Belgrade, Serbia

It’s pretty clear we’ve crossed a line, from Central Europe to Eastern Europe, from the influences of German, Austrian, Hungarian and Roman cultures to Byzantine, Russian and Ottoman ones, from Roman Catholic to Orthodox religions, from eagerly to reluctantly capitalist  and liberal democratic societies. Or, more accurately, in the Balkan lands of all these influences, the weight of the cultures tilts east when you get to Serbia. To reinforce this impression, Serbia, unlike the countries we have visited earlier in the trip, is not in the Schengen borderless passport area nor, for that matter, in the EU or the eurozone or NATO, which bombed sites in Serbia in 1999 to end the civil wars.

Belgrade’s 640,000 citizens are about a quarter of Serbia’s population. The refugees from the 1990’s civil wars swelled Belgrade’s population, as does the migration of rural populations to this and other cities. Overall, however, Serbia is losing many of its best and brightest to countries with higher paying opportunities.

Still, Serbia is a proud country which is looking forward to the future while both celebrating and defending its turbulent heritage.

We were scheduled to spend a full day in the city, starting with a four-hour bus tour, with stops at several significant sites. The afternoon was to be free time to explore on one’s own. Thanks to incredibly heavy traffic, the morning tour was closer to five hours in duration, so we were among the fair-sized contingent who became lazy and did not go back into the city in the late afternoon. I understand we missed some excellent street musicians.

The first stop on the bus tour was at Belgrade’s Kalemegdan fortress, located on the heights above the city and the confluence of the Danube and Sava Rivers. Occupied since well before Roman times, it is estimated that over six million military (and civilians in the way) died over the last 2000+ years attacking and defending the citadel.

Gates into the fortress.

The moats are now filled with military displays, playgrounds and other attractions.

The gates have seen many wars over the centuries. Here a section of the gate shows the dent of a cannonball and the holes from a machine gun. Belgrade has seen 115 wars throughout its history and has been destroyed 44 times. 

The cannon is an Ottoman artifact. The Ottoman Empire controlled Belgrade for three and a half centuries. On the right is the mausoleum of Damad Al Pasha, a grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire. The monument is one of the remaining few in Belgrade showing Islamic architecture.

The one-time headquarters in the left picture was the first to be shelled during one of the wars, with the Hungarians, perhaps. The statue on the right was once in the center of the city. As the figure is a nude man, in the 1920’s some society of morally upright ladies demanded that it be removed. It was moved out of the city to a far edge of the fortress, mounted on a high column to help obscure its details, and turned so only the rear of the figure was easily visible. 

Overlooking the Sava and Danube Rivers. There is so much more of the fortress we did not have time to see, from the Roman era well to more modern bunkers. May the fortress and Belgrade see a few years of peace.

As with all bus tours, any photos taken through the windows are, at best, blurry reminders of the sights seen, but here are a few. I do not include the graffiti or more humble dwellings that are interspersed with the more attractive views.

The lower right picture is of the Iranian embassy, something the U.S. hasn’t seen in 45 years.

Our next major stop was at the Museum of Yugoslavia and the presidential office of Josip Broz, aka Tito, who, whether loved or loathed, loomed large over the history of the Balkans. Once fully focused on Tito, the museum has generalized its content. Nevertheless, our tour focused on Tito. Upon his death in 1979, his funeral attracted delegations from all but a handful of countries from around the world.

Right: The entrance to the museum. Left: if you miss this statue of Tito, no worries. There are two more identical copies around the museum grounds (plus a fourth somewhere in Croatia).

Tito’s office and tomb.

Having ruled Yugoslavia with an iron hand while failing to groom a successor, Tito left a country ripe for civil war, from which six nationalist nations emerged—seven, if one counts Kosovo, which the Serbians don’t.

Our last stop was to visit the magnificent St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church. This is a church whose construction started only in the 1930’s and, interrupted by wars and communism, is just now being completed. It was built in classic Byzantine style and has a dome larger than that of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Inside, nearly the entire decor is of mosaics, made possible by the invention and use of “sandwich-layering” in the production of the tiles. It is all impressive and beautiful.


Left: The traffic of downtown Belgrade. Right: We depart Belgrade and continue our cruise down the river.

Our next adventure is a transit of the Iron Gates of the Danube River.