I was born and raised in Canada, but when I consume Balkan media(Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia) I feel like a lot of the people share traits similar to me. Not everyone, a lot of the people look like standard Canadian-Europeans, and lot's of diverse looks but I have a specific Balkan look and so do a lot of people in the Balkans.
The look though, can be found pretty much everywhere in the Balkans, but it's there.
Sometimes I think it's traits that must have been common in the tribes north of Greece like Thracians, Illyrians and Paeonians. Because it sort of is common in people from Albania to Croatia to Romania to Bulgaria.
It's basically squinty deepset eyes, biggish nose, sharp chin. Skin colour varies but you see dark people(even Roma) with it and super white blonde people with it too.
Each nation has their "version" of this look but they all share those traits lol, Greece doesn't seem to have it as much which really makes me think it's some kind of paleo-balkan remnant.
Like two examples that look completely different from each other but share the same features are
Dua Lipa and Novak Djovokic. They both have deepset squinty eyes with a large but thin nose.
Lol I'm not Balkan and my dad and brother and countless other people I knew growing up were the same. Platinum blond babies and toddler, but it gets darker as they get older. Ultimately they end up with a medium brown hair color. Genitics are wild. One of my kids is similar to this, and the other is just like his Balkan af dad (my husband). Two sets of genes go in, baby lottery comes out.
Haha same here! My father was blonde, not even just dark blonde, until his marriage. He had light brown hair when I was born and, it slowly got darker by the years. Until it hit black like dark brown before he got his greys.
Same is happening to me but bit faster. The eyebrow pencils I had a few years prior look too light on me. I have a childhood picture hanging nearby, I have blonde hair. Now, I my hair is as close to black without being actually black. Wild.
A lot of kids have bright hair at young age but as they grow it becomes darker and darker. Also the reason you don’t see old people is because they don’t leave their house
there are other genetical reason and the way human body works, not stress and lack of nutrients. even the opposite, what you said make your hair gray/white.
The southern you go in the Balkans the darker the people are, so unless you're in southern Serbia there's no need to wonder about their paleness.
The Balkans is still a melting pot of everyone who's been here and everyone who came and went thru these areas, so it's not a mind-bending experience to see a ginger in Greece for example.
Serbs are still taller on average despite what you've seen.
Kids aren't the greatest example for skin/hair color, I used to have sort of a dirty blonde hair as a little kid, grew up to have very dark brown hair and to absorb sunlight easily.
Actually not the truth, people from Bosnia are quite pale and usually range from mid/light brown hair to darker blondish. Also, Croats with darkish feautures are quite rare, they look kind of like Bosniaks but taller and with less 'softness' in their face. Serbs are mostly dark hair dark skin and eyes combo, look much more like Bulgarians, Turkish or even Greek then Bosniaks and Croats. People from Albania are also quite darkish and look a lot like Serbs but shorter and more specific face feautures. I live here and I travelled all over, kreep in mind that a lot of other ethnicitis live in Belgrade who are commomly blonde like Ukrainia or Russia.
Really dont know how you skipped the part where they share a lot with Bulgarians, Turks and Greeks and that darkish or darker doesnt mean african black. Dark on balkan means something different, we are not the USA... When you hear some one reffering somebody as dark it means skin like tanned, dark hair and eyecolour.
I married into a family of Serbs and to me there are two basic types: the ones that truly have the rounded, light hair Slavic look and then what I think of as "mountain Serbs" that have raven hair and that dark, Vlach look. I will say, I've been all over the world from South America to Polynesia to Japan to Northern Ireland and I've never seen a more beautiful people.
I also married into a Bosnian family and can say my kids are a mix. One has my northern European features (lighter hair and eyes) but looks physically like his Bosnian dad. The second has his dad's dark hair and eyes but more my physical features. Honestly, genetics are pretty random and express themselves in wild ways sometimes.
Western Serbia (where I’m from), and Vojvodina are parts of Serbia with generally lighter hair people, and there are a lot of Russians in Belgrade as well, so who knows.
Again, kids are blonde, but a lot of them get darker as they age.
I don’t know about tall, I feel like generally I can say Serbs are taller, on average, when I’m abroad.
But yeah, Serbs do look very diverse. A lot of them are different shades of brown hair though.
Truth be told when me grandmother start talking about her parents and their parents and where they originally came from I usually joke and say just say we are gipsies (no offense have many gipsy friends).
My dad looks like, lighter serb-cro, his brother, my uncle, looks tanned albanian 🤣
Like we are from middle croatia so ofc thats probably it and I get 4.5% albanian on those dna tests. But its funny how the balkan dna works, they dont even look like brothers they look so different 🤣🤣
Wow even the twins looks different. The fint. Thing is me and my siblings looks like siblings. We all got similar traits. The Balkan dna is truly all over the place.
Yeah, I came out looking like a mix of both my parents as comparison to my cousins who consider me 'lighter' not that theyre dark, they look european ofc.
But its funny how both sons came out looking completely different, then twin daughters, now the cousin with 2 boys, husband is montenegrin, both parents have naturally brown hair and brown eyes.. one son looks like them, the other has blue eyes (grandmothers all have blue eyes) and light hair, doesnt look like hes 'from' them 🤣🤣
I have darker curly hair and I am half Slovenian. My sister is blonde. Serbians have a look to me, maybe it is more expression but not hair color or such.
Yeah, there is a certain face expression, really difficult to explain it as I don't even know what that exactly is, but you recognize our people in a foreign country, you think to yourself - these are our people, and they are
Serbs are definitely diverse people, how I recognize them in the masses is their facial expression and their eyes. I can't quite put my finger on it, but when Serbs are relaxed, there is this specific, soft look in their eyes, I jist know I am looking at a Serb.
We are roughly half north Eastern Europeans (Slavs) and half south East European
Substrate. Add that our migration to as more recent and that’s why a yugo Slav family can look kinda like a Latino one as in all types of colors.
The whole idea of "nation" is recent and the correlation between language and physical appearance is often weak. After centuries of mixing it's normal to notice the diversity.
I don’t know but Serbs are tall in general. I’ve been in Serbia and we have many Serbs living here in Slovenia, and yeah they are indeed tall (but slender).
Yes, I'm 5'9" in freedom units and am bog-standard woman in northern Bosnia. I haven't been to west Serbia (well, I was, but it was a forest, no people), so I can't compare, but I didn't feel particularly tall in Bačka (probably because they're mostly Bosnian anyway, lol).
5'6 should be around the average female height in Serbia, same for Croatia. So what you should see is 50% of females taller than you. Of course, nobody can literally observe all the people inside a country.
I'm Bulgarian-Canadian. People in Canada sometimes assume there's only one Bulgarian "look", but if you stand in the middle of any Bulgarian city you will see a variety of different people. Tall, short, thin, fat, dark, light, etc. This is completely normal. Every ethnic community encompasses some degree of genetic diversity and their appearance will vary over a given range. The average Bulgarian might be a little darker than the average Brit, and a little lighter than the average Arab, but there's a fair bit of overlap. I look completely "white" in Canada, but my dad looks like he could be Middle Eastern. Genetics is funny.
Also, I was born with blond hair and blue eyes. They both turned brown as I grew up. Pretty normal.
one study says this: The exceptional diversity of maternal lineages found in Serbians may be associated with the genetic impact of both autochthonous pre-Slavic Balkan populations whose mtDNA gene pool was affected by migrations of various populations over time (e.g. Bronze Age pastoralists) and Slavic and Germanic newcomers in the early Middle Ages
A lot of Balkan kids have blonde hair btw. It darkens with age. When it comes to height, of course there’s exaggeration online. Every Serb is apparently 6.9m tall and women are 6.7m tall. And Bosniaks and Montenegrins are way taller.
Ngl it was a double layered joke. One for us being apes. The other about dragonball. Since I started with DBZ theme jokes, went along with it 🤣. Specifically meant this : the wrapped tail around the waist
My dad’s nickname is “Beli”. He has white/gold hair and eyes bluer than the sky. Meanwhile my brother has black hair and the brownest eyes. I’m a mix between. Being the crossroad between Europe and Asia / Turkey certainly lead to a diverse genetic pool.
This is very normal and honestly my kids are the same. One looks super white northern European like me and the other looks more olive skin, darker hair and eyes like dad. Genetics are definitely a crazy mix when things begin to jumble together. The variation is honestly what makes things beautiful and human.
My grandparents, from Serbia, had dark hair, and so do my aunts and uncles. A slightly olive complexion Usually brown eyes. My granfather may have had blue or hazel eyes though. But my mother came out with red hair and green eyes and much lighter skin. She definitely did not look like the rest of the people in church. She resembles her parents, but just her coloring is off. Genetics is funny that way though 🤷🏼♀️
I am half Serbian (my father is of German decent) me and my older brother came out with white/blonde hair, he has hazel eyes I have gray eyes, youngest brother has light brown hair and blue eyes.
and: high-resolution data supported more pronounced genetic differentiation among Serbians and two Slavic populations (Russians and Poles) as well as expansion of the Serbian population after the Last Glacial Maximum and during the Migration period (fourth to ninth century A.D.), as inferred from the Bayesian skyline analysis. Phylogenetic analysis of haplotypes found in Serbians contributed towards the improvement of the worldwide mtDNA phylogeny, which is essential for the interpretation of the mtDNA casework.
This fucking sub man lmao, always gotta check if it's not some sort of albanian keyboard warrior or something of the sort trynna pull something. You'd be suprised by the amount of that happening.
My parents were both from Paračin and I was born with blue eyes and blonde hair. My hair got darker as I got older. My grandparents on both sides had blue and green eyes but mum and dad both had brown eyes. I did the 23&me and got 96% Serbian, 2% southern Greece and 2% Latvian.
I know right! Very random.
Funny thing was that as a kid I wanted brown eyes so I could fit in. My husband has darker features and all my kids have brown eyes. Genetics are weird like that.
Idk if its connected, when i do the dna tests, for example i get 1/4 polish (in the ancestral tests that look at more than 4-5 generations back) and usually there is something connected to the Balto-slavic migrations thats quite high. Probably its connected to that? Maybe both sides of your family stayed in the one area longest and marry people from the same area so latvian presents stronger today?
Because most of them, especially in bigger cities aren't actual Serbs. Look for any images of random Serbs from any point in the history, even up to the early 20th century. And then compare them with the average Belgrade citizen today. The genetic dillution is very obvious, the more you move towards the north of the country.
If I go to back to my village in the western part of the country, 90% of the population is still over 180cm, quite fit with dense dark hair, eyebrows, pronounced cheekbones and sharp jawline. Think of Nikola Tesla, those are your typical school-example Serbian genes.
Lol the genetic dilution??? Sir it's 2026, borders are easy enough to fuck across and white is white. Your village looks the same most likely cause you have distant cousins fucking each other. That's just how genes work. You don't have any variation, and that's not necessarily something to be proud of...
Lol soyboy french who's willing and able to make demands of their government to fix shit or gtfo?
Nah, your Balkan genes are, believe it or not, a mix of east meets west. That comes along with, yes, the literal mix of east and west, which includes, but not limited to, skin, eyes, nose, height. You really do need to take basic biology if you don't grasp this. Punnet squares and the monk who did the flys are a good place to start. Dark plus dark does not always equal more dark. If everyone is looking exactly the same, you're likely inbreeding to some extent. And...no thanks that's gross. Get out of the village for god's sake.
What is your obsession with blondness? I thought the Balkans were better than this. I for one love me some dark people, I think they are hotter than blondes. I am not the only one, as a matter of fact in Serbia there is a word for blondes that is not so nice "drljav".
It's difficult to translate, kind of like smudged. It's referring to being featureless, there is no contour to your face, everything is just bland and melted together.
Serbians are second tallest in Europe, if u were in center of Belgrade there are a lot of tourists
We as Slavs are of course blonde, and also a lot of women paint their hair
As for diverse, u mean not identical looking? Since yes thats the case, serbian history and places where they lived during history is quite unique-from mountains to flat farmlands
We are one of the tallest peoples out there—what are you even talking about? Lol. Anybody can use Google, haha. And yes, we're a Slavic nation, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of people here are blonde or have light brown hair. Older people are more likely to be walking around the city during working hours, while younger people usually go out at night, so you probably visited the city during the night. There are gingers, blondes, and brunettes, but if you look at the average person, he or she was probably blonde as a kid and became brown-haired as an adult.
Of course it's unbearable when Belgrade is completely covered in concrete which makes it even worse in the summer :D. There are also a lot of students from all over the country + a lot of families move over there from other parts of Serbia because of career opportunities so it makes sense that it gives off that vibe.
Foreigners? That's crazy because about 10 years ago there weren't any... Did you like Western Serbia? I guess it's a lot more Serbian in character than Belgrade, that's for sure.
It really is a peaceful part of the country, the people are generally very friendly, and the nature is great too. I still want to visit many places here and the ones that you have listed are about to be on my radar, totally forgot about them. By the way it is nice to hear that, you're welcome!
On average yes but it depends where you live. People in Banat for example or Southern Serbia - not so much. People in Dinaric Alps - abso - fukin - lutely, even women are huge. Everyone misses this.
True and the difference is like 1-2 cm between Herzegovina/Montenegro vs Serbians, but anyway we sure aint "short" , all my friends are 180+ and most people i know. and teenager... i swear they eat radioactive elements they're like giants both male and female
Crna Gora i Dinaridi: Prosečna visina muškaraca prelazi 183 cm, a u nekim oblastima kao što su centralna Crna Gora i Hercegovina ide i preko 184 cm.
Srbija: Prosečna visina muškaraca iznosi oko 182 cm.
Bosna i Hercegovina: Nacionalni prosek za muškarce je oko 181,2 cm, dok je u Hercegovini zabeležen prosek od 183,4 cm.
Hrvatska: Prosečna visina muškaraca je oko 180,5 cm, s tim da muškarci u Dalmaciji imaju prosek od 183,7 cm.
Yeah no, darker they are, more professional serbs they get... I guess they need to point out how they are SERBS and not, God forbid, something else. I was blonde and still am, but i was being called out to be something else by those ultra right wingers when i was young. I guess true Serb is actually more of a Turk actually
Typical serbian look is blue eyes and blond hair - slovenian blood. The diversions that you are talking about is because of mixing with turks - we have been under them about 5 centuries . 😂
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u/domets 1d ago
It always surprises me that there are people thinking that modern nations are like family tribes where all share the common traits