Jolly Street – Belgrade Rakija Fair

Jolly Street is traditional Rakija Fair that takes place on Belgrade’s square of Nikola Pašić. In the spirit of my previous post about Šljivovica, here are some of the photos I took last weekend there and an old Serbian myth about origin of rakija.

Saint Sava and the Devil

Saint Sava met the Devil while walking on the mountain. When the Devil saw him, he got scared and wanted to run away, but couldn’t. Saint Sava said to him:
– God help you!
And the Devil replied:
– You don’t care about that.
– How are you? – said Saint Sava, and the Devil replied:
– What do you care how I am?
– Where are you going? – asked Saint Sava and the other said:
– You don’t care about that too.
– What would you do?
– I’d do the gardening, if I had some skinny land and a partner like you.
Then St. Sava said to the Devil:
– Listen brother, if you really want to do gardening, then I am your partner, but lets make a deal about what shall we do and plant and who shall obtain the seeds.
The Devil said:
– Well, even if I hate working with you and shall never obey you, I just wanna make a contract and start working.
Then they made a deal to plant onions first, which they did. When it started to grow, the Devil came an looked at it’s beautiful leaves, but didn’t look at the roots. When the leaves got their full strength, St. Sava called the devil so they could harvest.
– Hey, – said he to the Devil – half of it is yours, and half is mine, pick what you like.
The Devil looked at all those leaves, fooled himself and took what’s on the ground and left the underground part to Saint Sava. Devil visited crops often and wasn’t very happy about the leaves getting rotten and dried. The onions ripened, leaves dried out, and St. Sava took the onions away. The Devil got sad by this and decided to make another contract with St. Sava, they planted cabbage, so the Devil said:
– I shall take what’s underground and you take what’s above. – And, so be it.

The cabbage grew and grew, developed his leaves, and the heads started to form. Seeing this the Devil thought: ‘If the heads are this big, the roots must be enormous!’ and was very happy about that. When the autumn came, St. Sava cut off the cabbage heads, and left the roots to the Devil. Little after, Devil came! There were bagpipes, flutes, rumbles, songs. As soon as he took the first root out and saw there was nothing, got sick of everything but asked St. Sava to make one more contract, to plant potatoes, and what’s in the ground to be for St. Sava and the rest for him. Which they did. They planted the potatoes. They grew, first stems, then flowers, then seeds. Seeing this Devil started to tease St. Sava. But, in autumn, the whole plant faded, and St. Sava took the potatoes. The Devil got angry to see himself tricked like that, and regretted he ever got into a deal with a priest, and manage to convince St. Sava to plant wheat and made a deal: what’s on the ground is for St. Sava, and what’s underground for the Devil. When it grew, Devil leaned over the fence and said to himself: ‘Such large plant from a small seed!’ In autumn, St. Sava harvested crops and Devil was left with stubble. Devil started to cry and yelled in anger:
– OK, priest, I really want to grow wine with you, so, whatever happens. And if you trick me again, I am breaking up our partnership.
And so they planted the wine. The third year came and beautiful grapes showed, the two met to discuss who will take what. Saint Sava asked the Devil:
– What would you like, partner, watery or thick part?
And Devil replied:
– I’ll take the thick part, you take watery.
When the grapes ripened, St. Sava harvested grapes, placed it into barrels and made wine, and to the Devil only džibra was left. He thought for a while and then poured in some water, made a still and distilled rakija. St. Sava came to him an asked:
– What is it partner?
– I am distilling rakija, brother!
– Gimme some to taste it, partner.
Devil poured rakija in a glass. St. Sava slurped once, twice, and then the third time blessed it and crossed himself, and the Devil run away saying:
– Really, it is an old man’s cure, and an anger to the young! – so he disappeared, and he never came near the priest again.