Already at the first steps I feel discomfort. Although almost a month ago I was already with these sides of the metal fence, when the opposition MPs came out to support Diana Hrka in the first days of the hunger strike, this time the feeling was different - more difficult.
I entered Ćaciland without any problems. After breakthrough of opposition MPs the other day, when they split the fence with metal scissors, a hole was left in Kralja Aleksandra Boulevard, between Takovska and Knez Miloš. I passed by the deputies Green-Left Front.
It is among them Biljana Djordjevic who was threatened with death in this place a few days ago. I greet her and in passing I ask her how she is doing. He nods, indicating that he is fine.
As I look at the men in black guarding the forbidden area, it goes through my mind how she went through, but also N1 editorial team whose equipment was broken at the entrance to Ćaciland, as well as Councilor of the Kreni-Promeni movement, Aleksandar Jovanović who was attacked and beaten.
The very thought and scenes in Ćaciland increase my discomfort during my short stay in the tent settlement.
There were not many "locals" inside on the first day of December, but enough to make every look noticeable. In a gray coat, among people dressed almost exclusively in black, I felt like a black sheep.
Most of them are men, many of them big, built. Several dozen of them are arranged in a line a few meters from the staircase leading to the National Assembly. Guys in yellow vests and black caps, security guards, neatly arranged, but with their faces turned to the ground, as if hiding from the cameras.
Behind them on the stairs and the red carpet is still the "collapsed" tent of SNS MP Uglješa Mrdić, where he allegedly spent the days of his hunger strike.
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićGuardians of Cacilend
Police clearance
I am stopped at the entrance by police officers with the question "where". I'm pretty sure they didn't ask that to the man on crutches, who a few minutes earlier slipped behind the tent of Diana Hrka and her supporters. I still went to the main entrance. Later I saw a man on crutches among the people in Ćaciland.
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićNot everyone enters through the main entrance.
I said that I was a journalist and that I wanted to enter Xaciland, showing my ID. The officers had to check if I was allowed to enter. After a short call, they got permission to let me into the "forbidden city".
After a few steps, another policeman told me to hang up my ID visibly and to put on a yellow vest if I had one. I obeyed, so as not to put myself in danger.
"Vučić team"
I took a few photos and tried unsuccessfully to talk to some of the "locals". When I went behind the big white tents, marked with numbers, in order to take a few more photos, an elderly man in a dark vest and a cap marked "Vučić team" approached me. I saw the same wardrobe a few days ago in the accompanying delegation of the President of Serbia during his visit to Negotin.
He asked me not to photograph the tents. "It's forbidden. Don't take pictures," he said. I asked why, since it is a public space. "I can't tell you that," he replied, repeating the request. And he added: "Now everyone comes here because of you."
I asked who "everyone" was, but he didn't want to explain. Soon three men appeared. The elder told them, "She came to paint the tents. I said she can't." One quipped: "Oh, you see she's silly." No one wanted to explain why photography was prohibited.
In order not to cause an incident or put myself in danger, I decided to take cover. But before the warning I still took a few photos.
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićTents that are forbidden to take pictures
Tent and library keeper
I know the man who asked me not to take photos from before. He was the caretaker of the improvised library in Ćaciland back in April, when I first visited this tent settlement.
Then the camp began to spread along the street. In search of the main one - Miloš Pavlović - I was directed to the "library", because Miloš must be studying there. I don't know how I managed to hold back and not burst out laughing.
And in the white tent on the entrance of which was written "students 2.0" sat the same man who did not allow me to take photos of the tents. He then asked me what time it was. I said it was 9:30, and he replied that the library was open from 11 or 12 and that I should come later, maybe Pavlović would be there then. "He must have been studying all night, now he has to rest," he told me then.
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićThe library in Ćaciled in April this year
This morning, however, there was not much of interest behind the fence. I decided to go out. Even the policemen who let me in didn't know how to explain why photography was forbidden. "As far as I know, I'm not theirs," said one. But he didn't say whose it was.
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićChaciland
Knocking Ćaciland out of the park?
In the ancestral home of Ćaciland, in Pionirski Park, the place from where the camp began to expand in March, I did not see anyone this morning. But I saw packed wooden pallets. It also seemed to me that there were fewer tents. There was also an orange truck of city cleanliness.
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićIs Xaciland being removed from the park?
It seems that the announcement of the President of Serbia, made a few days ago, that "they will do something with Ćaciland", has started to come true. Whatever it is.
