Category: The Belgradist

Guide to Belgrade, The Belgradist

Best Contemporary Architecture in Belgrade

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that everything in Belgrade was better in the past. This permanent lament for the supposed long-gone “Golden Ages”, whether it’s the Socialist Yugoslavia or the rarified pre-WWII bourgeois Belgrade, can make us blind to the good things that are happening around us now. However, instead of despairing, in hard times, it is especially important to celebrate examples that buck … Continue reading Best Contemporary Architecture in Belgrade

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (30): Neimar –  Belgrade’s First Leafy Suburb

During Belgrade’s population boom in 1920s and 30s, its better heeled citizens decided that they wanted to create suburban neighbourhoods which would guarantee them a degree of comfort away from the town’s hustle and bustle. While then, like now villas in neighbourhoods of Senjak and Dedinje were considered the best addresses in town, the educated (upper) middle classes sought also wanted to get away from … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (30): Neimar –  Belgrade’s First Leafy Suburb

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

First Years of Modern Belgrade

A century and a half ago, on April 6 1867, the last Ottoman soldiers left the Belgrade fortress, the northernmost post of the sprawling, if crumbling, empire. That day, celebrated with much pomp in Kalemegdan, marked the beginning of modern Belgrade. Under Ottoman rule, Belgrade was known as Dar al Jihad (House of the Holy War) and in the 17th Century it was one of … Continue reading First Years of Modern Belgrade

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (29): Voždovac’s Surrealist Church

From the outside the Church of St Constantine and St Helen in the suburb of Voždovac looks like a slightly more elegant standard-issue Serbian Orthodox church, with a demure grey façade and a prominent bell-tower. The current structure, an update of the church built in early 20th Century and damaged in WWII was designed by Dragomir Tadić, a renowned Serbian church architect of the late … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (29): Voždovac’s Surrealist Church

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Guide to Belgrade, Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Belgrade’s Socialist-era Interiors

With a MoMA exhibition of Yugoslav-era brutalist architecture coming up in the summer, countless photos of Spomenici (aka WWII monuments) making weird architecture listicles and the never-ending appeal of mid-century architecture, it seems like a high time for Serbia to start preserving its Socialist-era architectural heritage, including its peculiar interiors. Although there have been some notable public efforts recently, like reconstruction of Belgrade’s Museum of … Continue reading Belgrade’s Socialist-era Interiors

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (28): The Wall of Undesired Things

All those following the contemporary art scene, know that one man’s trash these days is not only another’s man potential fortune, but actual exhibit-able art. Guided by this logic, the almost permanent, seemingly curated collection of debris found on the wall of 26 Hilandarska street in Stari Grad, can be considered a rare instance of folk, collaborative street art installation. According to the Serbian press, … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (28): The Wall of Undesired Things

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Balkans, The Belgradist, Travel

Why are Serbians not outdoorsy?

As we were climbing around the ruins of Machu Picchu, feathery clouds clung to peaks covered with thick emerald forest. Rain, which pounded from the morning, stopped and allowed sunlight to shyly caress the sheer black cliffs above the foaming river. Around us, hundreds of tourists were jostling with selfie sticks to capture these magical scenes. My chain-smoking Belgrade-born-and-bred mother slowly moved uphill, panting. Once … Continue reading Why are Serbians not outdoorsy?

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

“Bossy”, “butch” and “bitchy”: Three women who shattered the glass ceiling in Serbia

There have always been women who decided to go against the social grain in pursuit of greater freedom and success.  Unfortunately, they were almost alway held back by the patriarchal norms and often cruelly treated by their societies, even if they are eventually allowed a modicum of praise and support. Female entrepreneurs, scientists, activists, journalists, artists, and free thinkers or all stripes still cause a … Continue reading “Bossy”, “butch” and “bitchy”: Three women who shattered the glass ceiling in Serbia

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (27): Old headquarters of women’s movement in Belgrade

Although women were not barred from pursuing education in early 19th Century Serbia, in line with the global mores of the day, there was a lot of debate whether education will make them leave the family hearth and neglect their traditional roles, and of course whether mixing with men is at all appropriate. However, in the beginning of modern Serbia, when it achieved an autonomy … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (27): Old headquarters of women’s movement in Belgrade

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (26): Slavija’s strange history, from MacKenzie to McDonald’s

Hated by drivers, and considered the ugliest square in Belgrade, Slavija’s riveting history ironically started off as an attempt to introduce British-style urban planning to Belgrade. The development of the square began with Francis Mackenzie, an enterprising Scottish missionary who moved to the city in 1876 in hope of making Belgraders devote more time to the Bible, rather than smoking and drinking. In 1879 he … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (26): Slavija’s strange history, from MacKenzie to McDonald’s

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Guide to Belgrade, The Belgradist, Uncategorized

Belgrade snobs – a guide

“Local Belgradism, we are all snobs here” drawls Serbian rapping sensation Sajsi MC. Born Ivana Rasic in Vracar, Belgrade’s original “posh” neighbourhood, Sajsi often plays with themes of snobbery and class, and has even developed an alter-ego called Tiffany, a nouveau-riche teen obsessed with expensive tacky clothes, unnecessarily dropping English words into her affected Serbian. If you stroll down Vracar’s unofficial main drag, Njegoseva, on … Continue reading Belgrade snobs – a guide

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (25): Belgrade’s lost public baths

Despite the city’s long periods under Roman and Ottoman rule, Belgrade currently does not have a single open public bath probably for the first time in the past 19th centuries. Although neither of them were opulent marble-clad pleasure palaces that can still be enjoyed in Budapest or Istanbul, they would certainly come in handy as atmospheric places to warm up in long winter months and … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (25): Belgrade’s lost public baths

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (24): Bežanija airport

2017 marked the 90th anniversary of the opening of the now mostly forgotten, Belgrade International Airport, which was located next to the old Austro-Hungarian village of Bežanija, in what is now New Belgrade. This airport, however, was not the first airfield serving the city. The first airplane to fly from Belgrade took off in Banjica in 1910, close to where VMA, the military hospital complex, … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (24): Bežanija airport

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Serbiana/Srpska posla, The Belgradist

Start-ups in Serbia: Going Against the Gloom

Serbian entrepreneurs face more than economic and administrative challenges when launching new businesses Trying to make it on your own is nerve-wracking even in the most orderly of countries, but all the start-up Kool-Aid that Silicon Valley serves up nowadays is only slowly seeping into the Serbian water supply. This, of course, is primarily a result of real economic constraints, where few have sufficient capital … Continue reading Start-ups in Serbia: Going Against the Gloom

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

The Refugees Who Built Modern Belgrade

A century ago, twin revolutions enveloped Imperial Russia, already weakened by participation in World War I. The February Revolution dismantled the centuries-old autocratic system by ousting the Tsar, while the October Revolution marked the rise of the Bolsheviks who were to emerge victorious from a five-year civil war against the remaining royalists and other opponents, and ultimately proclaim the Soviet Union. This turmoil, which set … Continue reading The Refugees Who Built Modern Belgrade

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The Belgradist

Christmas in Serbia: A Beginner’s Guide

Probably the most confusing thing about Serbia to foreigners —after the fact that it is not Siberia— is that Christmas is celebrated on 7 January. Technically, however, it is not. It is celebrated on 25 December according to the Julian calendar, which is still in use by the Serbian Orthodox Church. However, this calendar is 13 days out of sync with the more commonly used … Continue reading Christmas in Serbia: A Beginner’s Guide

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Guide to Belgrade, The Belgradist

10 ways to win at winter in Belgrade

There is no denying that Belgrade is a city best enjoyed from April to October. Apart from the cheer over the extended holiday season (lasting roughly from Gregorian Christmas on 25th December to Julian New Year on 14th January), between November and March, the city is quieter, people are more irritable, while grey dilapidated facades and rusty infrastructure show themselves more against the gloomy winter … Continue reading 10 ways to win at winter in Belgrade

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (23): Jalija, Belgrade’s lost Jewish neighbourhood

“Immediately connected to Dorćol, which […] had a completely oriental look, there was a Jewish mahala [district], which was mostly inhabited by Jews from Spain (…). However, even though next to Solunska [Thessaloniki street], whose name reminds us Serbian pretensions, we find Jevrejska [Jewish], Mojsijeva [Moses] and other streets with names from the Old Testament, there is no ghetto in Belgrade. The Serb, who was … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (23): Jalija, Belgrade’s lost Jewish neighbourhood

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (22): Pištolj-mala and Lower Dorćol’s lowly days

Now a budding foodie hub, attracting Belgrade’s fashionable creatives, Lower Dorcol was the site of Belgrade’s most notorious shanty town, Pištolj-mala (“Pistol slum”), some 90 years ago. As Serbian architect and historian of Belgrade’s urbanism, Dr Zlata Vuksanović Macura, notes in her research(with some great photos), at its peak this shantytown housed about 1,500 souls in about 300 houses , spread in the area around … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (22): Pištolj-mala and Lower Dorćol’s lowly days

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