They are on them. graphite. Or they are plastered with ads offering Viagra or tours to Ostrog, you just need to call this and that mobile phone.
This is what telephone booths look like on Serbian sidewalks today. Like zombies, they're still there, but they're long dead.
"The last time I made a phone call from that phone was before Christ," Dušan (57) tells us. For a while, he always had a card with him for Halo payphones operated by Serbian Telekom.
"Then they came." Mobile Phones - I bought my first one in 2001, and I don't think I've used a payphone since then," Dušan tells Medjuvreme.
Announcement, crazy joy
The removal of payphones was announced as early as 2020, when a "smart payphone" was introduced in the Science and Technology Park. It was supposed to have an interactive screen, free internet, SOS calls, a city map and information on city transport lines, and a mobile phone could be added.
Nothing came of it - and all the listed functions have been overcome to this day. So why are vandalized payphones still ruining cities?
We asked the City of Belgrade where they refer us to Telekom, and Telekom pretends to be dead. Something like their payphones.
Almost everyone has a cell phone.
Photo: TimeThey were probably washed in the last century; Photo: Time
So today there is no more waiting in line to share good and bad news, tell anecdotes, declare love or break up relationships. For younger generations, a physical SIM card is also a rarity, and they have never used payphones.
In general, landline telephones are passe, although officially there are still many connections in Serbia. But that's because it comes with an internet connection and cable TV.
For example, the Republic Institute of Statistics in 2023, when it surveyed the use of telecommunications, did not even ask about landline telephones.
But it is for mobile. Those younger than 55 used it almost 100 percent, while about 90 percent of those between 55 and 74 also had a mobile phone. They didn't ask older than that.
How to trick a pay phone
Anecdotes with old payphones remain. One of the interlocutors remembers a group of Romanian students in Belgrade, while Ceausescu was still in power, who had wires, plugs, a dial and a handset with them.
"They were looking for a broken payphone with cables sticking out of it, and they knew a way to hook up and call home in Romania," he says.
Goran Nikolić from Subotica remembers the last time he used a public speaker in London in 1988. "When you roll 20 pence in exhaust foil and put it in the machine, it says 50 pence. That was mostly done by Yugoslavs and Brazilians. The British wouldn't think of something like that, maybe Del Boy."
Once, while working in a night club, he saw his fellow bouncer, a native of Nikšić, making a phone call at three in the morning. "I ask him who he's calling at this time. He laughs and says 'SUP from Nikšić, I know they're sleeping, and when they answer I throw in 20 pennies and curse them'. He hears them shouting - 'check the number' and the connection is disconnected."
Around the world in museums
While the payphones in Belgrade were devastated, New York removed its last public payphone in 2022 and placed it in a museum. France did it back in 2017.
Italy decided in 2023 that their operator no longer has the obligation to maintain public payphones. Most payphones in big cities have been removed. The rest are those in hospitals, prisons and barracks, which are still required by law.
The most famous, red payphones in London, have become a symbol of the city and a tourist attraction in front of which queues are formed for taking pictures.
Real journalism costs money, and we will not be bought by tycoons and corporations. Support us with a one-time or monthly donation. The time for it is now!
