Spring cleaning

Right now Belgrade is doing its spring cleaning. Workers from the city's official park service are around, quite visible in their grass green overalls, tidying up here and there. With the better weather and blossoms (just starting!) comes a desire to spruce up one's surroundings. This lady is using an old-fashioned twig broom (still sold on markets for around 100 dinars or $1.50) to sweep inside one of Kalemegdan's passageways. Notice the mish-mash of stones and brick again!

The Golden Years

Many who walk in Kalemegdan are retired people, especially on weekday mornings and afternoons. They sit on benches bemoaning their meager pension checks, recalling stories from their youth, or engaging in a game of chess. Kalemegdan is also home to Belgrade's zoo, and a doting grandma (baka; BAH-kuh) or indulgent grandpa (deda; DAY-duh) often treat their grandchildren to a visit. This "deda" appears to be headed for the statue of The Victor, visible in the distance.

Patchwork wall

It's still a bit nippy here, but this gentleman is out for a stroll in Belgrade's famous park, Kalemegdan, whose name is derived from two Turkish words kale (fortress) and megdan (battlefield). Kalemegdan has a very long history, going back at least to Roman times. It was destroyed several times by invaders, rebuilt as a castle by the Byzantines in the 12th century, and in the 14th century became the capital of the Serbian kingdom. The wall behind the walker tells the story of successive rebuildings.

Here's a photo of part of Kalemegdan fortress with Ivan Meštrović's (died 1962) famous statue The Victor (Pobednik). The statue, now a symbol of Belgrade, was originally intended to stand in the center of Belgrade, but in 1928 protests against having a naked male statue downtown resulted in its being placed in Kalemegdan, a public park!

Buddha in Belgrade

Nope, this isn't a Buddhist temple; far from it! It's one of Belgrade's many floating restaurants/cafes/discothèques (splavovi, in Serbian) that line the riverbanks of the Sava and Danube rivers. These are tremendously popular places, especially in the summertime. The back of this one is visible in yesterday's photo taken from the Old Belgrade side.

NATO Bombing anniversary

This is a view from Belgrade's ancient fortress, Kalemegdan, looking across the Sava river toward New Belgrade. The tall building is the Ušće (OOsh-chay) Tower, built in 1964 as the communist party headquarters, and is the tallest building in the Balkans. During the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, 12 Tomahawk missiles were fired at this building when no one was inside, and amazingly the structure withstood these attacks. It originally measured 105 meters, but has been renovated and now stands 134 meters tall. An adjacent twin tower and a megamarket/shopping center are scheduled to be completed in 2010.

The Eternal Flame

The Eternal Flame (Večna Vatra), unveiled by former president Slobodan Milošević on June 21st, 2000, is located in Friendship Park (Park Prijateljstva) on Belgrade's famous river area Ušće (OOsh-chay), In this park during Tito's rule many visiting politicians anddignitaries were invited to plant a tree. Due to its convenient location and wide-open spaces, Ušće, (meaning "river mouth," for it is located where the Sava and Danube rivers meet), has been the site of many meetings and concerts over the years, including the recent Rolling Stones' "Bigger Bang" tour in July 2007. The monument itself rises from behind this wall, not from it.

Janos Hunyadi's Tower

Gardoš Tower is a major historical landmark of Zemun, located on Gardoš hill on the right bank of the Danube where Zemun was built. The neighborhood has preserved its narrow, still mostly cobblestoned and quaint houses, and half of the neighborhood is occupied by Zemun's largest graveyard. .. The area has become fashionable place for strolls and leisure activities since the 1990s. This tower, referred to as the Millenium Tower, was built and opened in 1896 to celebrate 1000 years of Hungarian settlement on the Pannonian Plain. (Remember, Zemun was also once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.) Janos Hunyadi was a 15th century Hungarian military leader.

Looking west from Senjak

Look at all the chimneys in this photo, looking westward from a hill in the Senjak (SEN-yak) part of town. Though this photo looks down on Belgrade's hippodrome, several dilapidated factories and post-war high-rises, most of Senjak (behind me when I took this photo) is a wealthy neighborhood consisting of beautiful mansions. (Be patient...) The area got its name long ago when farmers used to keep their hay all around Belgrade, and fires were quite frequent. It was then made mandatory that hay had to be kept in one place, and so Senjak was chosen. (The Serbian word for hay is seno.) After WWII when the communists took over, Senjak shared the same fate as another nearby posh neighborhood, Dedinje. They declared almost all well-off residents as state enemies and forced them out of their mansions, and they and the military elite moved in.... Often drastic measures were used to remove the upper class, and many fled the country for their lives, while many unfortunate ones were taken into a nearby forest and shot. Their bodies lay for decades in unmarked graves until they were discovered by construction workers clearing trees for a new soccer field. Nowadays, many ambassadors' residences and several international schools are located in Senjak.

Monument to Victims of Belgrade Concentration Camp

In 1938, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia held an international fair on an area in New Belgrade now known as the Staro Sajmište, or "old fairgrounds," for larger ones have been built since further down the river. In 1941 Germany and its allies occupied and partitioned the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, taking over the entire region known as Srem (including the left bank of the Sava), and made it formally a part of the Independent State of Croatia where a puppet regime had been set up. The Gestapo took over the Sajmište, surrounding it with barbed wire to create a "collection center," i.e. prison. It eventually became a concentration camp where until May 1942 the Germans exterminated Jews, gypsies, and Serbs from Belgrade and other parts of the Kingdom, and liquidation of captured prisoners lasted as long as the camp existed. Around 48,000 people perished inside the camp. The monument seen in this photograph, honoring Sajmište victims, was unveiled on April 21st, 1995, a day before the 50-year anniversary of Hitler's defeat. You can see part of Old Belgrade across the river.

Anchors away!

This anchor (no idea where the ship has gone...) is located on Belgrade's largest river island, Ada Ciganlija (Ah-da Tsee-GAHN-lee-ya), an 8-acre recreational area in the Sava river, which boasts a recreation center, including a golf course, tennis and basketball courts, soccer field, playgrounds, and so on, in addition to its 4.2 km beach, which attracts thousands of sun-loving Belgraders in the summertime. The lake (located on the other side of the island from this photo) features a 140 water-jet geyser, too. There's also a nature reserve where you can stroll and find various kinds of wildlife and trees, some of which are protected species. The island is sometimes referred to by foreigners as "gypsy island," since "cigan" (TSEE-gahn) is the local word for "gypsy," but the word actually comes from an ancient Celtic word for "submerged land". In the distance in this photo you can see the part of Belgrade near which yesterday's photo was taken.