Belgrade (Serbian: Београд, Beograd ( ) is
the capital and largest city of
Serbia
. The city lies on
two international waterways, at the
confluence of the
Sava and
Danube rivers, where Central Europe's
Pannonian Plain meets the South European
Balkans. Likewise, the city is placed along
the
pan-European corridors X and
VII.
With a population of 1,630,000 (official
estimate 2007), Belgrade is the fourth largest city in Southeastern Europe, after Istanbul
, Athens
and Bucharest
. Its name in Serbian translates to
White
city.
One of the oldest cities in
Europe, with
archeological finds tracing settlements as early as the 6th
millennium BC, Belgrade's wider city area was the birthplace of the
largest prehistoric culture of
Europe, the
Vinča culture. It was first
inhabited by the Thracio-Dacian tribe of
Singi who would
give the name to the city after a fortress was founded in 3rd
century BC by the
Celts who named it Singidun
(
dun, fortress) It was awarded
city
rights by the
Romans before it was
permanently settled by
White Serbs from
the 7th century onwards. As a strategic location, the city was
battled over in 115 wars and razed to the ground 44 times since the
ancient period by countless armies of the East and West. In
medieval times, it was in the possession of
Byzantine,
Frankish,
Bulgarian,
Hungarian and
Serbian rulers. In 1521 Belgrade was
conquered by the
Ottomans and became
the seat of the
Pashaluk of
Belgrade, as the principal city of Ottoman Europe and among the
largest European cities. Frequently passing from
Ottoman to
Austrian rule which saw destruction of most
of the city, the status of
Serbian capital would be regained
only in 1841, after the
Serbian
revolution.
Northern
Belgrade
, though, remained an Austrian outpost until the
breakup of Austria-Hungary in
1918. The united city then became the capital of several
incarnations of
Yugoslavia, up to 2006,
when Serbia became an independent state again.
Belgrade has the status of a separate territorial unit in Serbia,
with its own autonomous city government. Its territory is divided
into
17 municipalities, each
having its own local council. It covers 3.6% of the territory of
Serbia, and 24% of the country's population lives in the city.
Belgrade is the central economic hub of Serbia, and the capital of
Serbian culture,
education and science.
Geography
Satellite view of Belgrade
Belgrade lies above
sea level and is
located at
confluence of the
Danube and
Sava rivers, at
coordinates 44°49'14"
North, 20°27'44" East.
The historical core of Belgrade, today's
Kalemegdan
, is on the right bank of the rivers.
Since the
19th century, the city has been expanding to the south and east,
and after World War II, New Belgrade
was built on the Sava's left bank, merging Belgrade
with Zemun.
Smaller,
chiefly residential communities across the Danube, like Krnjača and Ovča
, also merged
with the city. The city has an urban area of , while
together with its metropolitan area it covers . Throughout history,
Belgrade has been a major crossroad between the
West and
the
Orient.
On the right bank of the Sava, central Belgrade has hilly terrain,
while the highest point of Belgrade proper is
Torlak hill at .
The mountains of
Avala
( ) and Kosmaj
( ) lie
south of the city. Across the Sava and Danube, the land is
mostly flat, consisting of
alluvial
plains and
loessial plateaus.
Climate
Aerial view of Belgrade
Belgrade has a moderate
continental
climate. The year-round average temperature is , while the
hottest month is July, with an average temperature of . There are,
on average, 31 days a year when the temperature is above
30 °C, and 95 days when the temperature is above 25 °C.
Belgrade receives about 700 millimeters (27.56 in) of
precipitation a year. The average annual number of sunny hours is
2,096. The sunniest months are July and August, with an average of
about 10 sunny hours a day, while December and January are the
gloomiest, with an average of 2–2.3 sunny hours a day. The highest
officially recorded temperature in Belgrade was +43.1 °C,
while on the other end, the lowest temperature was −26.2 °C on
January 10, 1893.
History
Ancient city
The
Neolithic Starčevo and Vinča cultures existed in Belgrade and
dominated the Balkans (as well as parts of
Central Europe and Asia Minor
) about 7,000 years ago. Some scholars
believe that the prehistoric
Vinča
signs represent one of earliest known forms of
alphabet.
The Paleo-Balkan
tribes of Dacians and Thracians dwelled in the area before being settled
in the 4th century BC by a Celtic tribe, the
Scordisci, the city's recorded name was
Singidūn, before becoming the romanized
Singidunum
in the first century AD. In 34-33BC the
Roman army under
Silanus reached Belgrade.
In the mid 2nd century, the city was proclaimed a
municipium by the Roman authorities, evolving
into a full fledged
colonia (highest
class Roman city) by the end of the century.
Apart from the first
Christian Emperor
of Rome who was born in modern Serbia- Constantine I known as Constantine the Great (Naissus
, 280 A.D.)- another early Roman Emperor was born in
Belgrade: Jovian, the restorer of Christianity, Flavius Iovianus, (Singidunum, 332 A.D.) Jovian reestablished Christianity as the
official religion of the Roman Empire,
ending the brief revival of traditional Roman religions under
his predecessor Julian the
Apostate. In 395 AD, the site passed to the Eastern
Roman or
Byzantine Empire.
Across
the Sava from Singidunum was the Celtic city of Taurunum , that through Roman and Byzantine times shared a
common fate with its "twin brother" (the two cities were connected
by a bridge).
Middle Ages
Singidunum was occupied and often ravaged by successive invasions
of
Huns,
Sarmatians,
Gepids,
Ostrogoths
and
Avars before the arrival of the
Slav around 630 AD. It served as the
center of the
Gepidean Kingdom in the early
500s, before being taken by the Avars.
When the Avars were finally destroyed in the 9th
century by the Frankish Kingdom, it
fell back to Byzantine rule, whilst Taurunum
became part of the Frankish realm (and was renamed
to Malevilla). At the same time (around 878), the first
record of the
Slavic name
Beligrad has appeared, during the rule of the
First Bulgarian Empire. For about
four centuries, the city remained a battleground between the
Byzantine Empire, the
Kingdom of Hungary and the
First Bulgarian Empire. The city
hosted the armies of the
First and the
Second Crusade; while passing through
during the
Third Crusade,
Frederick Barbarossa and his 190,000
crusaders saw Belgrade in ruins.
Capital of the
Kingdom of Syrmia
since 1284, the first
Serbian
king to rule over Belgrade was
Dragutin, who received it as a gift from his
father-in-law, the Hungarian king
Stephen V.Following the
Battle of Maritsa in 1371, and the
Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the
Serbian Empire began to crumble as
the
Ottoman Empire conquered its
southern territory. The north, however, resisted through the
Serbian Despotate, which had
Belgrade as its capital. The city flourished under
despot Stefan
Lazarević, son of the famous Serbian ruler
Lazar Hrebeljanović. Lazarević built a castle
with a citadel and towers, of which only the
Despot's tower and the west wall remain.
He also refortified the city's ancient walls, allowing the
Despotate to resist the Ottomans for almost 70 years. During this
time, Belgrade was a haven for the many Balkan peoples fleeing from
Ottoman rule, and is thought to have had a population of some
40–50,000.
In 1427,
Stefan's successor Đurađ
Branković had to return Belgrade to the Hungarians, and the capital was moved to
Smederevo
. During his reign, the Ottomans captured
most of the
Serbian Despotate,
unsuccessfully besieging Belgrade first in 1440 and again in 1456.
As it presented an obstacle to their further advance into
Central Europe, over 100,000 Ottoman soldiers
have launched the famous
Siege of
Belgrade, where the
Christian army
under
John Hunyadi successfully
defended the city from the Ottomans, wounding the Sultan
Mehmed II This battle "decided the fate of
Christendom"; the
noon bell
ordered by
Pope Callixtus III
commemorates the victory throughout the Christian world to this
day.
Turkish conquest / Austrian invasions
Belgrade in the 16th century
It wasn't
until August 28, 1521 (7 decades after the last siege), that the
fort was finally captured by Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent and his
250,000 soldiers; subsequently, most of the city was razed to the
ground and its entire Christian population (including Serbs,
Hungarians, Greeks, Armenians etc) was deported to Istanbul, to the area since known as the Belgrade forest. Belgrade was
made the seat of the district (
Sanjak),
attracting new inhabitants—
Turks,
Armenians,
Greeks,
Ragusan traders, and others, and
there was peace for the next 150 years.
The city became the
second largest Ottoman town in
Europe at over 100,000 people, surpassed only
by Constantinople
. Turkish rule also introduced
Ottoman architecture to Belgrade and
many
mosques were built, increasing the
city's
Oriental influences. In 1594, a
major
Serb rebellion was crushed by
the Turks.
Further on, Grand
vizier Sinan Pasha ordered the
relics of Saint Sava
to be publicly torched on the Vračar
plateau; more recently, the Temple of Saint Sava
was built to commemorate this event.
Occupied by
Austria three times
(1688–1690, 1717–1739, 1789–1791), headed by the
Holy Roman Princes Maximilian of Bavaria and
Eugene of Savoy, respectively, Belgrade was
quickly recaptured and substantially razed each time by the
Ottomans.
During this period, the city was affected by
the two Great Serbian
Migrations, in which hundreds of thousands of Serbs, led by
their patriarchs, retreated
together with the Austrians into the Habsburg Empire, settling in
today's Vojvodina
and Slavonia
.
Serbian capital
During the
First Serbian
Uprising, the Serbian revolutionaries held the city from
January 8, 1807 until 1813, when it was retaken by the Ottomans.
After the
Second Serbian
Uprising in 1815, Serbia reached semi-independence, which was
formally recognized by the
Porte in 1830.
In 1841,
Prince Mihailo Obrenović
moved the capital from Kragujevac
to Belgrade.
With the
Principality's full
independence in 1878, and its transformation into the Kingdom of
Serbia
in 1882, Belgrade once again became a key city in
the Balkans, and developed rapidly. Nevertheless,
conditions in Serbia as a whole remained those of an overwhelmingly
agrarian country, even with the opening of a railway to Niš, Serbia's second city, and in 1900 the capital had
only 70,000 inhabitants (at the time Serbia numbered 1,5
million). Yet by 1905 the population had grown to more
than 80,000, and by the outbreak of World
War I in 1914, it had surpassed the 100,000 citizens, not
counting Zemun which then
belonged to Austria-Hungary.
Knez Mihailova street at the end of
the 19th century
The first-ever projection of motion pictures in the
Balkans and
Central
Europe was held in Belgrade in June 1896 by Andre Carr, a
representative of the
Lumière brothers. He shot the
first motion pictures of Belgrade in the next year; however, they
have not been preserved.
World War I / Unified city
Gavrilo Princip's assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand
of Austria and his wife Sophie, Duchess of
Hohenberg, in Sarajevo
on June 28, 1914 triggered World War I. Most of the subsequent
Balkan offensives occurred near Belgrade.
Austro-Hungarian monitors shelled Belgrade on July 29,
1914, and it was taken by the
Austro-Hungarian Army under General
Oskar Potiorek on November 30. On
December 15, it was re-taken by
Serbian troops under Marshal
Radomir Putnik. After a prolonged
battle which destroyed much of the city, between October 6 and
October 9, 1915, Belgrade fell to
German
and Austro-Hungarian troops commanded by Field Marshal
August von Mackensen on October 9,
1915.
The
city was liberated by Serbian and French
troops on November 5, 1918, under the command of Marshal
Louis Franchet
d'Espérey of France
and Crown Prince Alexander of
Serbia. Decimated as the front-line city, for a
while it was Subotica
that was the largest city in the Kingdom
; still, Belgrade grew rapidly, retrieving its
position by the early 1920s.
After the
war, Belgrade became the capital of the new Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. The Kingdom was split into banovinas, and
Belgrade, together with Zemun and Pančevo
, formed a separate administrative
unit.
During this period, the city experienced faster growth and
significant modernisation.
Belgrade's population grew to 239,000 by
1931 (incorporating the town of Zemun, formerly in
Austria-Hungary), and 320,000 by 1940. The population growth
rate between 1921 and 1948 averaged 4.08% a year. In 1927,
Belgrade's first airport opened, and in 1929, its first radio
station began broadcasting.
The Pančevo Bridge
, which crosses the Danube, was opened in
1935.
World War II
On March 25, 1941, the government of
regent
Crown Prince Paul signed
the
Tripartite Pact, joining the
Axis powers in an effort
to stay out of the
Second World
War. This was immediately followed by mass protests in Belgrade
and a military
coup d'état led by
Air Force commander General
Dušan Simović, who proclaimed
King Peter II to be of age to
rule the realm. Consequently, the city was
heavily
bombed by the
Luftwaffe on April 6,
1941, and 24,000 people were killed.
Yugoslavia was then invaded by German, Italian,
Hungarian, and
Bulgarian
forces, and suburbs as far east as Zemun, in the
Belgrade metropolitan area, were incorporated into a Nazi puppet state, the Independent
State of Croatia
. Belgrade became the seat of
another puppet government, headed by
General
Milan Nedić.
During the summer and fall of 1941, in reprisal for guerrilla
attacks, Germans carried out several massacres of Belgrade
citizens; in particular, members of the
Jewish community were subject
to mass shootings at the order of General
Franz Böhme, the German Military Governor
of Serbia. Böhme rigorously enforced the rule that for every German
killed, 100 Serbs or Jews would be shot.
Belgrade had resistance to occupation authorities. Its commander
was Major Žarko Todorović Walter. He was arrested 1943rd and taken
in Mauthausen.
Belgrade was
bombed by the
Allies on
April 16, 1944, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing fell on
the
Orthodox Christian
Easter. Most of the
city remained under German occupation until October 20, 1944, when
it was liberated by
Red Army and the
Communist Yugoslav Partisans.
On November 29, 1945,
Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaimed
the Federal People's Republic of
Yugoslavia
in Belgrade (later to be renamed to Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
on April 7, 1963). The communist takeover
has resulted in estimated 70,000 deaths across Serbia, up to 10% of
which have been carried out in Belgrade.
Communist Yugoslavia
During the post-war period, Belgrade grew rapidly as the capital of
the renewed Yugoslavia, developing as a major industrial centre. In
1958, Belgrade's first television station began broadcasting. In
1961, the conference of
Non-Aligned
Countries was held in Belgrade under Tito's chairmanship. In
1968, major student protests against Tito led to several street
clashes between students and the police. In March 1972, Belgrade
was at the centre of
the last major outbreak
of smallpox in Europe, which, through enforced quarantine and
mass vaccination, was contained by late May.
Post-communist history
On March 9, 1991,
massive
demonstrations led by
Vuk
Drašković were held in the city against
Slobodan Milošević. According
to various media outlets, there were between 100,000 and 150,000
people on the streets. Two people were killed, 203 injured and 108
arrested during the protests, and later that day tanks were
deployed onto the streets to restore order.
Further protests were held in
Belgrade from November 1996 to February 1997 against the same
government after alleged electoral fraud at local elections. These
protests brought
Zoran
Đinđić to power, the first
mayor
of Belgrade since
World War II who
did not belong to the
League of Communists of
Yugoslavia or its later offshoot, the
Socialist Party of Serbia.
The
NATO bombing during the
Kosovo War in 1999 caused substantial
damage to the city.
Among the sites bombed were the buildings of
several ministries, the RTS building, which killed
16 technicians, several hospitals, the Jugoslavija Hotel, the
Central
Committee building
, the Avala TV Tower
, and the Chinese
embassy.
After the
elections
in 2000, Belgrade was the site of major street protests, with
over half a million people on the streets. These demonstrations
resulted in the
ousting of
president Milošević.
Names through history
Belgrade has had many different names throughout history, and in
nearly all languages the name translates as "the white city".
Serbian
name Beograd is a compound of beo (“white,
light”) and grad (“town, city”), and etymologically
corresponds to several other city names spread throughout the
Slavdom: Belgorod
, Białogard
, Biograd
etc.
|
Name |
Notes |
| Singidūn(o)- |
Named by the Celtic tribe of the Scordisci; dūn- means
'lodgment, enclosure, fort', and for word 'singi' there are several
theories—one being that it is a Celtic word for circle, hence
"round fort", and the other that the name originated from the
Sings, possibly a Thracian tribe that occupied the area prior to
the arrival of the Scordisci. Another theory suggests that the
Celtic name actually bears its modern meaning—the White Fort
(town). |
| Singidūnum |
Romans conquered the city and Romanised the Celtic name |
| Beograd, Београд |
Slavic name first mentioned in 878 as Beligrad in the
letter of Pope John VIII to Boris of
Bulgaria which means "White city / white fortress". |
| Alba Graeca, "Alba" may be derived from the Latin word for "white" |
Latin |
| Alba Bulgarica |
Latin name during the period of Bulgarian rule over the
city |
| Weißenburg and Griechisch-Weißenburg |
German translation. Modern
German is Belgrad. |
| Castelbianco |
Italian translation. Modern
Italian is Belgrado. |
| Nandoralba |
In medieval Hungary up to the
14th century |
| Nándorfehérvár, Landorfehérvár |
In medieval Hungary, means White Knight's City. Modern Hungarian is Belgrád. |
| Veligrad(i)on or Velegrada/Βελέγραδα |
Byzantine name. Modern Greek is Veligradi (Βελιγράδι). |
| Dar Al Jihad |
Arabic name during Ottoman
empire. |
| Prinz-Eugenstadt |
Planned German name of the city after the World War II, had it
remained a part of the Third Reich. The
city was to be named after Prince
Eugene of Savoy, the Austrian military commander who conquered
the city from the Turks in 1717. |
Government and politics
Belgrade is a separate territorial unit in Serbia, with its own
autonomous city government. The current
mayor is
Dragan Đilas of the
Democratic Party. The first mayor
to be
democratically elected after
World War II was
Dr. Zoran Đinđić, in 1996.
Mayors were also elected democratically prior to the war.
The Civic Assembly of Belgrade has 110 councilors who are elected
for four-year terms. The current majority parties are the same as
in the
Parliament of Serbia
(
Democratic Party-
G17 Plus and
Socialist Party of Serbia-
Party of United Pensioners
of Serbia with the support of
Liberal Democratic
Party), and in similar proportions, with the
Serbian Radical Party and the
Democratic Party of
Serbia-
New Serbia in
opposition.
As the capital city Belgrade also seats the
National Assembly,
Government and its agencies and hosts
64 foreign embassies.
Municipalities
The city is divided into 17 municipalities.
Most of the municipalities are situated on the southern side of the
Danube and
Sava rivers,
in the
Šumadija region.
Three municipalities
(Zemun, Novi
Beograd, and Surčin
) are on the
northern bank of the Sava, in the Syrmia
region, and
the municipality of Palilula
, spanning the Danube, is in both the Šumadija and
Banat regions.
Map of the municipalities of Belgrade
|
Name |
Area (km²) |
Population (1991) |
Population (2002) |
Barajevo |
213 |
20,846 |
24,641 |
Čukarica |
156 |
150,257 |
168,508 |
Grocka |
289 |
65,735 |
75,466 |
Lazarevac |
384 |
57,848 |
58,511 |
Mladenovac |
339 |
54,517 |
52,490 |
| Novi Beograd |
41 |
218,633 |
217,773 |
Obrenovac |
411 |
67,654 |
70,975 |
| Palilula |
451 |
150,208 |
155,902 |
Rakovica |
31 |
96,300 |
99,000 |
| Savski Venac |
14 |
45,961 |
42,505 |
Sopot |
271 |
19,977 |
20,390 |
Stari Grad |
5 |
68,552 |
55,543 |
| Surčin |
285 |
Part of Zemun
municipality until 2004. |
55,000 (est.) |
Voždovac |
148 |
156,373 |
151,768 |
| Vračar |
3 |
67,438 |
58,386 |
| Zemun |
154 |
176,158 |
136,645 |
Zvezdara |
32 |
135,694 |
132,621 |
| TOTAL |
3227 |
1,552,151 |
1,576,124 |
|
Source: Statistical Office of the Republic of
Serbia
|
Demographics
St. Mark's Church in Belgrade, SSW
view
According to the Census 2002, the main population groups according
to nationality in Belgrade are
Serbs (1,417
187),
Yugoslavs (22,161),
Montenegrins (21,190),
Roma (19,191),
Croats
(10,381),
Macedonians
(8,372), and
Muslims by
nationality (4,617). Recent polls (2007) show that Belgrade's
population has increased by 400,000 in just five years since the
last official Census was undertaken.
As of August 2, 2008, the city's Institute for Informatics and
Statistics has registered 1,542,773 eligible voters, which confirms
that Belgrade's population has risen dramatically since the 2002
Census, as the number of the registered voters has almost surpassed
the entire population of the city six years before. The official
estimate for the end of 2007 (according to the City's Institute for
Informatics and Statistics) was 1,630,000, while the number of
registered citizens altogether tops at 1,710,000.
Belgrade is home to many ethnicities from all over the former
Yugoslavia.
Many people came to the city as economic
migrants from smaller towns and the countryside, while thousands
arrived as refugees from Croatia
, Bosnia-Herzegovina
and Kosovo
, as a
result of the Yugoslav wars of the
1990s. Between 10,000 and 20,000
Chinese are estimated to live in Belgrade; they
began immigrating in the
mid-1990s.
Blok 70 in New Belgrade is known colloquially as the Chinese
quarter. Many Middle
Easterners, mainly from Syria
, Iran
, Jordan
and
Iraq
, arrived in order to pursue their studies during
the 1970s and 1980s, and have remained and started families in the
city. Afghani and Iraqi Kurdish refugees are among some of
the recent arrivals from the Middle East.
Although there are several historic religious communities in
Belgrade, the religious makeup of the city is relatively
homogenous. The
Serbian
Orthodox community is by far the largest, with 1,429,170
adherents. There are also 20,366
Muslims,
16,305
Roman Catholics, and
3,796
Protestants.
There used to be a
significant Jewish community, but following the
Nazi
occupation, and many Jews' subsequent emigration to Israel
, their
numbers have fallen to a mere 415.
Economy
Belgrade is the most
economically
developed part of Serbia, and is home to the country's
National Bank.
Many notable
companies are based in Belgrade, including Jat Airways, Telekom
Srbija, Telenor Serbia, Delta Holding, Comtrade group, regional centers for Société Générale,
Asus, Intel
, Motorola,MTV Adria,
Kraft Foods, Carlsberg, Microsoft,
OMV, Unilever, Zepter, Japan
Tobacco, P&G, and many
others.
The
troubled transition from the former
Yugoslavia
to the Federal
Republic
during the early 1990s left Belgrade, like the rest
of the country, severely affected by an internationally imposed
trade embargo. The
hyperinflation of the
Yugoslav dinar, the highest inflation ever
recorded in the world, decimated the city's economy. Yugoslavia
overcame the problems of inflation in the mid 1990s, and Belgrade
has been growing strongly ever since. Today, over 30% of Serbia's
GDP is generated by the city, which also has
over 30% of Serbia's employed population. The average monthly
income per capita is 47.500 RSD (€572, $903).According to the
Eurostat methodology, and contrasting
sharply to the Balkan region, 53% of the city's households own a
computer.
According to the same survey, 39.1% of
Belgrade's households have an internet connection; these figures
are above those of the regional capitals such as Sofia
, Bucharest and Athens.
Culture
Belgrade hosts many annual cultural events, including
FEST (Belgrade Film Festival),
BITEF (Belgrade Theatre Festival),
BELEF (Belgrade Summer Festival),
BEMUS (Belgrade Music Festival),
Belgrade Book Fair, and the Belgrade Beer
Festival. The
Nobel prize
winning author
Ivo Andrić wrote his
most famous work,
The Bridge on
the Drina, in Belgrade. Other prominent Belgrade authors
include
Branislav Nušić,
Miloš Crnjanski,
Borislav Pekić,
Milorad Pavić and
Meša Selimović. Most of
Serbia's film industry is based in
Belgrade; the 1995
Palme d'Or winning
Underground,
directed by
Emir Kusturica, was
produced in the city.
The city was one of the main centres of the
Yugoslav New Wave in the 1980s:
VIS Idoli,
Ekatarina
Velika and
Šarlo Akrobata
were all from Belgrade. Other notable Belgrade rock acts include
Riblja Čorba,
Bajaga i Instruktori and others. Today,
it is the centre of the
Serbian hip
hop scene, with acts such as
Beogradski Sindikat,
Škabo,
Marčelo, and
most of the
Bassivity Music stable hailing
from or living in the city.
There are numerous theatres, the most
prominent of which are National Theatre, Theatre on Terazije, Yugoslav
Drama Theatre
, Zvezdara Theatre,
and Atelier 212. The Serbian Academy of Sciences
and Arts is also based in Belgrade, as well as the National
Library of Serbia
. Belgrade's two opera houses are:
National Theatre and
Madlenianum Opera House.
Following the victory of Serbia's representative
Marija Šerifović at the
Eurovision Song Contest 2007, Belgrade hosted the
Eurovision Song Contest
2008.
Museums
Railway Museum
The most prominent museum in Belgrade is the
National Museum, founded in 1844;
it houses a collection of more than 400,000 exhibits, (over 5600
paintings and 8400 drawings and prints) including many foreign
masterpieces and the famous
Miroslavljevo Jevanđelje (Miroslav's
Gospel). The
Military
Museum houses a wide range of more than 25,000 military
exhibits dating as far back as to the
Roman
period, as well as parts of a
F-117
stealth aircraft shot down by Yugoslav forces.
The Museum of
Aviation in Belgrade
has more than 200 aircraft, of which about 50 are
on display, and a few of which are the only surviving examples of
their type, such as the Fiat G.50.
This
museum also displays parts of shot down US
and
NATO
aircraft, such as the F117 and
F16 The Ethnographic Museum,
established in 1901, contains more than 150,000 items showcasing
the rural and urban culture of the Balkans, particularly the
countries of the former Yugoslavia
. The Museum of
Contemporary Art
has a collection of around 8,540 works of art
produced in Yugoslavia since 1900.
The
Nikola Tesla
Museum
, founded in 1952, preserves the personal items
of Nikola Tesla, the inventor after
whom the Tesla unit was named.
It holds around 160,000 original documents and around 5,700 other
items. The last of the major Belgrade museums is the
Museum of Vuk and Dositej, which
showcases the lives, work and legacy of
Vuk Stefanović
Karadžić and
Dositej
Obradović, the 19th century reformer of the Serbian literary
language and the first Serbian Minister of Education, respectively.
Belgrade also houses the
Museum of African Art, founded
in 1977, which has the large collection of art from
West Africa.
With around 95,000 copies of national and international films, the
Yugoslav Film Archive is the
largest in the region and amongst the 10 largest archives in the
world. The institution also operates the Museum of Yugoslav Film
Archive, with movie theatre and exhibition hall. The archive's
long-standing storage problems were finally solved in 2007, when a
new modern depository was opened.
The
Museum of the City of
Belgrade will move into a new building in
Nemanjina Street, downtown. The Museum has
interesting exhibits such as the Belgrade Gospel (1503),
full plate armour from the
Battle of Kosovo, and various paintings and
graphics. In late 2008 construction will start on a new Museum of
Science and Technology.
Architecture
Belgrade
has wildly varying architecture, from
the centre of Zemun, typical of
a Central European town, to the more
modern architecture and spacious layout of New Belgrade. The oldest architecture is found in
Kalemegdan park. Outside of Kalemegdan, the oldest buildings date
only from 19th century, due to its geographic position and frequent
wars and destructions. The oldest public structure in Belgrade is a
nondescript Turkish
turbe, while the oldest
house is a modest clay house on
Dorćol,
from late 18th century. Western influence began in the 19th
century, when the city completely transformed from an oriental town
to the contemporary architecture of the time, with influences from
neoclassicism,
romanticism and
academic
art. Serbian architects took over the development from the
foreign builders in the late 19th century, producing the
National Theatre,
Old Palace,
Cathedral Church and later, in the early 20th
century, the
National
Assembly and
National
Museum, influenced by
art nouveau.
Elements
of Neo-Byzantine
architecture are present in buildings such as Vuk's Foundation, old Post Office in
Kosovska street, and sacral architecture, such as St. Mark's
Church
(based on the Gračanica monastery
), and the Temple of Saint Sava.
During
the period of Communist rule, much housing was built quickly and
cheaply to house the huge influx of people from the countryside
following World War II, sometimes resulting in the brutalist architecture of the
blokovi
(blocks) of New Belgrade; a socrealism trend briefly ruled, resulting in
buildings like the Trade
Union Hall. However, in the mid-1950s, the
modernist trends took over, and still dominate the
Belgrade architecture.
Tourism
The historic areas and buildings of Belgrade are among the city's
premier attractions.
They include Skadarlija
, the National
Museum and adjacent National Theatre, Zemun, Nikola Pašić
Square
, Terazije
, Students' Square,
the Kalemegdan
Fortress, Knez
Mihailova Street
, the
Parliament, the Temple of
Saint Sava, and the Old
Palace. On top of this, there are many parks, monuments,
museums, cafés, restaurants and shops on both sides of the river.
The
hilltop Avala Monument
offers views over the city. Josip Broz Tito's mausoleum, called Kuća
Cveća
(The House of Flowers), and the nearby
Topčider
and Košutnjak parks
are also popular, especially among visitors from the former
Yugoslavia.
There is also
Beli Dvor or 'White
Palace',house of Royal family
Karadjordjevic ,open for visitors. The palace
has many valuable works from
Rembrandt,
Nicolas Poussin,
Sebastien Bourdon,
Paolo Veronese,
Antonio Canaletto,
Biagio d'Antonio,
Giuseppe Crespi,
Franz Xaver Winterhalter,
Ivan Mestrovic, and others. 'White Palace' is
open for visitors.
Ada Ciganlija
is a former island on the Sava river, and Belgrade's biggest sports and
recreational complex. Today it is connected with the shore,
creating an artificial lake on the river. It is the most popular
destination for Belgraders during the city's hot summers. There are
7 kilometres of long beaches and sports facilities for various
sports including
golf,
football,
basketball,
volleyball,
rugby union,
baseball, and
tennis. During
summer there are between 200,000 and 300,000 bathers daily. Clubs
work 24 hours a day, organising live music and overnight beach
parties. Extreme sports are available, such as
bungee jumping,
water
skiing and
paintballing. There are
numerous tracks on the island, where it is possible to ride a bike,
go for a walk or go jogging. Apart from Ada, Belgrade has total of
16 islands on the rivers, many still unused.
Among them, the
Great War
Island
at the confluence of Sava, stands out as an oasis
of unshattered wildlife (especially birds). These areas, along
with nearby Small War
Island
, are protected by the city's government as a
nature preserve.
In the
Lonely Planet "1000 Ultimate
Experiences", Belgrade was placed at the 1st spot among the top 10
party cities in the world.
Nightlife
Belgrade has a reputation for offering a vibrant nightlife, and
many clubs that are open until dawn can be found throughout the
city. The most recognizable nightlife features of Belgrade are the
barges (сплавови,
splavovi) spread along the banks of the
Sava and Danube Rivers.
Many
weekend visitors—particularly from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia
—prefer Belgrade nightlife to that of their own
capitals, due to a perceived friendly atmosphere, great clubs and
bars, cheap drinks, the lack of language difficulties, and the lack
of restrictive night life regulation.
Famous alternative clubs include Akademija and the famed KST
(
Klub Studenata Tehnike) located in the basement of the
University of Belgrade's
Faculty of Electrical Engineering.
One of the most famous sites for
alternative cultural happenings in the city is the SKC (Student
Cultural Centre), located right across from Belgrade's highrise
landmark, the Beograđanka
. Concerts featuring famous local and foreign
bands are often held at the centre. SKC is also the site of various
art exhibitions, as well as public debates and discussions.
A more
traditional Serbian nightlife experience, accompanied by
traditional music known as Starogradska (roughly translated as
Old Town Music), typical of northern Serbia's urban
environments, is most prominent in Skadarlija, the city's old bohemian
neighbourhood where the poets and artists of Belgrade gathered in
the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Skadar
Street (the centre of Skadarlija) and the surrounding neighbourhood
are lined with some of Belgrade's best and oldest traditional
restaurants (called
kafanas in Serbian),
which date back to that period. At one end of the neighborhood
stands Belgrade's oldest beer brewery, founded in the first half of
the nineteenth century. One of the city's oldest kafanas is the
Znak pitanja.
The respected
Times newspaper in the UK
reported that Europe's best nightlife can be found in buzzing
Belgrade.
Sport
There are around a thousand sports facilities in Belgrade, many of
which are capable of serving all levels of sporting events.
Belgrade has hosted several relatively major sporting events
recently, including
Eurobasket 2005,
the
2005 European
Volleyball Championship, the 2006
European Water Polo
Championship, and the
European Youth Olympic
Festival 2007.
Belgrade was the host city of the 2009 Summer Universiade chosen over the cities
of Monterrey
and Poznań
.
The city
launched two unsuccessful candidate bids to organize the Summer Olympic: for the 1992 Summer Olympics Belgrade was
eliminated in the third round of International Olympic
Committee
voting, with the games going to Barcelona
. The 1996
Summer Olympics ultimately went to Atlanta
.
The city is home to Serbia's two biggest and most successful
football clubs,
Red Star Belgrade and
FK Partizan, as well as a few other first league
clubs.
The two major stadiums in Belgrade are the
Marakana (Red Star Stadium
) and the Partizan Stadium
. The rivalry between Red Star and Partizan
is one of the most famous capital derbies in eastern Europe and has
become known as the
Eternal
derby.
Belgrade Arena
is used for basketball matches, and in May 2008 it
was the venue of Eurovision
Song Contest 2008. Along with Pionir Hall
for KK Partizan and
KK Crvena zvezda while the Tašmajdan
Sports Centre
is used for water polo
matches.
In recent years, Belgrade has also given rise to several world
class tennis players such as
Ana
Ivanovic,
Jelena Jankovic,
Novak Djokovic.
Media
Belgrade is the most important media hub in Serbia. The city is
home to the main headquarters of the national broadcaster
Radio Television Serbia - RTS,
which is a public service broadcaster. The RTS record label, PGP
RTS, is also based in Belgrade. The most popular commercial
broadcaster is
RTV Pink, a Serbian media
multinational, known for its popular entertainment programs, which
are considered by many to be sensationalist and of low quality. The
most popular commercial "alternative" broadcaster is
B92, another media company, which has its own TV
station, radio station, and music and book publishing arms, as well
as the most popular website on the Serbian internet. Other TV
stations broadcasting from Belgrade include
Košava,
Avala,
Fox Televizija and others which only cover
the greater Belgrade municipal area, such as
Studio B. Numerous specialised channels are also
available: SOS channel (sport), Metropolis (music),
Art TV (art), Cinemania (film), and
Happy TV (children's programs).
High-circulation daily newspapers published in Belgrade include
Politika,
Blic,
Večernje novosti,
Glas javnosti,
Press and
Sportski žurnal. Other dailies
published in the city are
Danas, and
Kurir.
Novi Plamen is currently the most left-wing
magazine. A new free distribution daily,
24 sata, was founded in the autumn of
2006.
Education
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Architecture and Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade
Belgrade has two state universities and several private
institutions for higher education. The
Belgrade Higher School, founded in
1808, was the earliest location of higher education in Serbia and
all of the
Balkans.
The Lyceum followed in 1841, when it was moved from
Kragujevac to Belgrade, merging with the Great School
into the precursor of the University of Belgrade, one of the
oldest educational institutions in the country (the oldest higher
education facility, the Teacher's College in Subotica, dates from 1689). More than 90,000 students
study at the University. The
University of Belgrade's
Law School is the one of the foremost institutions for legal
education in
Southeastern
Europe.
There are also 195 primary (elementary) schools and 85 secondary
schools. Of the primary schools, there are 162 regular, 14 special,
15 art and 4 adult schools. The secondary school system has 51
vocational schools, 21 gymnasiums, 8 art schools and 5 special
schools. The 230,000 pupils are managed by 22,000 employees in over
500 buildings, covering around 1,100,000 m².
Transportation
Belgrade has an extensive public transport system based on
buses (118 urban lines and more than 300 suburban
lines),
trams (12 lines), and
trolleybuses (8 lines). It is run by
GSP Beograd and
SP
Lasta, in cooperation with private companies on various bus
routes. Belgrade also has a
commuter
rail network,
Beovoz, now run by city
government.The main railway station connects Belgrade with other
European capitals and many towns in Serbia. Travel by
coach is also popular, and the capital is
well-served with daily connections to every town in the country.
The
motorway system provides for easy access to
Novi
Sad
and Budapest
, the capital of Hungary
, in the north; Niš to the
south; and Zagreb
, to the
west. Situated at the confluence of two major
rivers, the Danube and the Sava, Belgrade has 7 bridges—the two
main ones are Branko's
bridge
and Gazela
, both of which connect the core of the city to
New
Belgrade. With
the city's expansion and a substantial increase in the number of
vehicles, congestion has become a major problem; this is expected
to be alleviated by the construction of a
bypass connecting the
E70 and
E75
highways. Further, an "inner magistral semi-ring" is planned,
including a new
Ada Bridge across the
Sava river, which is expected to ease
commuting within the city and unload the Gazela
and Branko's bridge. Two additional bridges are planned, both over
the Danube.
Underground station
Vukov
spomenik
The
Port of
Belgrade
is on the Danube, and allows the city to
receive goods by river. The city is also served by Belgrade
Nikola Tesla Airport
(IATA: BEG),
12 kilometres west of the city centre, near Surčin. At its peak in 1986, almost 3 million
passengers travelled through the airport, though that number
dwindled to a trickle in the 1990s. Following renewed growth in
2000, the number of passengers reached approximately 2 million in
2004 and 2005. In 2006, 2 million passengers passed through the
airport by mid-November, while during the 2007 the figure peaked at
2,5 million customers.
Beovoz is the suburban/commuter railway network that
provides mass-transit service in the
city, similar to Paris
's RER
and
Toronto
's GO Transit. The
main usage of today's system is to connect the suburbs with
downtown. Beovoz is operated by
Serbian
Railways. Belgrade suburban railway system connects suburbs and
nearby cities to the west, north and south of the city. It began
operation in
1992 and currently has 5 lines
with 41 stations divided in two zones. Stations in the city center
are built underground, out of which station
Vukov spomenik
is the deepest at 40 meters.
While Belgrade does not have a metro/subway, it has been planned.
The
Belgrade Metro project is
considered to be the third most important in the country, after
work on roads and railways. The two projects which have priority
are the
Belgrade bypass and
Corridor X .
International cooperation and honours
These are the official sister cities of Belgrade:
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Some of the city's municipalities are also twinned to small cities
or districts of other big cities, for details see their respective
articles.
Other similar forms of cooperation and city friendship:
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Letters of Intent signed with capital cities of former
Yugoslavia:
The City
of Belgrade has received various domestic and international
honours, including the French Légion
d'honneur (proclaimed December 21, 1920; Belgrade is one of
four cities outside France, alongside Liège
, Luxembourg
and Volgograd
, to receive this honour), the Czechoslovak
War Cross
(awarded October 8, 1925), the Yugoslavian Karađorđe's Star with
Swords (awarded May 18, 1939) and the SFR
Yugoslavian Order of the
National Hero (proclaimed on October 20, 1974, the 30th
anniversary of the overthrow of Nazi
German occupation during World War
II). All of these decorations were received for the war
efforts during the
World War I and
World War II. In 2006,
Financial Times' magazine
Foreign Direct Investment awarded Belgrade
the title of
City of the Future of Southern Europe.
In 2008,
the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC),
based at the geography department of Loughborough University
, published their roster of leading world
cities. Belgrade is in the fourth category out of five on
this list, being listed in the group of the cities with a "high
sufficiency" world presence.
See also
References
-
http://www.beogradskatvrdjava.co.rs/start/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=378
- The History of Belgrade
- Hungary: A Brief History
- ISBN 86-17-09287-4: Kosta Nikolić, Nikola Žutić, Momčilo
Pavlović, Zorica Špadijer: Историја за трећи разред гимназије,
Belgrade, 2002, pg. 144
-
http://www.napredniklub.org/tekstovi.php?subaction=showfull&id=1255532834&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&
- Refugee Serbs Assail Belgrade Government:
The Washington Post, Tuesday, June
22, 1999.
- Stranci tanje budžet Novosti - Vecernje novosti -
Beograd
- Asus otvorio regionalni centar u Beogradu ::
emportal :: Ekonomske vesti iz Srbije
- Beograd će biti regionalni centar :: emportal ::
Ekonomske vesti iz Srbije
- Procter&Gamble Belgrade
- Almost 98% of companies in Serbia are
computerised - Economy.rs
- http://www.balkantravellers.com/en/read/article/1600
- Železnice Srbije - Red voznje Beovoz-a
- Grad Beograd - Beovoz
- “Vukov Spomenik” Beograd, Srbija
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