KLASNI PREDATOR NADKRILIO JE ČOVJEČASTVO

Simonida Milojković, author of the best-selling book in the Balkans: Elite prostitution in Croatia is secret, and in Serbia public BY VINKO PAIĆ, LENKA GOSPODNETIĆ June 23, 2020 - 9:51 p.m. 13840188 Gallery AFP / Illustration Facebook Twitter Print When former journalist Simonida Milojković launched her first novel on the Serbian literary scene thirteen years ago , "Grabljivica" was a top topic among our neighbors because of the controversial topic she talks about - elite prostitution. "This is the confession of Violeta, a girl who came to Belgrade from a village in Serbia and became a sponsor, and later a prostitute. After a relationship with a notorious criminal and getting out of prison, she goes to Frankfurt and gets a job at a brothel. The story is true. All events and characters are completely authentic. Look at. You may see your character in some corner of this mirror. Don't be afraid, I changed your name ", it says on the cover of" Predator ". At a time when the scandal with elite prostitution has shaken the countries of the region, and one of the main actors is starlet Tijana Ajfon, who was arrested in late May for taking girls to mass orgies with as many as 26 men, we decided to talk to Simonida about which, since time immemorial, has intrigued the public over and over again. In recent weeks, the countries of the region have been rocked by the scandal of elite prostitution. How widespread is it in the former Yugoslavia? It seems to be more than we think. - Unfortunately, there is more and more prostitution. The decline in living standards also leads to a decline in morale. Life became a market, and the body a commodity. Shame is lost, there is no sense of shame, moral brakes do not seem to be built into the new generation of homo sapiense. People got sick of permissiveness. What about Croatia? What is your knowledge about our country? - It is similar in the whole region. Only in Croatia it is done secretly, and in Serbia publicly. Is money the main motive for these girls deciding to sell their bodies? - Yes. The desire for an unrealistic and false luxury life that is propagated in the media leads girls to astray, to a bottomless abyss, to a complete loss of human dignity. Who are all their clients? What strata of society do they come from? - There is a wide range, from businessmen, politicians and athletes to drug dealers and thieves. How do prices for the services of these girls move? - From ten euros to several thousand euros. Those poor women who work on the streets have the lowest price. The saddest story I have heard is that at a train station in Belgrade, a woman of her age often provides sexual services in exchange for a meal and a bottle of beer. No less frightening is the fact that in nightclubs a girl often goes to the toilet for a man who is known to have cocaine. She gives him a sexual service for a line of cocaine on the spot. Among them there are those who regularly smile at us from the covers of magazines and portals, participate in various reality programs ... Their price, I guess, is higher? - Yes. The girls are trying to become famous in order to increase their price and that is why they are doing everything to get hold of the media. Reality programs are real nurseries of prostitutes. They openly talk on television about what they do and what the price is to which girl. What does arranging such a meeting look like? Which girls are most wanted? - Macros negotiate with the client, the girl goes to the address, does the job and gets about 50 percent of the price. Rarely does she work independently, criminals organize and run the business. It is very difficult to get out of prostitution because they are mostly addicted to cocaine and are ready to do anything to get drugs. Sad. Are yachts on the Adriatic really the most common places where elite prostitution takes place? - Yachts, hotel rooms, cottages… The word "elite" and the word "prostitution" cannot and must not be in the same sentence. There is nothing elite about one or a group of men making fun of a drugged girl. One doctor, a gynecologist, told me that she often threw a mutilated girl out of the car at night in front of the doors of her gynecology clinic in Belgrade, with serious injuries to her reproductive organs that surgeons barely patched. Those are terrible things. In these client-prostitute relationships there is a lot of sadism. Do you think prostitution will one day be legalized in this area? - I hope not. Sex should be the crown of love and intimacy, not a buying and selling relationship. People are not commodities. You are one of the most widely read Serbian authors, your books are read for a long time. It all started in 2007 when you wrote the book "Predator", which in a short time became a hit in the Balkans and even in England, it sold more than 200 thousand copies, and it experienced its sequel. Was it hard for you to reach the girl who agreed to tell you her life story? How did you gain her trust? - I met the predator at a house party. A few of us girls stayed up late, drank a little, so the conversation became more relaxed and honest. We talked about men, and then she started talking. I was shocked because she mentioned famous men from the world of politics, business, crime… She had sex with them in exchange for gifts, jewelry, money. Today, such girls are called starlets, and then we talked about them as sponsors. I worked as a journalist for the daily Blic and asked her to let me publish her story with a guarantee that her identity would be hidden. She agreed. The next time we met, I realized that there was so much material and that it was better to write a book. We sat and talked for a few months, then she stopped answering. image Simonida Milojković Promo The man she was in a relationship with participated in the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. She was arrested and spent several months in remand prison. After her release, she began engaging in classic prostitution. She was addicted to cocaine and saw no other way out or opportunity to return to normal life. She first worked in illegal brothels in Belgrade, was a victim of violence by criminals and pimps, and then went to Germany, where prostitution is legal. I spent seven days in Frankfurt, visiting brothels and talking to her and prostitutes from all over the former Yugoslavia. This is how the novel "Predator" was created, a true and shocking confession. How was it for you to immerse yourself in that torturous world? What shocked you the most as an author? - I was shocked that all the clients are asking from a prostitute. There are so many bizarre and sick sexual fantasies that I occasionally had a stomach ache and had an urge to vomit. Not surprisingly, therefore, almost all prostitutes are addicted to alcohol and drugs. A person with a clear brain cannot do this. I sympathized with these girls, I did not condemn them, but regretted them. Do you remember some moment that touched you the most? - In 2008, girls from the former Yugoslavia worked on the second floor of a brothel in Frankfurt: from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina… Some of them were from mixed marriages, they lost their homes, parents, brothers in the war. engaged engaged in surviving members of their families. They loved and helped each other. They were sisters in trouble. When one of them died of heroin, they hugged at the funeral, cried and sang Lepa Brena's song "Jugoslovenka". It is a scene from which the heart beats. That "Predator" has become a hit book is also shown by the fact that you are just finishing the script for a series of 12 sequels in which you will tell this story. When can we expect her on television? - The epidemic has slowed down the preparations for filming a bit, so I can't give you any information about the deadlines. I certainly can’t wait for the unusual fate of a girl from a small mountain village to come to television and come to a big city, become a sponsor, and then end up in a brothel in Germany. My task is to give an answer to the question of how one good, intelligent and talented girl became a prostitute, drug addict and alcoholic. She, like other women who deal with it, is the product of a political, economic and moral downfall. They are victims of the system that society has created. It seems to me that by selling the body they are trying to buy love. Have you ever encountered threats while writing books, given that you are dealing with controversial topics? - No. I change the names of the heroes of my books to protect both them and myself. You have been a journalist in a daily newspaper for 16 years. How come you decided to leave that profession and dedicate yourself to writing? Which story or interview are you most proud of? - Journalism is the best job in the world if left on time. Journalism is for the young man, and literature requires a certain wisdom brought by life experience. The most significant things I wrote in the newspaper were the confessions of drug addicts on treatment that were published below. The fate of one girl inspired me to write a book and a play "Love in the Age of Cocaine", and at the same time start giving lectures and organizing forums with the aim of preventing drug addiction among young people. A harrowing true story of a ‘rise’ in the world of prostitution The novel is based on an authentic story, the confession of a girl who spent her twenties 'climbing' from the rank of city sponsor to a professional prostitute in Frankfurt. The information about two hundred thousand copies sold and as many as eight editions of the novel "Grabljivica" by Serbian author Simonida Milojković is already worthy of respect. It is even more intriguing when we know that the novel was a success in England, entitled "The lady predator", but in the opinion of the undersigned, the most exciting thing is that this, basically painful book about prostitution, was written based on true experience. The novel, which, according to publishing statistics, has gained the epithet of the best-selling in the Balkans in the last twenty years, and which should be screened in the foreseeable future, is based on an authentic story, the confession of a girl who spent her twenties on the rise. the rank of city sponsor to a professional prostitute in Frankfurt. This is a story where you wonder if it can end in a happy ending at all; namely, it is shocking even as a reading experience. It is written in a seemingly feathery, chic-lit style, but without further ado it is a difficult read with (for most people) unimaginable events soaked in blood, semen and drugs. And tears ... The main protagonist is Jedra, a handsome girl from the village who is disappointed in her youthful love and "cures" her with socially unacceptable, immoral behavior. The store is located during the Homeland War, but beyond the Drina, in Serbia, which is also going through a crisis in those difficult years. The collapse of moral values ​​and the desire for quick earnings and advancement takes Violeta (names are, of course, invented) first to a nearby town, Uzice, and then to Belgrade, where she quickly "progresses" to the status of a city sponsor of great appetite. Sexual experiences and first contact with cocaine are described in detail, and the turning point is the moment when Violeta ends up in prison for her connection to the crime milieu that caused the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Violeta decides to start working for a specific "tariff" in Belgrade for existential reasons, but primarily due to her cocaine addiction, but soon she and her colleague move to Frankfurt, where a series of unexpected complications occur ... The novel "Predator" is written in the first person, in the vocabulary of a prostitute, and is full of swear words and vulgar expressions that people from her milieu use in everyday speech. However, there is a biting, black humor in it, and a burst of pure pain ("I never forgave myself"). The novel "Predator" is not a lemonade with a happy ending, but the reader hopes for it, to the last page! He has not yet received a Croatian translation, but this should not be a problem for those who purchase the novel (in Latin) from the "neighborhood", because the pages are literally swallowed. "Grabljivica" is a shocking, authentic testimony from the pen of a bestselling writer and member of the Serbian Writers' Association, who worked as a tabloid journalist for many years and talked to women who went through the hell of addiction and prostitution. Simonida Milojković's novel is a document of one time and an epitaph to many victims.