Love Blue, Will be Zvek!

The host of my current Airbnb in the City Kvart part of Podgorica is the head coach of the volleyball team at the Buducnost sports club in Podgorica. The way sports work(s) in Europe is different from the U.S., but that means, essentially, he's the head coach of the Podgorica team.

Buducnost — which means "Future," by the way — played against the Jedinstvo team, from Bijelo Polje, in the semifinals of the Montenegrin Cup on Friday. So I went to watch.

Lest you think for a second that volleyball isn't a crazy big sport here, just consider this photo:

The arena was packed!

Ok, so it was not the most crowded sporting event I've ever been to. But there was some good action (and good coaching!), and the good guys won. I was satisfied. And, at the price, it was one of the best value-for-your-money sporting events I've ever been to.

My Airbnb host in gray

No, guys, hit it over the net!

Good guys win, 3-0

On to the finals, on the 30th against those bastards from Budva!

On the way out, I took a quick photo of kids warming up for their Tae-Kwon-Do class (or competition?) in an adjoining hall.

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On a related note, especially in my first airbnb here, in the general neighborhood of the Buducnost sports center, I came across lots of mysterious graffiti about someone or something named "Zvek."

I asked my first airbnb host and a lawyer-friend I have here about the name — neither of them big sports fans — and they were both more or less at a loss. The lawyer-friend suggested that the word "Zvek" means something like "someone or something that can't sit still, and is constantly moving or vibrating," but ... that wasn't much help.

I understood from context that it had something to do with the local football (soccer) team, which one of my sources confirmed — "Blue" is the both the color of the team, obviously, and a short-hand way of referring to them (a synecdoche, if you will)—but that's as far as I could get.

Zvekove or, indeed, the "Zvek Zone."

Zvek — Podgorica

"We love Blue -- will be Zvek"

My current airbnb host, however, had more details. He explained that the main supporter group of the Buducnost football team is the Varvari (Barbarians), which I have to admit, is a pretty cool name. According to him, "Zvek" is the name of the more ... passionate (maybe even rabid?) wing. Which is saying something, as, according to Wikipedia, the Varvari are already pretty intense:

"Since its foundation years, Varvari gained a reputation as a violent group, and in recent history they caused some of the biggest accidents that occurred at football matches. At a First League 2004-05 Budućnost – Partizan Belgrade match, flares, blocks, construction materials and similar objects were thrown from the North stand to the pitch and the match was abandoned for 15 minutes. The following year, a home game against Red Star Belgrade was suspended for two hours after home supporters (Varvari) sprayed tear gas on the pitch and, after that, attacked visitors' ultras."

(It may be worth remembering that there was a certain tension in the air, those years, between Serbia and other members of the former Yugoslavia).

I just now asked the barista at this Gloria Jeans coffee shop and her friends what Zvek means, and one of them said, as if this explained everything, that it means "like the word for Wow! Zvek means 'Chaos,' which means, like, 'Wow!'" She gave me a smile like she was humoring me, and I thanked her and retreated to my laptop.

So there you go. "Zvek" is the personification of "constant movement" or "chaos" (or "Wow!") that serves as the icon/mascot of the rabid wing of the Varvari group of Buducnost supporters.

Makes me think I should try to go to a game here! (And, if I do, that I should wear blue — fortunately, as you all know, that isn't particularly difficult for me).

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Final football thoughts. On my way to Independence Square yesterday I saw my first purely Buducnost (and not "Zvek") graffiti, wedged into the corner under an air conditioning unit.

Presumably the graffiti preceded the AC installation

In a sign that fans here — as in many countries in Europe — actually pay more attention to the almost-infinitely-richer football teams/leagues of the world (primarily the Premier League, the Bundesliga, and La Liga), upon turning around I immediately encountered a more respectably presented logo.

To be fair, Podgorica is only 2700 miles from Liverpool

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Ok, enough football. One last note. Some of you may recognize Gloria Jeans coffee -- a Starbucks/Costa Coffee competitor originating in Australia and more or less familiar around much of the world.

According to a world map on the wall here, though, it turns out this is the only location in the Balkans. Not Montenegro — this one store, here in the Oasis Building, on 1 Cetinjski Put, in Podgorica. 

See that one little dot, behind Italy's heel? That's where I am right now!

I don't see how this makes any sense, given distribution concerns, but that's why I'm not a multi-millionaire (yet).

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Oh, what the hell, let's sign off with one more photo of a billboard near my apartment, presented without comment.

I am very much in the Balkans