When the Yugoslav prime minister Džemal Bijedić promised to clean the country’s air at a conference in Belgrade in 1974, a reporter from the New York Times wrote that there was little hope of early relief for the city’s residents, who felt the pollution was getting worse. “The choking, sulphurous atmosphere of Belgrade and several other major Yugoslav cities reddens eyes, shreds nylon stockings and ruins pianissimo passages in the concert hall because of the nearly continuous coughing it causes in audiences,” the writer said.
Half a century later, residents of Belgrade are still holding their breath. “I have asthma and it’s killing me,” says Dejan, 40, a graffiti artist and MC who runs a paint shop in the industrial Palilula district. “It’s not smog, man, it’s a black fog. You cannot see.”
