My first memory of Treće Oko (Third Eye) magazine was with my grandma at Hotel Palisad in Zlatibor. It was just after my grandad passed away, and I begged her to buy it, as I was intrigued by various mysteries it claimed to uncover. I remember being very unimpressed with that issue, though. The only article I remember from it claimed we would all be … Continue reading Treće Oko, eclipses, pandemics and years of magical thinking
Bogdan Nestorović was the son of the one of the most prolific Serbian arhcitects, Nikola Nestorović. He prusued his architectural education in Paris in 1920s where he developed a penchant for Art Deco (more precisely Streamline Modern) which characterised his two most monumental buildings: the Craftsmen’s Hall (aka Radio Beograd) and PRIZAD (aka Tanjug). Both buildings have a very intriguing history worth dedicating separate articles … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (69): Streamline Modern at Craftsmen’s Hall and PRIZAD
Through life, one develops but then has to abandon a nostalgic, protective attitude towards things in one’s life, especially places. Any living city is constantly changing, and cherished nooks and crannies, those that remind you of the best of times and people, have to make way.While it is normal to try to protect what is deemed valuable, one has to realize that it is, after … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (68): Automobile museum, Sablja Dimiskija and my disappearing neighbourhood
When I saw that there is a film in the works about Džej Ramadanovski, a Serbian-Roma pop star who passed tragically during at the age of 56 in 2020, I feared it would be another slapdash cash-grab riding on the wave of “Toma”, a hit 2021 film about Serbian folk singer Toma Zdravković. My scepticism was even greater as I did not like “Toma”. … Continue reading Exploring Džej Ramadanovski’s Dorćol on film and in reality
It has been a while since I did this type of list. Firstly, COVID threw a spanner into a lot of great businesses which did not survive the pandemic or have changed how they work entirely (lots of them, like Proleće and most of Skadarlija becoming basically crap overpriced tourist haunts) . Secondly, when I started writing this blog, Belgrade’s food scene was significantly less … Continue reading Best of Belgrade Food Scene 2023: A value for money guide
Serbia’s and Yugoslavia’s embrace of modernist architecture after WWII has been so thorough that any thought of reviving architectural styles before 1920s is seen as automatically kitschy and a no-no amongst our architects. While some structures were restored (the building housing the National museum, Central Belgrade palace complex) after extensive aerial bombings during WWII many were replaced with new modernist buildings, but there was also … Continue reading Lost Belgrade: Structures that should RETVRN to Belgrade’s street
Some time ago, overcome by a listicle-making urge, I considered putting together a playlist of highly orientalist Yugoslav songs with entries such as Bebi Dol’s Mustafa and Brekvica’s “Loša”. While trawling though YouTube I realised the absurdity at the heart of the endeavour: much of our pop music is “oriental” in the sense that it was influenced by Turkish (or wider Silk road) rhythms and … Continue reading Non-Western Balkans: an identity struggle
There is no better sign of (approaching) middle age than reminiscing about the restaurants, bars and clubs which are no longer around, but which left a mark on one’s memories, taste and, in many ways, life. My path towards becoming a kafana connoisseur started in Vidin kapija, across the road from my primary school. I was taken there in 1996 by my mom and grandma … Continue reading Vanishing Majik of turn-of-millennium Belgrade hotspots
Maybe it is the shimmer of the water, maybe it is the people around them, or perhaps it is chlorine or sunstroke, but swimming pools, and especially public pools, have a magical, surreal touch to them. It is no wonder they inspired a lot of great art from Hockney’s Bigger splash, to Cheever’s excellent (yet dark) tale of a man who decided to swim his … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (67): Swimming palaces of Belgrade
While Serbia and the Balkans come nowhere near Italy in purism about food and food related customs (aka culinary fascism), there are certain things that are not done, and certain other signs that signal to you that you are in the presence of a true gastronomic veteran. For example, one of the main tells that you are a non-local in Serbia is ordering ajvar in … Continue reading Beyond ajvar, burek and ćevapi: building your kafana cred with must-try offal and regional dishes
After two lousy years of the pandemic, now there is a potential world war threatening to sour our „špricers“. However if the years of turbulence taught us anything, it is that it is important to make the most out of a lousy situation, something that Belgrade always excelled at. While most of the guides will send you to swim in Ada, eat in Skadarlija or … Continue reading Beyond splavs and Ada: how to spend your Belgrade summer
For a very long time, SIV, for me, was just a drab government building. While I passed it fairly often, unthinkingly, on my regular walks between old Zemun, much like the whole of New Belgrade – with the exception of Sava Centar – it was unremarkable, melding into the grey mass of what I (and many around me) termed as “uninspiring socialist architecture”, something that … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (66): SIVilisational decline
Train travel used to be the stuff of nightmares in Serbia. While I was in highschool I remember packing up lots of food for a 90km train ride to Novi Sad, while any attempts to venture further – to Zagreb and Budapest (both about 400km away from Belgrade) – were day-long out trips in crappy trains that stopped in crappy stations. I n a lot … Continue reading Belgrade to Novi Sad on Soko express
“The only way for us to become great, or even inimitable if possible, is to imitate the ancients.” Johann Joachim Winckelmann “As is the case with the weather: rain and storms from the West reached us and so did Postmodernism. At the very beginning of Postmodernism, a great conference was held in Zagreb on that topic, which identified vectors and positive values of the movement … Continue reading Belgrade Post-Modern: Ruins at the End of History
On July 28th 1942, 36 year old Strahinja Janjić was taken to the infamous Banjica camp, on the charge of planning to assassinate Milan Nedić, the head of the puppet government that was helping the Germans control “German occupied territory of Serbia”. Banjica, ran in tandem by the Gestapo and Nedić’s government, claimed more than 3,800 lives and was the place where anti-fascist Serbs, Jews … Continue reading Occupation in 2-6 Pictures (2): Strahinja Janjić – a traitor’s traitor
Ever since I came back to Belgrade in 2016, I put myself through countless arduous tasks in order to bring you the knowledge, dear Reader, of the best ways to spend time in my beloved hometown. This promethean striving led me to run, eat and listen to music, but no task was harder than trying to figure out what the best places are to spend … Continue reading Enjoying the sweat of your brow: Belgrade’s top spas
I only noticed Romansa, a Dorćol institution, when a friend of mine casually said it is where her mum likes hanging out with her neighbours. I probably ran and cycled past it hundreds of times – my wannabe yuppie fitness fervour very much at odds with the languor of its patrons, who, no matter the time of day, hung out in its pleasant tiny overgrown … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (64): Community spaces
One of my first encounters with the concept of other sexualities was when, as kid visiting my grandmother`s tiny summer house in Montenegro I was walking around the yard and pointed to a far-away house on a land neighbouring ours and asked who lived there. „That was cousin M.`s house…“ she said, somewhat darkly, unlike her eager explanations of who else lived in the 20km … Continue reading Homosexuality in Serbia through the Ages
Energoprojekt, the most famous firm based in Belgrade, is celebrating 70 years this year, and thanks to the great people of BINA (Belgrade International Architecture Week) I got acquainted a bit further with both its amazing HQ in New Belgrade as well as its accomplishments around the world. The frim, founded in 1951, initially focused on major energy projects in Yugoslavia, building its coal and … Continue reading Build Better: How a Belgrade Firm Built the World
On May 10 1594, the Ottoman rulers of Belgrade decided to make sure to make the point to their Serbian subjects that any resistance to their rule is futile. The reason was the first massive uprising against the Ottoman rule in Banat, which erupted in the spring of that year, motivated by the victories of Habsburg forces against the Ottoman army, which 73 years before … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (63): Finding Vračar and Belgrade’s holiest mound
