After a long period of drought, which fried the gardens on the outskirts of Novi Sad, three downpours followed a few days ago, which somewhat recovered the crops, but also almost submerged the settlement of Telepska dolina, which is located on, as the name suggests, Telep, a part of Novi Sad previously known by houses and gardens, gardens and greenery, and in recent years by accelerated and savage "gentrification". "Gentrification" actually means that residential buildings are springing up where they attract investors, regardless of the urban plan and without any assessment of how these buildings will affect the quality of life of the people of Telep.
About forty families now live in the area where one lived. Of course, the construction is not accompanied by new infrastructure, nor parks, children's playgrounds and parking lots, so this part of the city looks like a giant used car store, which takes up every centimeter of free space. That's a minor problem. The bigger problem is that no one is concerned with how these "towers and cities" will support the land, which is known for underground water and which is largely located along the Danube itself, i.e. its branch. So it's no wonder that small swamps appear every now and then next to the high-rise buildings, which are the product of the fact that the network of canals that carried the excess water has been buried to a good extent in the meantime so as not to "interfere with construction projects". A good part of Novi Sad was built on floodplains, but it was done by serious experts, systematically, and not by "tricksters" like today.
photo: saša jovanovićONCE UPON A TIME…
BOCARA AND HIS AFFAIR
The settlements of Telepska dolina and Telepska dolina grande are the names of one of the numerous affairs of the Novi Sad government, which is personified by Mayor Miloš Vučević, a high-ranking official of the Serbian Progressive Party and a close friend of the controversial brother of the President of Serbia - Andrej Vučić. Some opposition members and connoisseurs of the city's situation will say that in the hierarchy of power, Vucevic is, if not a pawn, then a lauder, in charge of implementing decisions and facilitating unhindered business for the people who actually rule the city, namely the mentioned brother, and the Kosovo "businessman", the "famous" Zvonko Veselinović, who, as they say, replaced the management of the north of Kosovo with the position of Bey of Novi Sad and Vojvodina. It is difficult to assess how accurate the claims are that no serious business can be concluded in Novi Sad without the approval of these two, but it is certain that they are present in the "capital of Vojvodina" without concealment. They recount tasteless drunken parties in Novi Sad clubs, where guilds are measured in thousands of euros. The angry oppositionist and vice president of the People's Party, Borislav Novaković, has been claiming for a long time that "Andrej Vučić manages the political scene, and Zvonko Veselinović orchestrates the criminal milieu of Novi Sad." Andrej Vučić recently took a photo with local progressive activists during the elections for local communities, and allegedly the arrival of Veselinović and his clan led to a serious overcomposition of Novi Sad's controversial scene.
The company of the wife of Miloš Vučević, a long-time adviser to the mayor of Novi Sad, invested in the complexes of luxury residential buildings on Telep called Telepska dolina and Telepska dolina grande. The name of that adviser is Slobodan Milić Bocara, and the man in question was involved in various businesses before the progressives came to power, and that was quite unsuccessful. Allegedly, before his advisory role, he was the owner of a company that had a debt of as much as 70 million dinars. When "his chakras opened" and "his ax fell into honey", in 2013, after the progressives came to power, he founded a company with 1000 dinars as a deposit, so that in a few years he would grow financially so much that he could easily , his wife) tens of millions of euros in construction projects.
photo: saša jovanović...AND US: Telep
Novi Sad's media are largely lenient towards the city authorities and want to maintain good relations with them at all costs, so they did not excessively deal with this case of dramatic enrichment from a position of authority. Nevertheless, the Belgrade portal "Nova" paid a lot of attention to the "Bocar" affair and came to very interesting conclusions. According to the portal, the adviser earned his first serious money thanks to being "clairvoyant". He was buying abandoned fields on the outskirts of Novi Sad, and then suddenly it turned out that the City was planning to build roads, waterworks, and gas pipelines over those fields, so he bought them at much, much higher prices. Novaković claims, at even 110 times higher prices. Soon Bocara, using his position, became the owner (sorry, his wife) of more than 300 construction plots in the city and a very successful investor. A good part of those plots was agricultural land, and later it was converted into construction land, which, as even the children know, significantly increases its price - an old trick to get enormously rich.
We do not have the space to explain in more detail the various confusions that follow this case, in which the mayor of Novi Sad is most certainly involved; it is important to say that Vucevic was Bocar's lawyer before the flourishing of his political career. Let's just say that the investigation of the official documents of this affair leads to various interesting business names from Novi Sad, from different political milieus, which is not strange for a city in which both Kuso and Repato are connected by interest. By the way, an anonymous criminal complaint was filed against Vučević for "trading in influence", related to the "Bocar" case. It does not seem that the Prosecutor's Office bothered to investigate this report.
PARTY GODPARENTS
Marko Bosanac Boske, the Slavic godfather of the Novi Sad SNS, is another important name in the affair-structure of the Novi Sad government. This owner of many criminal reports and a convicted thug (sentenced to six months for violent behavior, i.e. beating a young man almost to death) is a very close associate of Miloš Vučević and is Zvonko Veselinović's right-hand man. The photographs, which were released by the Novi Sad opposition, show that Boske is quite respected in the progressive hierarchy of power and that he is quite high in it, although he does not officially have a single position. This is a man for special operations, among other things in charge of election engineering, which we already know all about. He is allegedly in charge of collecting and distributing the so-called sandwich shop, that is, the audience at progressive gatherings.
Bosket's companies concluded contracts with almost all public companies in Novi Sad and thus, last year, they generated almost 350 million dinars. Among other things, his company deals with the counting of passengers at bus stops (which costs the citizens of Novi Sad four million dinars), and at the same time those same stops look as if they were hit by a passing tank. All in all, the value of Bosquet's capital is increasing every year at an incredible rate, as is the number of employees. The fact that he has much bigger ambitions than controlling local public companies and that he can do it is also shown by the contract he concluded on behalf of the consortium (in which his company has the strongest role) with the director of Elektroprivreda Srbije Milorad Grcic. The value of that contract is 11,7 billion dinars, or 100 million euros. These data were recently disclosed by the former mayor of Novi Sad, Borislav Novaković, pointing out that Bosket's current reading will be many times more expensive than it was before. Of course, all this will be paid for by the citizens of Serbia...
The name of Sniper Slobodan Milutinović is well known to the people of Novi Sad and is not pronounced without immediate need. He is also an important player in the city's power structure, he is a former member of the Board of Directors of FC "Vojvodina" and a man who controls and uses the fans of this club for political, business and other arrangements in accordance with the needs of the authorities, although by the decision of the Basic Court in Novi Sad due to violence prohibited access to "Vošin" stadium "Karađorđe". This "Velja Nevolja from Novi Sad", as some call him, previously convicted of drug trafficking, was recently arrested and then promptly released, in Jahorina. Sniper escaped death three times, because so many times explosives were planted under his car. He is associated with the racketeering and bullying of a Vojvodina football player, as well as the beating of a young man in the club's premises. He will not be responsible for that, because, as Novaković says, he has political protection, which is why this vice-president of the People's Party wrote to the Minister of Police Aleksandar Vulin, pointing out that Novi Sad has become a "criminal eldorado, a base and haven for organized crime."
And Sniper, as it is said, is an important cog in Veselinović's team and also plays an important role in election processes and in the engagement of "sandwich makers". There is a photo showing his cordial and friendly relationship with Mayor Vucevic. Recently, he was also extremely active in the elections for local communities in Novi Sad, hanging around the polling stations, according to eyewitnesses. He was "in charge", among other things, of Liman, where the progressives experienced a real electoral disaster and where they were beaten to the bone by citizen candidates. The sniper is also in charge of various other parapolitical affairs, so Novaković recently established that it was his team that demolished the city hall during last year's civil protests in Novi Sad. The snipers did this in order to make senseless and criminalize the demonstrations of mostly young and urban Novi Sad citizens against the progressive regime in July of last year. According to Novaković, the evidence for this is the fact that the cameras recorded the perpetrators, but that no one has been charged with this vandalism so far. Allegedly, fictitiously, he is employed in EPS.
However, as important as the names of Bocara, Bosket and Sniper are when talking about the character of the current Novi Sad (and the state, of course) government, the name of one company far surpasses them. The name of that company is, of course, Galens. If there is ever a change in the progressive regime, the seriousness of the new government will be measured by the extent to which the affairs of this company in the capital of Vojvodina will be investigated, a company whose enormous growth has been recorded since the moment when the SNS began to rule this city and this country. Some associate this company with Milorad Dodik, and for years in Novi Sad, it has been building not only buildings, but entire neighborhoods, and regulatory and urban planning plans have been adjusted so as to make as much money as possible. Of course, to the detriment of citizens.
NOVI SAD ON THE WATER
The name of Galens is also mentioned in the "Novi Sad on the Water" affair, the insane plan of the city government to build a giant residential and business complex in a green oasis, which also entails moving the Danube embankment 500 meters into the river bed (see "Vreme" no. 1521). The people of Novi Sad rose up against this project, in various columns, so it is not known whether numerous protests will bear fruit and whether and to what extent the government will abandon its "life's work", which is not only ecocidal and highly corrupt, but can also result in also have large floods. The Danube is not to be messed with, and it is especially dangerous if politicians and urban planning tricks are played with this great river. "Vode Vojvodina" gave a negative opinion on this project last year, but then the director of this public company was replaced and a verified party staff was appointed in his place. If the city government remains faithful to its tragic idea, it will certainly be the biggest political-corruption-pest affair in the "recent history" of Novi Sad.
Not far from the place where "Novi Sad na Vodi" should spring up, the so-called Chinese bridge. Urban planning experts protest about him, but who asks them about anything. This fourth Novi Sad bridge has been declared a project of national importance, which is a code that avoids a public tender and accesses the so-called direct negotiations. The job was awarded, completely non-transparently, to the Chinese company CRBC. Of course, no architectural competition was announced either. Like all Chinese investments, this project is also accompanied by secrecy and an oversized price, just like the Fruškogorsk Corridor, to which the bridge will connect. We have already written about the Fruškogorsk Corridor, for which the citizens of Serbia will pay 606 million dinars, and whose value experts estimate to be at least half as much (see: "Vreme" no. 1559). The same Chinese company is building the Fruškogorsk Corridor. As it was presented, the bridge project foresees the construction of a high viaduct starting from Boulevard Europa, which means that many citizens - experts warn - will suddenly have traffic in front of their windows, and that of freight. Practically, the main flow of freight traffic in Novi Sad will pass through a densely populated boulevard that was not designed for these needs at all. But who cares what happens in the future.
There would be a lot more to write about the Novi Sad city authorities, but we have little space. Let's say, about the fact that Novi Sad on the world map of corruption made it to the list of cities that are among the most important hubs for laundering dirty money in the region. One of the possible topics is how the budget money of the people of Novi Sad goes to the media and non-governmental organizations. Of course, those media and organizations that are service levers of this government. But about that another time.
