It’s time to share a story with you.
It all started with the idea of taking part in a competition for the name of the train Belgrade – Novi Sad. We read the call thoroughly, shared the tasks, let it rest, and then it was the turn of the meeting where we were to present proposals or at least the direction in which we would go and agree.
Although the invitation suggested that a modern name should be given to him, analysing the names of capital projects so far, it was clear to us that it was fashionable to rely on mediaeval traditions and possibly an uprising in Serbia. That’s why we started with our folk epic, of course, from horses and horsepower.
There were three picks, regarding horses for the race, so to say :
- Jabučilo ( something like Apple) – the only winged horse in our popular epic (so-called Serbian Pegasus). A faithful companion and companion of Duke Momčilo, who led no less, in the time of Emperor Dušan, at a time when Serbia was the greatest. Jabučilo is certainly the most representative and famous horse in our folk epic, here we exclude Šarac, who is prone to alcohol and rascal behaviour, so it was only briefly taken into consideration.
- The second pick was Ždralin (something like Crane), the horse of Miloš Obilić, the greatest epic hero, who decided on his horse the outcome of the Battle of Kosovo. What Aleksandar Makedonski and Bukefal are for Greek history and mythology, that’s Miloš Obilić and his Ždralin for ours. In addition to his folk song with his master, Ždralin is representative because he is tall, strong and tall, and is “all in iron and armour”. Let’s just draw attention to the fact that Soko (the Falcon), then still an unbaptized train, is a double decker.
- It couldn’t possibly have gone without Đogin, the horse of the great Banović Strahinja. Đogin, unlike Ždralin, is from the imperial stable, and he’s beautiful with human wisdom. He was raised in Banjska, Kosovo, well trained and ready for battle. Strahinja is the only hero in our folk tradition who died on horseback, and he was brought to court by Đogin on autopilot. After the master’s death, he left the stables, and since then he has “sailed freely in Kosovo”.
Now, it was too Retro for some of us, so we headed in the direction of the message: Belgrade towards Novi Sad (Vojvodina and still neighbouring Hungary), the inspiration went to Stefan Visoki, Arsenije Čarnojević, etc. We were brave, too, “Čarna”. Can the train (which is He) have a woman’s name? Right out of the first Č in Cyrillic.
There was another direction. We wanted to communicate national pride, literally. Name suggestion: Pride. However, we soon realized that this was multiple problematic. First from the SEO optimization aspect because of one of the then presidential candidates (though, who remembers that today?). On the other hand, we wanted it to be international and charitable. When we set things up like that and cognitively strained, we immediately gave up. PonOs in Russian, (and Russia, as far as we know, was involved in the project) means digestive relief as a matter of urgency. Medically, diarrhoea. Certainly the word has the potential to communicate something like a lightning exit from a tunnel, but this time we gave up.
There were early names, “Whirlwind”, “Dragon”, “Victor”… However, none of our names were “wow.”
In those days we had a serious crowd with our clients, so the day before the deadline for submitting the solution, we decided not to participate, in order to honour all agreements, deadlines and clients.
The director confirmed the decision with the comment: “Yes, but if the winner is one of the names we wrote on the board – I win the bet, if not – you win the bet.”
Here’s the draft bet, here’s the email text in the original:
“I come out with two suggestions:
– Proposition 1. Loser has to run the route: the entire Žeželj Bridge-Duga Bridge and back to its starting point
– Proposition 2. Pick your poison (the winner has the freedom to choose an alcoholic beverage to celebrate the victory and make the rest of the team happy).”
And Or’o would have been chosen. Excuse me, Soko ( the Hawk). And it really wasn’t on the board.
And you see a photo from the run and solidarity where the representative of the winning part of the team decided to be part of the challenge, even though she proposed the subject of the bet herself.
It is almost certain that proposition no.2 will be implemented. Out of solidarity.
If you want us to run for you or make a bet with us:
write to [email protected]
