This study aims to discover what sort of consumption culture developed among Yugoslavians due to the fact that in the 1960s and 1970s several thousands of them went to Western Europe as guest workers. By analyzing life interviews and literary works the author comes to the conclusion that while consumption culture had evolved in Yugoslavia much earlier than in any other socialist countries thanks to the returning guest workers, these people also created the'culture of suffering' which emerged in the context of feeling homeless, strange and homesick . All of that also meant that in Yugoslavia the system was partly legitimized by the consumption culture imported by the guest workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]