Belgrade

We disembarked from the train around 7:30 in the morning on the 14th of July, having arrived in Београд (Belgrade). The night was spent sleeping on the uncomfortable chairs (I spent a little time sleeping on the floor because of it)

Brian and I went to the ATM, where I took out 5,000 Serbian Dinars (about $50). It didn't last long, though. We immediately went to the ticket window at the train station to get our ticket to the next destination, Zagreb. We had not time to spend too long in Belgrade, as Brian had planned a ridiculous whirlwind tour of two cities in two days.

We tried to buy a ticket for the 15:15 to Zagreb, only to be told that they only had a 15:50. This would normally have been acceptable, but Brian had done extensive research on the train schedule, and knew that there was no 15:50, only a 15:50. We didn't buy the tickets, because they cost more than 5,000 for both. It was fortunate, too, since we found out shortly afterwards that the 15:50 was a bus to Zagreb, and the 15:15, which was shorter in duration, was the train. We got the train tickets, avoiding a costly mistake.

We sat for a little while in a pastry shop adjacent to the bus ticket windows, eating a delicious pastry and researching what there is to do in the city. After a time, we embarked on our self-guided walking tour of Belgrade.

Shortly after leaving the train station, we came across the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense -- or at least all that remains of it. Brian and I were joking about the as-of-yet-unidentified building, saying how it had clearly been bombed. Only later did we realize that the building was indeed one of the targets of the 1999 NATO bombings in Belgrade, a grim reminder of the fighting and killing that had occurred only 13 years ago.

Our first real destination we, well, never got to. Farther in the south of the center of the city is the Presidential Palace, as well as a few interesting sounding museums (both Brian and I have a natural distaste for museums, but there are some that do intrigue, one of which I will get to in a moment).

It was a farther walk than we had anticipated, so when we got to St. Sava, which we had originally planned to go to on our way north to the Danube (Serbia is another of many a city on the Danube, this time at the confluence of that famous river and the Sava), we went inside instead of bypassing it and resolved to walk north from there.

The church was empty, perhaps because it was not that popular a sight, perhaps because it was under renovations (or finishing touches, it is unclear), but more likely because we had arrived around 8am. The Храм Светог Саве, Cathedral of Saint Sava, is the largest church in the Balkans, built in the Orthodox style only in 1989. It is, however, the 10th largest church building in the world, and by volume is the biggest in the world. Inside the walls were scarcely adorned, allowing one to be swallowed inside the massive cavernous domes and imposing archways and columns. We did not spend long before venturing to the next stop, though.

I had downloaded a very useful app on my iPhone, called 700+ Cities, which allowed me to pinpoint everything we wanted to see and store all the information offline for when wifi was no longer available. It was very helpful, unlike the provided addresses in another app I downloaded, a guide to Belgrade's sights. We learned, while trying to find the next destination, of this fact, which forced us to backtrack ten or so blocks to find the Tesla Museum.

It was closed, because we arrived at 8:45 or so and it opened at 10. So we went down the street until we found a place to eat, called Orao. We bought ourselves a delicious breakfast plate of sliced meats, cheeses, and olives, as well as two salads and some drinks. We also got some delicious bread which Brian inevitably thought contained pistachios, though it turned out to be pumpkin seeds. The bill came out to a mere 1,511 Dinars, or about $15, which to me seemed a bit pricey, but we were in a fancier place, so it's not the end of the world.

By the time we finished, 10am had rolled around, and we went back up the street to the Tesla museum.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) is one of the most accomplished inventors in history. Among countless other inventions, Tesla invented or was integral in the creation of, off the top of my head, the modern alternating current (AC, as opposed to direct current, or DC), the basis for wireless communication, radio frequency oscillators, Tesla coils (surprise!), induction motors, various other devices that use a rotating magnetic field, voltage magnification devices, remote controls, robotics, and devices for ionized gases, x-rays, lightning protection, and high voltage discharge. It's a bit of a mouthful.

What that all boils down to is that the devices that allow cell phones, refrigerators, radios, remote controlled devices, and power lines to work as they do, was invented by Tesla. Oh, and every outlet we use when we plug in any device into the wall uses alternating current.

Much of the most important devices are found at the Tesla museum. In fact, though Tesla himself only once visited Serbia (he was Serbian, but was born in Croatia, lived and worked in the USA, and visited once later in in life), he had all of his work sent to Belgrade upon his death, including his own ashes. This means that 160,000 original documents, 2,000 books and journals, 1,200 historical technical exhibits, 1,500 photographs and photo plates, and over 1,000 plans and drawings are housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum. Only a small portion of these were on display, but the people who work at the museum are in the process of digitizing all of these documents for public consumption.

Our tour consisted of demonstrations of his various devices, including the induction motor with short circuit rotor, induction motor with an egg-shaped rotor (popularly known as Colombo's egg, used to demonstrate the magnetic fields in motion, wireless discharges of electricity, the first remote control and it's corresponding remote controlled boat, and a small scale (8ft tall) Tesla coil. We also saw some personal effects, his favorite suit, and Nikola Tesla himself, his ashes encased in a golden Orb. It was, shall I say, shocking.

After a fair amount of time in the museum, we trekked along the streets of Beograd, passing some beautiful old buildings (small palaces, really), a couple decent town squares, and a large countdown clock, ticking backwards until the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, which for me spelled 13 days, 10 hours, 39 minutes and 32 seconds until I would be back in America... I leave London for the USA a day before the Opening Ceremonies.

Just before we found the local synagogue (every European city has one, most of them are derelict), we stumbled across an interesting plaque. It marked an office building that I did not expect to find in Serbia. It read:

РЕПУБЛИКА СРБИЈА
АГЕНЦИЈА ЗА БОРБУ
ПРОТИВ КОРУПЦИЈЕ

REPUBLIC OF SERBIA
ANTI-CORRUPTION AGENCY

We got a good laugh from that.

The synagogue was in a very large building, with a small staircase splitting into two that lead to the entrances. A large Star of David adorned the uppermost window. Stars of David also decorated the gates to the building, which was guarded by several armed guards. We asked to be let inside, and a nice elderly woman let us in. We took some photos and ogled at the pristine condition of the interior before heading out.

Brian and I had been discussing all day how much we needed haircuts. And what better place to get haircuts than Serbia? Across the street was a haircutters, and we went inside.

It took an hour. We arrived at 11:40, and left at 12:41. But the Serbs, like the Turks, are artists with their haircuts, and everything from the two hair washes to using a straight-edge razor to thin my hair by shaving bits of my scalp (an odd feeling, to be sure) was carefully and masterfully done. Our haircuts weren't excellent, however, but good enough.

At this point we were well inside the Old Town, and headed north through the rest of it to find the castle. Almost every European city has this in common: a castle, an old town, and a church/cathedral.

The castle is in such disrepair that pretty much just the exterior walls are still discernible. But the view from the top, of the Sava and Danube rivers, is pretty amazing. Brian and I didn't spend much time there. We did, however, buy some old Yugoslavian currency, one of which was a 500,000,000,000 Dinar note, a note that still holds the Guinness Record for highest denomination of currency ever printed.

On the edge of the castle grounds, we found a small cafe. No one was there, but we sat down for a beer, overlooking the rivers. After a leisurely drink, we realized we had no money. Well, that's not entirely true. We had a few dinars, a couple Euros, and a Turkish Lira. And they didn't accept credit card. And the nearest ATM was back in the old town. And we had a train to catch soon. We had to beg with some of the coldest travelers who had come to sit in the same cafe. A couple of Swedes helped us out in the end, but basically we had to beg with them and a bunch of Brits to give them an equivalent amount of money in Euros and Serbian coins so they could pay for us. It makes no sense; it was over $4! I hope Traveler's Karma comes back to bite them in their respective behinds.

After the payment fiasco, Brian and I headed straight to the train station. We walked back, taking an odd route, down roads we had yet to traverse. Brian doubted my sense of direction, but I got us there with 10 minutes to spare. We boarded our train and departed at just about 15:15, as planned.

***

On a separate note, despite the generally interesting and positive time I had in Belgrade, I am wary of Serbians as a people. Just in the last several decades, according to the US State Department's writeup on the Serbs, they're really not very nice people. In 1913 the Serbians led a coalition of area troops that successfully ousted the Ottoman Empire from their lands and established Serbia as a military leader. After that, a Serbian killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking World War I. After the war, Serbia became the dominant power in Yugoslavia, oppressing the countries around it in brutal infighting. This lasted for 4 decades under Communist Josip Broz Tito. Then, in the late 1980s, Slobodan Milosevic rose to power in Belgrade, and started discriminating against Croatia, Albania, and Kosovo, as had Tito. Milosevic's actions against the separatist KLA, and mass killings of citizens of Yugoslavia (all non-Serbs). This prompted the 79 days of bombing by NATO that led to the destruction of the Ministry of Defense. The Serbs, it seems, are the dominant aggressors in the area, and the attitude comes off in the people. I couldn't help but feel uneasy around the people themselves. The sights were wonderful, the food was alright, but the people just seemed cold.

Anyway, one man's opinion...