The morning after the night before, they were still partying. The federal parliament on Belgrade's Bulevar Revolucija was still smouldering. And a crowd of jubilant protesters, perhaps a hundred in all, were still on the steps of the old building with their flags.
On the opposite side of the square, on the balcony of Belgrade City Hall where Dr Vojislav Kostunica - the man everyone is already calling President - had addressed the ebullient crowds, a speaker blared out rock music. People sang and danced.
Throughout the day, cars screamed through the capital, men hanging out at crazy angles: "Pobeda" (Victory), they cried. Someone said it reminded them of scenes from Berlin when the Wall came down. "Many countries did this several years ago. We did it later, but I stayed all day and all night, to be there," said one man, finally going home.
Belgrade tried to begin a normal morning. The traffic built up on the streets and the buses took faithful office workers to their jobs. But the centre remained full of the debris of a day and a night that changed the country.
There were bottles of mineral water and bread littering the square. In the park by City Hall, camp fires still burned. One man exhausted by the turmoil sat on a park bench and slept, with a smile on his face.
Parents brought their children to see the burnt-out parliament building, smiling couples walked hand-in-hand along the streets and youths sprayed the slogan "He's finished" on wrecked cars and sooty walls.
"I wanted my boys and girls to see what has happened here. This is history," said Nedeljka Filovski, with her four children in tow, including a three-month-old baby strapped to her chest.
Three fire trucks outside the blackened offices of the state television, Radio Television Serbia, finally moved away. The charred shell was all that was left of the core of Slobodan Milosevic's propaganda empire.
"It's not good that the buildings were burned - but it's good that freedom came," said pensioner Bosko Djordjevic, a former car mechanic.
A pensioner in his 70s, in a worn suit and tie, said: `I don't think anything. I'm not involved in any politics since the collapse of Yugoslavia. I just want to avoid bloodshed."
Was he not interested then in what happened?
"No, I was all night awake and listening to the news," he said. Then he began to weep. He turned his head and he walked away - too moved or perhaps confused to say more.
There was a scramble for newspapers at all the kiosks. Some Belgradians went home for a short break, before the rally at midday, which it was hoped would crown Dr Kostunica as Yugoslav President.
And as he gathered for the rally, Urush Vukovic, a 28-year-old architect, said he was surprised at the few casualties and stressed that the protesters targeted only buildings that represented the regime.
"I'm sure that if there were more police, we would not be able to do anything. The two buildings that are destroyed are symbols. The people only smashed the buildings that symbolise their present problems right now," he said.