Bungalow cemeteries in Serbia

Entering the cemetery of Smoljinac, there are, at first, the usual stone slabs. But after passing these, comes a place that looks like a small village, with pastel colored bungalows. These single-story buildings resemble a residential neighborhood, but on closer inspection...

...actually happen to be private funeral chapels. This building is richly decorated with flowers, crosses and funeral paraphernalia.

Flowers, alongside some cookies and a bottle of water are placed on a table inside a chapel. "We need a roof above our heads to sit down and have a coffee when we visit our dead," one woman says.

A woman walks past chapels at a cemetery in the village of Smoljinac. It is situated near the Danube river, about 95 km east from Belgrade and has population of around 1800 people, many of them elderly.

Gravediggers working on a new family chapel. Despite significant emigration to Western Europe, mainly Austria, these chapels are still being commissioned. "Over 70 percent of the village population is abroad," says Milomir, a Smoljinac-born mechanic from the nearby town of Pozarevac.

Not all families can afford elaborate grave sites. Near the entrance to the Sapine cemetery are the graves of poorer villagers, marked by simple slabs of rock on the grass.

A gravedigger reports: "A common family-size crypt is around 800 euros (about $840) ... big chapels cost a lot of money." The cost for an entire bungalow chapel is, on average, around 4,000 euros (about $4,200). It is not necessary to obtain a construction permit from the municipality.

"Young people have been sending money back from Western Europe to pay for homes to be built. They compete with neighbors about which house is bigger," mechanic Milomir says. "And they do it at the graveyard, too."

A regular at the Smoljinac cemetary described how things have changed: "When I married here 40 years ago, only a handful of chapels had been built," said Rajka, an old woman who had come to lay flowers at a common gravestone. "Look at the cemetery now."