Students Leave Bor for Zagubica Over Crni Vrh
The column walking from Zajecar to Slavija resumed in Bor. Ahead lie 49 kilometers with no settlements, and in Bor citizens and SNS supporters both turned out.
Students walking from Zajecar to Belgrade set out from Bor at 8 a.m. on Saturday, October 17, with 49 kilometers over Crni Vrh to Zagubica ahead of them. The whole column is headed for the closing pre-election rally of the “Student List - Students Win” slate at Slavija, scheduled for October 22.
The column left Zajecar on Friday, October 16, and reached Bor that evening. The students spent the night with local residents, who took them into their homes.
What happened in Bor?
Residents greeted the walkers in Bor with the song “Three Kisses, That’s What I Want,” a track tied to the slate’s campaign, and with chants of “Students win.” N1 reports that SNS supporters (the Serbian Progressive Party) stood on the opposite side of the street. The sources do not say how many people came to the welcome, and they say nothing about a police presence.
Milos Janosevic, a candidate on the slate, said nobody came to the welcome under pressure and that those present were free people. He added:
“This is the beginning of an avalanche that will change Serbia from the roots. There is no cult of personality with us, and the time of political messiahs is over. I am ready, together with my colleagues, to plow deeply through this corrupt system and return the state to where it belongs, into the hands of the citizens.”
Professor Jovo Bakic told N1 that he had come to Bor to greet the walkers from Zajecar. His words about the other side of the street: “It is very good that this side of Serbia is finally turning to the students too, because Students Win.” A student of the Faculty of Political Sciences, identified in N1’s report only as Masa, said of the SNS supporters: “We are here for the walkers, they are here for their own reasons, we do not interfere with them.”
What awaits the column on the way to Zagubica?
According to the plan, the column should reach Bor Lake around 11:30 a.m. Beyond the lake there are no inhabited places until just before Zagubica, and an N1 reporter says there will be no phone signal over Crni Vrh either.
Ivona Djorovic, a student at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, described her stay in Bor to N1: “The people were wonderful, they all put us up in their own accommodation.” She compared the climb over Crni Vrh with the one over Tresibaba, when they walked from Bor to Nis last year, and said: “So, roughly a similar climb, and it should not be terrible.” She estimates arrival in Zagubica at around 10 p.m., with one more long break during the day.
The planned route continues through Petrovac na Mlavi, Pozarevac and Smederevo to Belgrade. The sources do not give dates for the individual stages.
Rallies in Jagodina and Aleksinac
On Friday evening the Student List held rallies in both Jagodina and Aleksinac. In Jagodina, a film about the students’ activities over the past two years was shown. Student Hristina Draganovic said they were there “to remind ourselves that we are here to spread love.” Mirjana Nikolic also spoke, saying at the rally that almost two years of struggle had passed and that, as she put it, the students would keep fighting until they had done everything they set out to do.
In Aleksinac, SNS supporters gathered near the rally. Mladen Krstic of the Student List told N1 there were more of them this time than last time:
“It is not entirely clear to us what the purpose of this gathering of theirs is, which we can now call sizable. Or what they can possibly change in Aleksinac. Everyone should have presented their plans and programs in a civilized way, called on voters to vote, and then let the chips fall where they may.”
The sources reviewed contain no statement from SNS on the reason for the gatherings in Bor and Aleksinac, nor any indication that the party was asked for one.
