Fall Break in Belgrade

Last November for Fall Break I once again journeyed to a new city and country to celebrate my birthday with friends. It was time, after more than 25 years, to travel to Serbia. If you have read the previous blog posts (Oct 2018; August 2019)  where I shared about my affinity for Bosnia, then you might understand my need to visit the country that was on the other side of what is referred to as “The Bosnian War.” I confess that because of my experiences as a soldier in Bosnia and Croatia in 1998-99, as well as most of the films and books I have consumed about the conflict since that time, I have always felt that Serbia was the “bad guy,” the aggressor. Therefore I wanted to expose myself to the other country and its people–it was time to round out my opinion and understanding.

For this birthday I was fortunate to have two girlfriends join me for the fun: Doreen (from Malta, but currently retired and living in Dalyan, Türkiye) and Kate (from Canada, but living and working in Saudi Arabia). Doreen and Kate had met in the summer when Kate spent a week of her summer vacation with me in Dalyan.

I enjoy planning and organizing travel–whether it be for myself, or for others. These two women kindly allowed me to make the itinerary for our 6 days and 5 nights in Belgrade. While I love making a plan, I also know that things can change and therefore I leave space for options. That said, here is what our itinerary looked like with alternations noted:

The weather was cold and we were socked in under clouds for our entire stay. It rained a bit on the first evening. I saw sunlight and blue skies only on the day I left for the airport to return home.

I found Belgrade to be urban and gritty. Graffiti is everywhere–pretty much on every building–and while there are some murals (as seen in the featured photo collage on this post), most of the graffiti is simple and ordinary tagging. You can get a sense of it by watching this video which I captured walking around one night.  I felt safe walking around the city and found myself often walking in the evenings on my own as my companions preferred to sit in the comfort of our AirBNB. We found a very nice one located in the center of downtown making it easy to walk to markets and to meet our host of walking and day tour departure points.

The first thing that comes to mind about our visit is the history. Belgrade is an old city and has seen many struggles and conflicts. If I recall correctly our walking tour guide said it has seen 117 battles. The impressive Kalemegdan Fortress sits in the center of the city and provides a nice view over the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. While there is plenty of ancient history to be learned about Serbia, my historical fascinations lie in the former Yugoslavia as well as the events that followed the disintegration of the former Republic of Yugoslavia. People often ask me why I have this/these interests.

I think some of it comes from that first awareness of the world-at-large, in my youth, when the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl occurred. I wrote about that in my post about visiting the site. With my initial interest ignited in the 80s, then I visited Bosnia and Croatia as a young soldier in the 1990s (immediate years after the downfall of Yugoslavia).  

Finally, I then lived in Mongolia for three years and felt the aftermath of Soviet influence there. For these reasons I have a fascination with the time period of Soviet Communism as well as its downfall in the 1990s, both in former Soviet Republics and in countries that used to be part of the Republic of Yugoslavia. And these are the sites and locations that populate my “To Visit” list for the coming years.

In Belgrade I booked us for a private “Communist Tour” to feed this fascination of mine. I suspect my travel companions were a bit bored, but I was fascinated! For nearly four hours we walked and listened to our guide, Novica. He was well-informed on the subject and answered any and all questions we had. We learned about key events (bombing of the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense building in Belgrade in 1999) and the current political climate, and then wrapped up our time together at the Museum of Yugoslavia which had me surprised to find myself standing next to the remains of Marshal Josep Broz Tito, the sole leader of the Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 until his death in 1980. Having visited the mausoleum of Atatürk in 2023 where one is tens of meters away from the remains, I was caught off guard when I looked down to see I could touch the marble of Tito’s final resting place. Resting beside him are the remains of his third wife, Jovanka.

One of my favorite places in Belgrade ended up being the restaurant/bar, Kafana SFRJ (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), that was littered with Yugoslavia paraphernalia. It helped that the food was incredibly delicious. It was so good that I went back in my final two hours in Belgrade to have one more meal and a local brew. Kafana is an interesting word coming from Turkish. It is a blend of “kahve” (coffee) and “hane” (place) and used to traditionally be coffeehouses where people gathered to chat. While it can still be a coffeehouse, it has grown to include restaurants.

As you can see in the itinerary, we visited a number of interesting sites–from Saint Sava Church to the Nikola Tesla Museum to a day trip to Novi Sad, the second largest city in Serbia. For celebrating my 51st birthday we did two things. At midnight when my birthday began, Doreen and I were enjoying unique entertainment at Lafayette Cabaret Club. And what a show it was! Singing. Dancing. Pyrotechnics. And a huge boa constrictor! It is a swanky place and pricey, but also very much worth the experience. The show went on for over three hours and they played a huge variety of music styles and genres. If you want to get a sense of it, check out my playlist on YouTube with an assortment of performance shorts. It was fun to get dressed up and have a night out on the town.

We also went to dinner that last night to celebrate my birthday. But I can’t say I would single that establishment out. EVERY restaurant we ate at had incredible food. Kate and I were in pork heaven! While I liked everything I ate, my favorite dish was the simple grilled sausages. They are featured the photo collage below. Actually every plate pictured includes pork in some form! I can get pork in Turkey to cook at home, but I have not encountered it in any restaurant. For this reason I took advantage of enjoying it off every menu in Serbia. 

We found Serbians to be kind and helpful. Many of them can speak some level of English, especially those younger than 40. According to the guide of our city walking tour, schools currently teach Serbian (with both cyrillic and latin alphabets) and English to all students. 

I initiated conversations with the three tour guides (City walking tour, Communist tour, and Day Trip tour to Novi Sad) we had, each in their 30s I would say, to learn their feelings or thoughts regarding the man at the center of the Bosnian War, Slobodan Milosevic. As is often the case when atrocities and genocide are committed, it is because of a power-hungry and evil leader. None of the people I spoke with said anything nice about Milosevic and shared about the various protests that went on during his time–the people NOT showing support for him. Through these conversations I was able to discern that while Serbia was the aggressor of many horrible events (Srebrenica, the siege of Sarajevo, etc) it was really Milosevic and his henchmen/followers. The Serbian people at large did not align with him. As with most tyrants and dictators (or wanna-be-dictators as we have in this modern but regressing time) we must separate the masses from their leader. Milosevic was a horrible human being. IF I believed in the idea of heaven and hell, then I would take comfort in knowing he is serving out his time in the worst kind of hell reserved for those that order atrocities and genocide. Enough about evil and the dark historical side of Serbia.

Let’s take a moment and recognize that in Belgrade there are the remains of a man that we can all agree did good for mankind. Kate and I visited the Nikola Tesla museum, a small but very well-arranged and organized museum. Inside I was surprised to discover Tesla’s ashes encased in a spherical urn–because he said it was the most perfect shape. 

I will wrap things up by saying I enjoyed very much my time and exploration of Belgrade and Serbia. Of course it was a short trip and only the surface, of what there is to see and do and know, was scratched. I would like to return in the late spring or early fall, when the weather is more agreeable, and sit outside at a pub in the Skardarlija district of the city, drinking a cold local brew and enjoying a platter of grilled sausages with friends. There is still a lot of history I would like to know and understand about this country and its people. But life is short and there are many places to visit. Who knows if I will make it back; I am glad I went.