A smuggler's life: trains to turkey

In order to get from Sarajevo (Bosnia) passing by Belgrad (Serbia) to Istanbul (Turkey), it just takes 40 hours by train and three changes ;-) The big challenge is not how to catch the next train, but how to spend those 40 hours. I did the good choice of taking the individual sleeping compartment, a fancy place to stay for that journey.

But when I went for a walk through the train, heading to 'cattle class', I didnt believe my eyes. Smugglers were hiding large amounts of cigarettes in different little places of the train. Visible for the eyes of normal every day travellers. Like in a bad movie.

Once we got to the Bulgarian border, we stayed there for several hours. Custom and border control officers inspected the whole train for smuggler goods. First I said to myself: How comes they dont find the cigarettes? The 'secret' places seemed so obvious. Only some time later I understood the whole story. Everybody is involved in this smuggle. Officials, custom officers and - of course - the smugglers. It is all just a question of the negotiated price. The officials prentend to do a good job - and get some good extra money from the smugglers. The custom officers, equipped with all necessary tools, mainly search very carefully compartments where they expect to find nothing. In one 'innocent' compartment they undid the lights, opened 'double' floors, turned the whole place to a mess. Left things this way. And told passengers they can change compartement if they don't appreciate the place any more.

Noticing this obvious state of corruption seemed surprising to me. Is all this smuggling traffic just the last possibility of a some poor Serbs-Bosnians-Bulgarians to make some money? I don't think so. How to remedy to this problem? No immediate solutions in sight.