Dragan 'Draga' Markovich

[ferro]

 

 

Dragan Markovic was born in 1973 in Valjevo, Serbia. His father was a loyal member of the communist party and worked as a farmer. Although his father didn't teach him much beyond farming and fishing, young Dragan cherished those weekend fishing trips. His mother, a typical Eastern European woman, was kind and gentle, but submissive to her husband.

In his early teens, Dragan left school to help his father on the farm. He became adept at tilling the soil and fishing. By the age of 15, Dragan decided to leave the farm and work as a mechanic in downtown Valjevo. It was there that he developed a keen understanding of cars and how to tinker with them. During this time, he fell in with a group of friends who started stealing old cars and dismantling them in the workshop to earn some extra money.

As he grew older, Dragan sank deeper into criminal activities, moving from grand theft auto to mugging and extorting small businesses just to survive. When communism fell in Eastern Europe, his father had to sell their property, including the farm where Dragan grew up, due to the lack of state support. This prompted Dragan to leave Serbia and move to Los Santos in the early 1990s.

In 1993, while working as a mechanic in East Los Santos, Dragan met Jovana. Five years later, they got married. Dragan and Jovana spent nearly 15 years together and had two children: Nikolai, born in 1999, and Vlado, born in 2002. However, their marriage was strained by Dragan’s gambling addiction and connections to unsavory characters. They eventually divorced in 2008, during Dragan's legal troubles.

In Los Santos, Dragan hoped to create a better life for his family. The city's bright lights and promises seemed like a haven for new opportunities, but reality soon set in. Dragan found himself struggling to make ends meet. He took on various odd jobs, working as a mechanic by day and fixing cars in a cramped garage at night. Despite his hard work, the money was never enough to support Jovana and their two children.

Desperation led Dragan to seek other ways to earn a living. He frequented local billiard halls to unwind, where he met fellow Serbians who were not the most reputable characters. They saw the struggle in Dragan’s eyes and offered him quick cash for small criminal jobs—running errands, petty theft, and occasionally, intimidating someone who owed money.

Dragan soon became entrenched in low-level crime. His gambling habit worsened; he spent many nights losing whatever little he had at poker tables, hoping for that one big win. Cigarettes became a crutch for his mounting stress.

In 2008, the police finally caught up with him. Dragan was involved in a botched robbery attempt, set up by one of his shady acquaintances from the billiard hall. The plan was to steal from a local convenience store, but it went awry when the clerk resisted, leading to a physical altercation. Dragan, though not the instigator, was left holding the bag when the others fled.

He was arrested and charged with armed robbery, a crime he hadn’t truly committed but couldn’t deny his involvement in. With his past record of petty crimes and no good legal representation, Dragan was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Behind bars, Dragan had plenty of time to reflect on the choices that led him there. He often thought of Jovana and the kids, hoping they could find a better path than the one he had taken. Dragan’s story became a cautionary tale of how quickly the American Dream could turn into a nightmare when faced with desperation and poor decisions.

Nowadays

Today, Dragan is 51 years old. Having just served his jail time, he finds himself free in a world that has drastically changed and in which he no longer seems to fit. He's trying to rebuild his life without a house, car, or money due to his unemployment and alimony payments to Jovana. Dragan is struggling to be a good father to Nikolai and Vlado while battling his addiction to gambling and cigarettes. He is just a middle-aged man trying to make ends meet every day.

 

 

 

Edited June 29 by ferro

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Edited June 28 by ferro

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*Dragan_Markovic is not that into manners.

 

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Edited June 28 by ferro

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[ferro]