A long, hot day in Serbian Vojvodina is slowly coming to an end. Long cornfields flash past our car windows, and the orange sun sets over them. We head along narrow county roads to the small town of Báčska Palanka, home to 25,000 people, many of whom are Slovak. Their ancestors came to the town at the end of the 18th century, mostly from the area around Nitra.

In the car, the photographer and I are silent the whole way, looking only ahead. Before we head into town, a local journalist warned us."It's dangerous there, I'm not going there," she admitted.

Her words still ring in our heads. We are slightly worried, but curiosity drives us forward.

Things are boiling in Serbia

We arrived in Serbian Vojvodina at noon on August 13. In Serbia's second largest city - Novi Sad, we meet Ivan Bartoš, a young Slovak who was attacked by pro-government hooligans last weekend simply because he and other Slovaks exhibited photos from student protests against Aleksandar Vučić.

"We mostly had pictures of protests in specific Slovak villages hung on lines in the park - from Padina, Kovačica, Hložany, Báčské Petrovec, Stará Pazova, Kysáč. There were also photos of Slovaks at nationwide protests in Belgrade," the young man told us.

The massive protests, which have brought hundreds of thousands of Serbs to the streets, were triggered by a tragedy at the Novi Sad train station, where a shelter collapsed, killing 16 people. Many Serbs blame the government and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić for the collapse.