Residents of Belgrade appear to have suffered little beyond having to listen to air-raid sirens and hide in the shelters. Those interviewed knew of no civilian casualties, and the biggest damage to private property in the city seems to have been shattered windows. Fears ran high in the first two or three days, when streets of the city of nearly two million people were completely empty, and all lights were turned off. But now, many people tend to disregard air-raid sirens, while authorities rarely bother to impose blackouts. Water, heat and electricity are uninterrupted.
Supermarkets are open regular hours, with no sign of shortages.
The only products hard to come by are gasoline, which the government rations, and cigarettes. Even some bomb shelters are far from the drab concrete boxes they used to be. During peacetime, authorities rented them to entrepreneurs who turned them into nightclubs and billiards parlors. Some of the shelters boast functioning bars. Not everybody feels comfortable with the newly emerging Serb unity.