Aug. 25-28: Belgrade (The White City)

[EK]

Our first shopping experience in Serbia: what are we buying? What is this money? What do we do? Do we look as jet-lagged as we feel (yes).

This is not a coherent history or a linear tale. It is a bricolage of stories we have cobbled together over a few days of walking with Igor, our patient and generous friend, going on a bicycle tour, and visiting the History of Yugoslavia museum.

On our bike ride around New Belgrade (our second day in the city), we encountered a bit of rain and learned a lot about Belgrade's geopolitics.

Emily in front of the Palace of Serbia, a modernist building that is suffering from post-modern malaise.

At several points, I have felt an intense nostalgia for 1970s Belgrade, a time and place I have never been. Our bicycle guide yesterday, Simon, a cynical political science major who now takes tourists to forgotten corners of the city, called it the “Glamorous 70s” several times. It was when Tito had established his coalition of non-aligned countries, all post-colonial and neither NATO nor Warsaw Pact, and Yugoslavia was building glorious brutalist masterpieces.

Simon at the Gardos Tower in Zemun. Zemun was Hungarian and this tower marked its eastern boundary; across the Sava was Belgrade and in between, War Island.

Simon said that after WWII, when Yugoslavia was re-forming as a communist experiment (rather than its interwar configuration as a kingdom), only 10% of people identified as religious. Ethnic and religious lines were blurred and people were trying to forge a pax Yugoslavia after the horrors of WWII, when the fascist Croat Ustashi killed all the Jews in Belgrade, along with Roma and dissident Serbs. But in the early 1990s, after a decade of what Simon called the “buildup of the war machine,” over 90% of people identified as religious (of some type; orthodox around here). This was perhaps one facet of the “othering” and tribe-building required to start murdering each other again.

Graffiti at our guesthouse, where we assembled our bicycles, cooked many meals, and felt very welcomed.

Our first sighting of the EuroVelo 6 signs.

In between the walls of the Belgrade Fortress seems like a good place to display some rockets.

The Pobednik statue (also called "Victor" as in "victory") stands at the edge of Belgrade Fortress, facing the western invaders. I would call this statue "Naked and Slightly Embarrassed Man" as he is fully exposed and looking rather sheepishly toward the West.   

Igor and Emily discuss Serbian politics, economics, and beer.

These portraits of famous Serbs were all over the city. They were incredibly well done. The graffiti overall was beautiful a and abundant. Hardly a wall went uncovered and sometimes art took up the whole side of a building.

The buildings of Belgrade are not often pretty, but there are secessionists/art nouveau beauties hidden among the chaotic skyline.

Belgrade was full of old soviet-era cars, both Yugos and Ladas. This is a Lada Niva, a 4WD vehicle that I once dreamed of owning.

This is part of the strange walking infrastructure of Belgrade - a giant freeway-style overpass for people.

Walking the desolate pedestrian freeway space... 

At the Museum of Yugoslavia, this was a statue given to Tito. The museum and surrounding park were a little piece of bucolic beauty in a sea of gritty city.

At the Museum of Yugoslavia, mostly a memorial to Tito, where his collection of batons is kept. Also his corpse.

Batons!

Our first kafana meal: surrounded by groups of smoking men, we ate plates of meat, cheese, and bread.

We chanced upon a park ruled by a surly group of cats. There were probably 8 in total, all occupying different vantage points.

We have seen a lot of Kosovo-is-Serbia graffiti in the last few days, the most recent iteration of angry nation-claiming. The signs claim that the “Albanians” (who live in Kosovo) are terrorists, presumably in contrast to the “Serbians” (who also live in Kosovo). And so nationality and ethnicity have separated in a way that we two Americans have difficulty understanding. Even getting a beer brings up politics, when we asked why there were both “Serbian” and “Serbian Republic” beers on a menu. The waiter laughed, and said “Serbian Republic is Bosnia. Balkan politics are hard to explain.” And he walked away shaking his head, seemingly full of more words but without the patience to explain a bloody and complicated politics to two ignorant American girls.

This is the old Yugoslav Ministry of Defense, bombed by NATO in 1999 and left partially in ruins, perhaps as a memorial or a symbol of loss. Or perhaps just in anger at NATO.

Most of the city is remarkably new, but there are small hints of older Serbia here. Belgrade was the edge of the Ottoman Empire and across the Sava River, in Zemun, was the edge of the Hungarian (then Austro-Hungarian Empire). We rode our bikes to Zemun, once a rival city separated from Belgrade by “War Island.” At the top of a hill is a tower built as an outpost by Hungary to celebrate its 1000-year history. Most of the material history of both places has been destroyed over and over, most recently by neglect and corruption. The Hotel Yugoslavia, built in the 1970s to house dignitaries, was divided by warlord mafiosos in the 1990s and repurposed into a casino, night clubs, and a car dealership.

Despite all this, and the expressed pessimism of Igor and Simon, it is a vibrant city with incredible food and people walking in small groups and greeting each other and each other’s dogs. It is full of interesting beers and cable cars from every era running along the same tracks. It is working, for now, but it is “fragile” in the words of Simon. For two days, Igor (who is actually the friend of my friend Drasko) took us from restaurant to ice cream parlour to bar, while telling us the story of Belgrade. He did not allow us to pay for a single thing while we were with him, and only laughed when we tried to pay, saying, “you’ll pay next time.”

First experience with Rakija.

We went to an "Escape" room with Igor and managed to figure out the clues left by Nikola Tesla.

[ES]
Probably the best thing for me about traveling is that observation and experiencing a place is your “job” for this finite period of time. Here in Belgrade there is so much to observe, ponder, experience, taste and think about. Although located at the confluence of two important rivers and occupied by humans since the 4th century, there are few very old buildings - not like many other old European cities. Located at the border of empires (Roman-Byzantine, Ottoman, Hungarian, and Austro-Hungarian) and near the outbreaks of world wars there have been numerous bombardments over the centuries likely coupled with few resources or reasons to preserve the old. Therefore there are far fewer buildings from the early 1800s (and basically none of earlier) than I expected. We have been staying at a hostel a bit out from the city center where stained, drab concrete apartment buildings line the street with intermittent older, smaller, more unique houses all jumbled next to each other. As soon as we first walked into the city center, we turned a corner and saw buildings that looked much more Central European in character and older - art nouveau, mansard-like rooves, etc. I love the jumble of different aged buildings all together on one block - not exactly beautiful but striking to the eye.

The trams spanned the decades in style.

There was a strange, dilapidated beauty to the city.

On our taxi drive into the city upon arriving at the airport (which was perhaps one of the best taxi experiences for me), I kept seeing signs every 1km for Belgrade Waterfront, and I thought they must refer to the dozens of night club boats dotting the Sava riverfront which are a big draw and epitomize the moniker for Belgrade as the city that never sleeps. While all those night clubs are present we learned the Belgrade Waterfront refers to the scandalous Middle Eastern-funded riverfront development which is now one of the largest construction project in Europe. The developers were afforded absolute control of the river frontage to construct large glass buildings not in keeping with the old Belgrade skyline without input from Belgradians or permits. About two years ago developers tore up the old, artist district including homes and businesses near the waterfront through eminent domain. People took to the streets to protest but Simon said it feels like it won’t make any difference.

Cycling is not a thing here though there have been a remarkable number of bike shops per the small number of people seen cycling. We have seen probably four road bikers in three days of walking and biking around the city and a handful of people cycling for transportation. There are some retro-fitted cycle-tracks on wider sidewalks. The pedestrian infrastructure is very functional - narrow little sidewalks along alleys, multi-directional pedestrian highway overpasses and people just walking down the middle of little streets calling out to neighbors. But it would be terribly difficult to be a person in a wheelchair or mobility device (as with most older European cities) as there are barely any ramps or crossings flush to the street.

Riding on the rare bicycle lane in Old Belgrade.

We also have not seen a vegetable growing in Belgrade. For a very agricultural producing country there does not appear to be a growing culture in Belgrade itself. We’re talking basically just gardenias and roses. There are quite lovely playgrounds and open spaces though - again nothing fancy but very functional and livable.

Today we barely ate all day and then ate a very Serbian lunch at a kafana. We had heard about these establishments with patterned tablecloths at which you hung out all afternoon. The Latin alphabet has been ubiquitous but this kafana just sported Cyrillic for its menu posted outside. Inside accordion music played overhead, groups of men hung out smoking and eating, white wine was served with an ice bucket, every plate and dish was clay service wear including the ash trays, and it was the first place we went where staff did not speak English. All the decorations evoked a country retreat feel which we had heard about but it could also just seem pretty kitsch. Basically the best eating experience yet in Serbia. The food lived up to the atmosphere - trout, house made sausages, roasted peppers and the best bread I’ve had in ages...flatbread with kaymak (a clotted cream) and hot pepper.

We are indebted to Igor and all the people we have spoken with who have given us a little glimpse into everyday life and history here in Serbia’s largest city. On the bike tour with Simon (much more geopolitically in-depth than your typical tourist tour) we learned about the fairgrounds turned concentration camp across the Sava from central Belgrade. The Sajmiste Fairgrounds were built were constructed in the 1930s in the model of a Wojrld’s Fair with optimism and an eye for innovation...where the first TV broadcast in Eastern Europe occurred...and later after the occupation of Belgrade during WWII was used by the Nazis as a concentration camp where the worst of the worst of humanity reared its head. And now the city has turned a blind eye to the history of the place which now decays without so much as a memorial plaque. There has been a city commission appointed for ten years to consider what to do with the place but no report has yet been written.

This was from our return to Belgrade (at the end of the trip - notice Erin's Modern Serbian dress)

Well-done portraits of famous Serbs popped up on buildings all over town.