ITCHY FEET TRAVELS

Belgrade, Serbia

Aug 21, 2025

Wandering out to see Belgrade, I head to the central area. Outside the engineering department of the university is a statue of Nikola Tesla, a famous son of Serbia. Down a busy thoroughfare I come to the Terzije Fountain and next to it is the famed Moskva Hotel. An iconic landmark, it has hosted the likes of Albert Einstein, Alfred Hitchcock, Luciano Pavarotti and Indira Gandhi among many others. Further down is the Republic Square, a vast space with the mounted statue of Prince Mihailo Obrenovic III in the center. On one side is the National Museum and on the other, the Opera House.

The Church of St. Sava rears above the cityscape. This Serbian Orthodox church is immense; it is the largest in the Balkans and supposedly one of the largest eastern orthodox churches in the world. In another part of town is the Cathedral Church of St. Michael Church with its lavish interior. There are many others, but I am a tad churched-out and haven’t the urge to visit any more.

Large, lavish and ornamented these buildings might be, but they are atypical. For the most part, Belgrade wears a grittier face. Some blocks were likely built in the 1970s and many are of the brutalist architecture period. Even those not of the brutalist style show peeling facades. Some may look abandoned but there are people living in them. I see pots and pans in the windows and laundry hanging on clotheslines. In New Belgrade though the skyline is full of cranes amid a building frenzy. This area is likely to be unrecognizable in a couple of years.

Belgrade is well-served by public transport and buses crawl to just about everywhere. I have been riding around at random, getting a feel of the various parts of the city. Cafes are everywhere, especially in the pedestrianized area around Republic Square. And there are plenty who frequent them. It is a stretch to reconcile the café culture I see here and the gritty life that most parts of Belgrade seem to show.

The Slavic name for Belgrade is Beograd which translates as the “White City”. It was so called because of the fort that was built on the ridge which still stands. Overlooking the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, the strategic position was of such import that it has been destroyed forty times over the ages and re-built each time.

The original Celtic fortified settlement of Singidunum was turned into a military camp by the Romans and saw repeated assaults by the Goths and Huns. Then came the middle ages with Byzantine, Slavi and Avar influences. The Ottomans captured the fortress in the 16^th century and kept it for the next three hundred years. Modernization came with the Austrian rule before it went back again to the Ottomans, this latest stretch ending only in 1867.

Hugging the slight hill, the clever design follows the natural contours of the land, like many other such fortified structures. It reminds me a little of the Hittite capital of Hattusa .  Today it still commands a magnificent view, but it is less a museum than an amusement park. The old armory is a souvenir shop and the baths are cafes. Toy trains chug through the Stambol Gate, originally built because it was the gate leading to Istanbul, or Stambol. And an array of more recent military might is ostentatiously on display in a patch of green outside the gate.

The one must-see museum in Belgrade I was told is the Museum of History of Yugoslavia. It was Marshal Josip Tito who after WWII reorganized what was previously the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After his death in 1980, the country struggled and by the 1990s the cultural differences and nationalist tensions proved too powerful. Yugolslavia or Land of the South Slavs broke up into the various smaller countries that we now know. Unsurprisingly, the museum focuses largely on General Tito.

One long building has several large rooms housing the presents he received from various Heads of State. Among other things, strangely, there are arrays of batons. At least that is what the signage said. But why batons? Is that a coveted gift? Is this a new version of a scepter? I ask the attendant but he waves it away.

There are posters too. They are of revolution, of war, of the sacrifices made. In one display case are signs and posters extolling women and their contribution.

There are plenty of photographs of General Tito with dignitaries from around the globe. He was a consummate politician who managed to cement support from a wide spectrum of countries. Interestingly, the photos of protests from 1968 are prominently displayed.

Seeing them I can’t help thinking that in a country with a history of protests, why should the current ones be so surprising or so reviled? I have no answers but mentally doff my hat to all the protesters current and past. Here and elsewhere.