GAETZ KOHN BOOKSTORE

 This bookstore, as you will read below, has been around a long time. It is located on Belgrade's pedestrian street, Knez Mihailova where I often walk. A couple of months ago, I noticed there was a sign that said they were renovating...which is more often than not a sign of impending doom for the original shop.

Fortunately, such was not the case, and I am happy to say that the renovation is completed and done without major modernization. Just spiffed up!

Here's what Wiki says about the person for whom the bookstore was named (In Serbian his name is transcribed as Geca Kon): Geca Kon also spelled Gaetz Kohn (Serbian Cyrillic: Геца Кон; 2 August 1873 – 1941) was a Serbian publisher.

His father was a rich rabbi and was the director of an elementary school. Unable to complete school, Kon moved to Belgrade in 1889. In Belgrade, he found work in the bookshop owned by Frederick Breslauer. He worked in the shop until 1894, then moved to Novi Sad, staying there for a year.

In 1901 he established a bookselling and publishing business which soon became the largest in Yugoslavia. From his premises in Belgrade he published over 3,500 books before his business was closed in 1941 with the Axis Invasion of Yugoslavia.

He was attacked for being Jewish in the anti-semitic journal Balkan and arrested when the German army arrived in Belgrade.

UROS PREDIC LIVED AND WORKED HERE

For many years and in many cities I have seen plaques on walls commemorating a notable person.

I am truly surprised I never saw this one  before, since it is on a wall that I very frequently pass by.

 Here is what Wiki says about the painter Uros Predic (OOR-ush PRAY-deetch) and his very well-known painting, the Kosovo Maiden:

"The Kosovo Maiden or Maiden of the Blackbird Field (Serbian: Косовка девојка / Kosovka devojka) is the central figure of a poem with the same name, part of the Kosovo cycle in the Serbian epic poetry. In it, a young beauty searches the battlefield for her betrothed husband and helps wounded Serbian warriors with water, wine and bread after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 between Serbia and the Ottoman Empire. She finally finds the wounded and dying warrior Pavle Orlović who tells her that her fiancé Milan Toplica and his blood-brothers Miloš Obilić and Ivan Kosančić are dead. Before the battle they had given her a cloak, golden ring and veil for the wedding as a promise of safe return, but they were slain and Pavle pointed to the direction of the bodies. The poem finishes with;

"O wretch! Evil is your fortune!
If I, a wretch, were to grasp a green pine,
Even the green pine would wither."

The poem became very popular as a symbol of womanly compassion and charity. Uroš Predić took up the theme in 1919 with an oil painting of the same title. In 1907, the sculptor Ivan Meštrović created a marble relief of the subject as a part of his Kosovo cycle. Another Croatian artist, Mirko Rački, painted a version of Kosovo Maiden."

Here's the painting. And today marks the beginning of another dark era in Serbian history, the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

 

KITTY AT #14

 Cats kind of freak me out. They either sneak up on you or else just sit and stare....  As you know, I am a dog person, but I have met some cats I like. Not sure about this one.

MONDAY MURALS---loong mural

 Took this with my little Minox Mini and the quality isn't so great because of lack of lighting. I think this is supposed to  be a mural of Belgrade, but I am not sure what the spired church on the far right is...

See other murals on MONDAY MURALS.

MARCH IS BUSTIN' OUT ALL OVER

 Wait....that should be "June is bustin' out all over," as goes the song from Rogers and Hammerstein's 1945 musical Carousel. Be that as it may, the blossoms beside St. mark's cathedral impart beauty to an otherwise gloomy series of days. It is still cold, wet, and cloudy.

Personally, I don't care if it stays that way until August, if only this virus would go away....

PAVLE STILL SITTING ON AIR

 I've shown you this statue before last December and explained the story behind it. That last post wasn't such a clear photo, and this one is more colorful and clearer. Note that the tram was a present from Switzerland....in 2015. There are spiffy new ones now, too...not just these oldies. 

SORT OF SYMMETRY

 Today, like yesterday, was a miserable day. Today so far is worse. Started out ok, then it got really cold, rained a little. I literally just made it back from a dog walk when the sky broke and rainy slush poured down.

So, with this weather and not in a great mood, I snapped this photo out my back window. Not a beautiful view, but suits the weather at the moment.

COME LIVE AT THE US EMBASSY

 These are the buildings (foreground, not the higher-risers in the back) of the former US Embassy in Belgrade. Years back a stipulation came into vigor that US embassies have to be a certain distance from the street, so its present location is much farther away and set back....surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable wall. Little chance of getting a photo of that.  I tried to find a photo online, but they are non-existent or else blurred out.  Sign of the times, maybe, but most other major embassies I googled have photos.

Anyway, now the old embassy is a luxury apartment building...

ALIEN ATTACK

 Maybe I should have saved this for April 1st Theme Day. But I am running out of photos...

LAST SUNSET BEFORE HOME...

Last sunset from our stay at Mount Pancic in the Kopaonik Mountain range. See other skies on SKYWATCH

LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG

...even on the slopes. Spotted on a recent getaway from Belgrade.