The last 'Yugo' gangster alive still popular in Belgrade

In the 1990s, Serbian criminals reigned with impunity. They amassed massive fortunes and become style icons. Now, they are all dead – except for one.

Kristijan Golubovic (40) likes to compare himself to Robin Hood. “I never bothered poor fruit vendors,” he said, speaking during an interview in his spacious home, located in Belgrade’s outskirts. When he robbed an electronics store, it would be one carrying high-end brands for the rich. “I would steal 50 Bang & Olufsens that would end up with people unable to afford even a Sony.”

The famous Serbian criminal Golubovic was released from prison a year ago, and he claims to have since limited his activities to participating in so called ‘ultimate fighting’ tournaments. His presence can draw a crowd to these events. He also doles out advice to his fans by email. “A lot of people ask if I want to godfather their child,” he said.

Back on the mean streets

After serving six years for extortion and illegal possession of a firearm, this old school glamour gangster has staged a comeback. Golubovic is again making his presence felt on newspapers’ entertainment pages. He was the subject of a two-hour televised interview broadcast by Serbia’s biggest television network and is the subject of much adoration on the social networking site Facebook. He is currently looking for a venue to exhibit sketches he made while in prison, and he has already published the first chapters of his autobiography on his website.

Golubovic’s renewed popularity is an echo of a bygone era. His eye-catching looks, funny statements and the mere fact he is still alive have made him into a cult hero. Serbians regard him with a mixture of respect and ridicule. Golubovic is the only member of a generation of criminals that had free reign in 1990s, as Yugoslavia went to pieces, still breathing today. In the civil war that tore the nation apart, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s regime employed bank robbers and hooligans do its dirtiest jobs. Enjoying the protection of the state, mercenaries, bank robbers and paramilitaries grew into style-icons and exemplary patriots.

“White was black and black was white,” is how movie director Janko Baljak illustrated the irrelevance of moral values in those bygone days. Between 1994 and 1996, Baljak created the legendary documentary titled Vidimo se u Citulji (‘We will see each other on the obituary page’). Golubovic is one of 20 criminals featured in the documentary openly discussing their life, 'work', and the dangers that come with it. On screen, he can be seen wearing 12 kilos of gold chains around his neck. Playing with a small cat on his lap, he explained that the police are corrupt and that economic sanctions against Serbia had made it impossible for him to make a normal living. With his puppy dog eyes and ripped upper body, Golubovic bears a passing resemblance to Sylvester Stallone.

A lot of children who grew up in the 1990s saw criminals like him as superheroes. While their parents were unable to earn a living wage no matter how hard they toiled, powerful criminals with police officers for bodyguards fought out their feuds on the streets. Serbian media portrayed these gangsters spending money with abandon in night clubs, driving the most expensive cars, and hanging out with the most beautiful women.

"Now I will fuck everything"

The magic of those days still works. On Youtube, a rapper by the name of Yugo Boss has uploaded a tune singing Golubovic’s praises. “Where are you coward,” the refrain goes. “Thai boxing, weightlifting, who dares mess with me now? /The asphalt is aflame/ my dick is hard / Now I will fuck everything! / My Heckler says I am king.”

Golubovic is the only one of Vidimo’s main characters known to have survived to this day. “Before we had even finished editing we had to update the movie already, because three of the people we interviewed had been shot and killed,” Baljak recalled.

One of the main reasons Golubovic is still alive is that, unlike most of his colleagues, he steered well clear of politics and the war. And of course he spent a lot of time in the relative safety of the jailhouse, director Baljak offered as an explanation.

Golubovic finds the mere suggestion insulting. “I had to fight for my life in prison,” he said, lifting his T-shirt from his sweat pants to show his stomach. Dozens of scars, possibly knife cuts, ran perpendicular to a large tattoo. He pinched the skin covering his right elbow to show the 9-millimetre bullet still lodged in his flesh. “Intuition and intelligence are what saved me,” he said.

Nine security cameras

In his living room, Golubovic sat next to a large plasma screen showing live feeds from nine CCTV cameras. On the evening of the interview, the cameras showed nothing but a dense fog, and the rear light of a car belonging to one of Golubovic’s neighbours’. Bodyguard Goran popped up on the cameras as he went to feed the dogs, but soon thereafter returned to his laptop to chat on MSN.

Golubovic is convinced his berth of criminal experience makes him perfectly qualified to convince young people to steer clear of crime. “Youngsters think they can be like I was, but times have changed,” he said. Since the lawless 1990s the rule of law has returned to Serbia, Golubovic explained. The police have become less corrupt and the criminals who have succeeded his generation are “smarter”.

They are less flashy with their riches and have invested their ill-gotten gains in legal enterprise. The porous border between underworld and mainstream society has been redrawn. “Big criminals no longer want to risk losing their money by force. But children don’t understand that,” Golubovic said.

Movie director Baljak laughed off Golubovic’s statements. “I don’t believe a word of it,” he said. According to him, Golubovic not only looks like a movie star, he has also seen his share of Westerns and behaves according to the rules of the genre.

New tricks for an old dog?

After he made Vidimo, fans called for a sequel. Baljak said it would be “impossible” to make one however. “The Chicagoesque atmosphere of the 1990s is long gone.” Besides, the newest generation of criminals knows how most gangsters portrayed in Vidimo came to their end. “They are not looking for this kind of publicity,” Baljak said.

Whether Golubovic, who spent half of his life in prison, understands the new rules governing criminal enterprise in Serbia remains an open question. On the night of the interview, police found ten grams of heroin in his Jeep. He was let go by the police after questioning, only to be arrested four days later. His mother has been arrested too. Golubovic is suspected of participating in a small smuggling ring operating between Novi Pazar, in the south of the country, and Belgrade. He denies the charges, but is still in police custody. His website is currently offline.