The embargo against Serbia

The embargo against Serbia is described through the barriers it places around Belgrade and the atmosphere of isolation that follows. With air traffic into and out of the Serbian capital halted and its airport closed, the overnight bus from Budapest becomes the only way to reach the city. The account links this practical confinement to a wider political estrangement, while showing how Eduard Limonov treats the isolation not as a warning but as an opening toward war.

Effects on Travel and Belgrade

From Budapest, an almost empty bus takes all night to reach Belgrade. The narration calls it the only route available: since the embargo was put in place, no air traffic has entered or left the Serbian capital, and the airport is closed. The account gives no further terms, issuing authority, or duration for the embargo; its concrete measure here is the severing of air access and the detour that travelers must make by land.

The closed route is set beside a broader description of Serbia as ostracized by Europe and sinking into isolation and paranoia. The contrast is between reasonable Serbs, who despair at Slobodan Milošević’s campaign and try to resist the brainwashing, and Limonov, who neither knows nor seeks out those dissenting voices. The embargo’s political setting is therefore visible in the passage, but its immediate narrative force is the physical and psychological isolation surrounding the journey.

Limonov’s Response

Limonov arrives in Belgrade seeking war. He believes that throwing himself into the conflict, even at the risk of losing himself, is the only salvation available to him at that point in his life. His first plan is practical: leave his bag at the Hotel Majestic, where he has stayed before, and go to the ad hoc embassy of the Serbian Krajina's breakaway republic.

The conflict has spread beyond the fighting between Serbs and Bosnians to a renewed struggle between Serbs and Croats over the Serbian enclave near the Adriatic. Limonov approaches representatives of the breakaway republic not as a journalist seeking access but as a would-be soldier, asking to serve as a simple volunteer. His offer surprises them because foreign volunteers have not arrived in large numbers. They tell him that reaching the enclave is difficult and that he must wait to be contacted; he returns to the hotel. The embargo shapes his approach to the region, but does not itself explain the fighting or secure him a route to the front.

Narrative Significance

The embargo is not treated as an abstract policy debate: its significance is made legible through a closed airport, a nearly empty overnight bus, and a capital cut off from air travel. Those conditions sharpen the contrast between the reasonable Serbs resisting Milošević’s course and Limonov, who wants to enter the war rather than distance himself from it.

For Limonov, Belgrade is a staging point, not a destination. The embargo’s restrictions make the journey more difficult, yet the account emphasizes that he interprets the surrounding crisis as an opportunity to pursue the role he wants: not observer, but combatant. He is left waiting at the Hotel Majestic, with his proposed passage into the conflict still unresolved.