Belgrade artist dedicates mural to Greek captain who refused to bomb Serbia

"My birthday present. It's beautiful! Thanks to all my Serbian friends. Greece-Serbia, closer than ever," Ritsoudis wrote at the time

36-year-old Marko Culum, an applied painter from Belgrade, has been making the Serbian capital's walls more beautiful for years - and one of his murals has been talked about throughout the country. Maybe even beyond - in Greece.

Namely, he is the author of the famous mural in Dorcol, in Dunavska Street, which depicts Greek captain Marinos Ritsoudis, who in 1999 refused to participate in the bombing of Serbia.

When he saw this gift, the Greek was delighted - but until now the public did not know who was the master behind the masterpiece.

"My birthday present. It's beautiful! Thanks to all my Serbian friends. Greece-Serbia, closer than ever," Ritsoudis wrote on Facebook at the time.

At his command, the warship Themistocles returned to a Greek port instead of heading toward Serbia on NATO's command to support the alliance's 1999 bombing campaign. The Serbs never forgot that.

We met Marko in front of the mural, and he approached us smiling and observing that it will be difficult to photograph him, as the parking lot opposite the wall is overcrowded.

"It was the same when I was painting (the mural). It was in February, it was very cold and mostly cars were parked here. In that cold, I'd wait on the ladder for the space to clear in front of the wall. It took me three days to complete, but only because of the weather and situation with the parking lot," Culum begins his story for Telegraf, while we're looking at his magnificent mural.

After the news of this wonderful gesture echoed during the anniversary of the NATO bombing, everyone thought it was a dedicated "gift" to the Greek captain. However, the reality is a little different.

Marko reveals to us that this mural was created back in 2018, but did not attract that much attention at the time.

"I was invited by the Serbo-Greek Friendship Association 'Irida' (meaning the pupil of the eye) and I was asked if I'd like to paint something that would be a gift and in some way a thank-you to Marinos Ritsoudis. I agreed without a second thought, and then I started planning the whole mural with a drawing. I decided it would be a medal on a blue background. A medal as in, a medal for Marinos - and blue as the symbol of the Greek blue: the sky and the sea," says Culum.

He adds that he then chose to make the background of the medal show Greek and Serbian flags, while the central figure, the captain himself, was painted with a proud and determined expression on his face, and a slight smile. A bit presidential.

Playing with color and reflecting light and colors is Marko's favorite technique. If you approach the mural, you can see the many colors on Marinos' face and on his suit.

HE PAINTS AIRPLANES AND SELLS HIS ART AROUND THE WORLD

As we stand next to one of the Dorcol canvases adorned by Marko's work, he tells us that he recently came back from a festival in the Netherlands and that he often goes to work in cities across Europe. People are thrilled with his art.

That he goes a step further in everything he does is seen in a team called "Craft & Art" of which Marko is a member. He and his two friends, Stevan Jovanovic and Marko Ivkovic, paint warplanes at the Air Force Museum.

Culum was given an incredible opportunity to paint the largest domestic fighter jet, Orao J22. The three friends agreed that the appearance of the painted plane would be a symbiosis of the Serbian flag, the bird after which the aircraft was named - "orao" means "eagle" in Serbian - and the insignia of the Serbian aviation - the roundel. The aircraft that was painted is a "retired" military fighter jet.

VIDEO: These artists want to create the capital of murals out of Belgrade

(S. Cenad - s.cenad@telegraf.rs)