Beyond Moravita and the Border

I sort of unintentionally ended up being invited on a trip to Belgrade. So I was lucky. My travel companions had their own reasons to go: living a few hours away, a best friend who lived their for several years, a course a few years ago in Serbo-Croatian, not to mention the exciting election they were all looking forward to. So I boarded the train with them and headed off on my first international train adventure since arriving in Romania.

Belgrade, it turns out, is beautiful (which tends to be my opinion of any city I visit). The people are ridiculously friendly – I felt like someone visiting the U.S., awestruck by the comfortable anonymity combined with the overwhelming approachability of the people around me.

We spent two days (well, one day and half of the next one) wandering around the city, stopping in restaurants for massive meals of meat, cheese, yummy bread, and lots of tomato and cucumber salads. Somehow, being vegetarian became an issue and every Serb I met told me I wouldn’t find anything to eat. But cheese revealed itself as a true staple of my eastern European diet, in every form. Srpska salad, svopska salad, and Greek salad also pulled through once again. But to be honest, I wasn’t there for the food…

Belgrade has this strange combination of feeling like a totally developed city (compared, at least, to Romanian cities) while demonstrating a visible history of degradation. In spite of the fact it was bombed less than a decade ago, its churches, theatres, government buildings, and squares glitter in the sunlight. Families fill up the parks surrounding them, playing with “guns” (twigs from trees) or on playgrounds. The fortress (which we unfortunately did not get to visit during daylight) somehow explains that resilience – its strategic location in a way shows how Belgrade has survived as a city for so long. Yet in spite of all that seeming glory, there are some remnants of bombed buildings.

The thing that really attracted me to Belgrade is the construction that I saw everywhere. This is the same thing that attracts me to Berlin, which is an entirely different city but I think this link is somewhat enlightening. Both of these cities have fluidity to them – the construction signals change. In Berlin it’s on an entirely different scale, but in both cities you can tell that people are not giving up. People have a claim to their city and have somehow created the energy it takes to carry out all those projects.

With those thoughts, here are some photos from the city – mostly street art and sunlight.