Welcome back to our Yugoslavian Adventures Series! In Part VI of our tour, we finally made it to Serbia! We enjoyed the picturesque Balkan landscape on our way from Sarajevo to Belgrade and visited Serbia's most famous church – the St. Sava Cathedral. We also discussed two very important figures in Serbian history: Saint Sava and Karađorđe.
If you haven't been with us in Part VI, I really recommend you to revisit it. But today we are going downtown!
Hotel Moskva
Downtown Belgrade has a lot to offer and is architecturally and historically so diverse that it is hard to pick a good starting point. However, since I am Russian, I have a certain bias for Hotel Moskva – formerly also known as Russian Palace – so let's go there first.
This majestic 19th century structure is one of Belgrade's most recognisable landmarks and used to stand out from its skyline with only two other buildings of comparable prominence when it was opened on January 14th, 1908.
Originally, the location of Hotel Moskva was occupied by a small inn that was called Velika Srbija ("Great Serbia") . In 1904, the inn was acquired by Serbian businessman Svetozar Vukadinović, who had something much greater in mind for this place. Vukadinović went to St. Petersburg – back then the capital of the Russian Empire – to secure funding for a magnificent palace. And he was successfull.
His financing came from a Russian insurance company called Rossiya and it established its own Serbian headquarters in the Russian Palace. Unfortunately, Rossiya had to leave the building only a few years after the grand opening, since the Communist October Revolution devastated the Russian Empire in 1917 and turned it into the Soviet Union.
Even worse, when the German Wehrmacht occupied Belgrade in WWII, they not only removed all references to Russia and changed the name back to Velika Srbija (the name of the old inn), they also looted all of the palace's decorations and silverware.
Knez Mihailova Street
Going down the road from Hotel Moskva, we reach the Knez Mihailova Street – Belgrade's most majestic street named after Mihailo Obrenović, a 19th century Serbian prince. If you enjoy recreational shopping, Knez Mihailova offers the best opportunities to buy some souvenirs or enjoy some coffee among illustrious mansions of the late 19th century. Going down Knez Mihailova Street will eventually lead us to the Tvrdjava, the old Fortress of Belgrade – but we will visit it in a later part.
Small sculpture found in Knez Mihailova Street. I first thought it was Serbia's Kilometre Zero, but the inscription calls it the Belgrade Meridian and it apparently indicates Belgrade's Eastern longitude (for whatever reason). The masonic symbolism is also quite obvious.
Some of the buildings look vaguely Russian to me. I read that this is because Belgrade had a large diaspora of Russian intellectuals and architects during the inter-war period (emigrees who fled the October Revolution).
If my memory serves me right, this is near the exit towards the Tvrdjava.
"First Croatian Savings Bank"
Republic Square
Our last destination for today is Republic Square. Republic Square is surrounded by the National Museum, the National Theater, and a Statue of Mihailo Obrenović, after whom Knez Mihailo Street is named. As you can see, the face of the National Museum was under renovation when I visited.
Quite typical for the Balkans. Graffity is literally everywhere, even on the monuments. The inscription says "Serbia is thankful to Knez (Prince) Mihailo Obrenović III.
The National Theater building on Republic Square.
There isn't much I can write about here, but I visited the exhibition in the National Museum and have some nice photos. It was mostly dedicated to Serbian Christianity and featured many beautiful medieval icons. I hope that you will enjoy the pictures and forgive me for the lack of commentary in this part.
Entrance to the national museum.
Serbian Orthodox icons.
Early stone sculpture of Christ.
Prehistoric human artifact.
Ancient Greek bronze mask.
TO BE CONTINUED
That's it for today! I hope you will stay with me for more parts, as the best is yet to come. I don't want to overpromise or underpromise anything for the next part, so I want make an announcement this time about what we are going to visit in the upcoming part VIII. I always end up writing and researching more than I initially think!
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The Republuc Square is similar to a square in Washington DC here in the states. I'd say its mostly rectangular strip actually. The Museum of Natural History, National Mall, and Federal Reserve are located there.
Its also kinda strange to see that graffiti, here in the US we seem to immediately eradicate graffiti on monuments and then proceed to horrifyingly talk about it on the news.
Yeah, we have absolutely no graffity in Belarus either. However, it is pretty much omnipresent in the Balkan region.
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Lovely pictures and nice history segments, would love to visit Belgrade as well! Thank you!
Oh thanks, finally someone appreciating the history segments. :)
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Don't think I'll ever have the time/money to visit these areas, so I really enjoy looking at the pics in your posts. Keep it up.
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