For 20 years, the raft bar Zappa Barka sat on a bend of the River Danube in central Belgrade. Revellers walked a gangplank to board the boat, then danced to live music and DJs on wooden floors, or stayed on deck all night to see the sun rise over the water. But in June 2024 the raft’s electricity supply was suddenly cut, and the barge was towed to a new destination far from the city centre.

Zappa’s existence was always unstable, but there was a sense of exception in Belgrade. That’s because this boat bar was one of Belgrade’s “splavs”, raft houses that have been built on Belgrade’s two rivers, the Danube and the Sava, since the 1960s. Locals use them in summer as waterside retreats, gathering with friends for barbecues when temperatures can hit 38C. Families buy their moorings for 99 years and can renovate their raft house within certain parameters.

But around the time Yugoslavia broke apart in the early 1990s, a new kind of hedonistic splav life took off. Pioneering locals moored large rafts and turned them into ad hoc bars and clubs, feeding off Belgrade’s dark and nervous energies. Some pumped techno, others replicated the city’s famous kafanas: pub-style taverns where musicians play Gypsy jazz. Bands of Roma trumpeters would gather a crowd in town to follow them through the streets and on to a splav where the party would really kick off.

The most legendary splav was Cmi Panter (Black Panther), which drew global attention in 2008 when the band The Police, after a Belgrade Arena concert, dropped by to check it out. A fire later that year destroyed the Black Panther. The cause was unknown, but people living near the river had begun to complain that the splavs were spiralling out of control: they were unregulated, licensing laws were lax, the parties were wild and sometimes violent. Many people could no longer see the river and were kept awake by the constant noise. Environmental groups complained of the damage being caused to the rivers by poor waste management.

The call was heard in 2022 after the pandemic and taken up by Belgrade’s mayor, Aleksandar Šapić, who decreed measures to remove at least two-thirds of the 300 splavs that line the rivers in the city centre. So far, over 70 have been towed, including 10 big party splavs that were taken to a new, albeit temporary location a couple of miles away between the Ada and Gazela bridges.

Zappa Barka was one of these. DJ Marko Milić said this summer’s attendance was good, as Belgraders flocked to support their favourite splavs despite the change of location. Now, however, the barge is fairly dead. Milić used to play to hundreds on the weekend but on a warm October Saturday night, he spun beats for just five people. “We are too far away so nobody can be bothered to come down here any more,” he said. He believes they have two years before they are moved on again – far beyond town.

Zappa was lucky, relatively speaking. Many other smaller, independent rafts, such as iconic dance club 20/44 were towed 12 miles (20km) upriver to a kind of splav graveyard where they were left to rot or be looted. Little warning was given to the owners. The city council simply cut their electricity and water supply before descending upon them with a tow boat.

Belgrade is divided over the clean-up of the party rafts. Milica Jovanovic is one of the many Belgraders who was deeply saddened by the loss of the 20/44 club. “It was my church and that can’t be replaced,” she said as she looked around on a last visit. Jovanovic added that with the removal of the splavs, “the whole social scene of a generation was wiped out”.

Other Belgraders are more relaxed about the loss. The owner of the 30-year-old boat bar Brodić, Bane Susić, said he would welcome a more peaceful life if he was moved further down the river. “We have had our best days here already. Now the waterfront looks cleaner, more like a modern functioning city, without all these structures choking the river.”

Some initially backed the measures, but now have regrets. Maja Djurić was keen on the regulation for environmental reasons, but realised that the organic social function served by many of the splavs is being replaced with a sterile, flashy riverside, catering mostly to the elite. “What we are witnessing is the creep of commercialisation with very little transparency and even less community consultation,” Djurić said.

One example is the huge and controversial Belgrade Waterfront development, which was drawn up in 2014 and has seen ongoing building works along the river. Whole swathes of old Belgrade were cleared to make way for a development of luxury flats, swanky bars and shops. Locals were pushed out of their homes and mass protests took place across the city.

But few protests are erupting for the splav clearances because they are happening in a more subtle, gradual way. Yet it’s part of a wider trend of Belgrade losing its underground bars and independent venues to fast-paced development. This shift is pushing people back on to private, domestic splavs.