Novi Sad

Eurovelo 6 seems to avoid Serbia as much as possible, forcing it's participants to use Croatia instead of north-western Serbia. Inevitably, as the Danube does in fact cross Serbia for many hundreds of kilometres, it does bring it's users to the city of Novi Sad, the second biggest city in Serbia. The reason it probably sounds familiar is that a huge music festival, Exit, happens here each year.
My couchsurfing host for the evening is Jelena. She works now in Stuttgart for half the year, as the salaries in Serbia are so low. The average well-paid job is approximately 300€ net a month. Considering that the cost of groceries is a little bit more expensive than in Germany, this situation it's hard to imagine and offers few luxuries. It also makes it very expensive to travel anywhere. It's a form of economic restriction to travel, as accommodation and travel costs are prohibitively expensive.
Later that evening we meet up with some of her friends who are learning Norwegian so that they can move to Norway in the coming years. It seems like emigrating is the only way for many people to go economic freedom in this country. As Serbia is not in the EU, this is a long and complicated process.