason of state and the victims became martyrs – nowadays, both only have scrap value. Time stands still when even the memory itself fades. WMH