Republic Square

“Republic Square represents the central part of the contemporary town fabric of Smederevo. With its historical continuity, triangular urban form and representative heritage, it shows the identity of the town itself and together with the Fortress expresses its recognizable profile.

     It was established in the first half of the 19th century, after the Second Serbian uprising, on the place where the Big Market connected the Serbian and Turkish part of the town. During the time of Knez Miloš, in 1837, was made the Plan of Development, with which the shaping of this space as a central town square began. With the building of the church of St. George in 1854 was the basics of the further development defined. With this religious building, the dome, around which the whole town gravitates, was also the center of Smederevo itself definitely founded.

     New buildings were raised: in 1888 the Prefecture and in 1926 the City Court, which with their architectural and stylistic expression tell of the creation of an ambience of a European town center. Thereby was the shape of the square finally regulated. The homogenization and shaping of the spatial structure contributed, in the time between the world wars, to the building of several objects in different styles and with different functions: The Ninić hotel building (today the Town Gallery), and immediately next to it, a business-apartment building that has been shaped to fit in, the building of the former pharmacy Pantazijević which solved the problem of the corner at the entrance to the Square; the building of the former library (today Historical Archives).

     During the Second World War, the most valuable objects on the square were badly damaged and renovated more recently. After the war, new urbanistic projects as a rule did not respect the peculiarities of the ambience, so that in certain segments the spatial unity destroyed, especially by new building.

     With the beginning of the new century, a more positive way of handling this space came about. Reconstruction and ground-floor arrangements were done with the aim of making both the functional and the aesthetic values of the square more contemporary and making them stand up. Dominated by the Temple of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious and there are a monument to fallen soldiers in World War I, County Administration Building, the Gallery of Modern Art and the famous fountain, a meeting place, rest and entertainment among city’s youth and senior citizens.”

http://www.smederevowelcome.com/republic-square.html

Church of St. George

The Old City Hall and a city map: notice the river here is called the Dunav

“The building of the former city hall was raised between 1926 and 1928, as a project of the Russian architect Nikolaj Krasnov in the spirit of eclecticism.

The edifice is built in an angle – it is in the shape of the Cyrillic letter “g” (Г). The facade is vertically divided, dominated by 22 massive pilasters horizontally adjoined, between which there are large, arched openings at the ground-floor, and at the first floor along the right-angled openings. A characteristic of the building are four richly draped sculptures personifying justice, work, science and culture, which are placed on the balustrade above the roof wreath.”

http://www.smederevowelcome.com/the-building-of-the-old-city-hall.html

The Gallery of Modern Art has been operating as a part of the Museum in Smederevo since 2005. It is located on the main town square, the Republic Square, and has a representative exhibition area. Expert services of the Gallery, with the help of the gallery Art Council, create programs every year filled with rich and varied exhibitions in the field of contemporary art.

   The art framework of the current program of the Gallery of Modern Art in Smederevo, which tends to develop in the future, covers a wide range of different forms of contemporary artistic expression, from (post)conceptual approach and radical language attitudes, through traditional mediums of paintings and sculpture, which are experimented upon, to classical forms of artistic expressions of a higher quality (mosaic, collage, photography, drawing…).

http://www.smederevowelcome.com/gallery-of-modern-art.html

It was open in the morning and evening but we were there in the afternoon. 

Some older neighborhoods between Republic Square and the Fortress

Smederevo history and the Fortress:

     “Smederevo began life as a Roman settlement on the route from Singidunum to Viminacium. In 1427, it became the new Serbian capital, when the Hungarians took over Belgrade again following the death of Stefan Lazarević. The castle is triangular in shape, with five gates, 25 large towers, double ramparts and a moat. At one end of the complex is a smaller stronghold that consists of a place and a citadel, which has its own moat and four bastions. On one of the bastions is the date of the building, 6938, the numbers of years reckoned by the Orthodox Church to have elapsed since the world was first created, which corresponds to the date 1430 in the Roman calendar. Considering that the castle was erected very quickly, within a year from 1429-30, its dimensions are hugely impressive: the walls of the keep at the north of the inner fortress are about 5m thick, and the total distance around the perimeter is about 1.5km.

The castle’s construction was by order of Đurađ Branković, son of Vuk, who was despot at the time. The notion was to provide an impenetrable barrier to the Turkish advance that was taking place during this period. One legend states that the impoverished peasants who built the castle were obliged to provide thousands of eggs to mix with the mortar in order to firmly secure the stones, while another asserts that it was Branković’s tyrannical Greek wife, Jerina (known by her subjects as ‘Damned Jerina’ and said to bathe only in milk), who gave the order for the castle’s construction. Either way, it is undeniable that a great deal of forced labour had to be recruited to build such an extensive and imposing structure in such a short time.

The Turks eventually arrived to subdue the fortress but it took them more than 20 years to do so. Smederevo Fortress was finally surrendered in 1459 to Sultan Mehmet I, which marked the final victory of the Ottoman Turks over Serbian territory. Immediately, the Turks made the castle the headquarters of their pašalik in the region and it remained in Turkish occupation, with the exception of a brief period of Austrian control, until 1805 when Karađorđe formally received its keys following his initial success with the First National Uprising. Having survived the medieval period more or less intact, the fortress suffered considerable damage in far more recent times when a German ammunition depot blew up part of it in 1941 claiming more than 5,000 lives, and then later in 1944 when it was bombed by Allied forces.“     http://www.smederevowelcome.com/history.html

For Peter and Jane, the lock on the castle gate

Once upon a time

A moat with water

Looking down river to the new port facilities

Old and new

Tied up alongside Restoran Vodenica  just across the road from the lower edges of the Belgrade Fortress.  The restaurant/barge was a family business and the owners were very helpful.  There was power and water for DoraMac.  We would climb off DoraMac, walk through the outdoor seating area, through the restaurant and out the front door.  Thankfully it was not a “music blaring restaurant” and most diners were gone by 11 pm though I think the quiet Serbian conversations just outside our portholes lulled me to sleep.

“The first raft restaurant in the old Belgrade anchored at the mouth of the river Sava and the Danube below Belgrade Fortress Kalemegdan-, near the Nebojsa Tower and only 200 m away, as the crow flies, from the monument ,, Winner ".     (The Victor monument.)

     Name a fish restaurant ,, VODENICA "resulting from an authentic and warm interior of the old oak beams, taken from more than 370-year-old Serbian mills.”

www.restoranvodenica.co.rs

We had a lovely dinner our first night:  grilled catfish and more potato with Swiss chard.

Our final night we walked across Belgrade to meet a longtime work colleague of Rick’s.  We passed through some charming older neighborhoods with cafes and art an art gallery. 

Randal managed to withdraw money from the corner ATM while the light counted down to 0 at which point the red man would turn green and we could cross.  It had started at 90 seconds, Randal began the transaction at 50,  and there were about 20 seconds still left when he finished. 

Restaurant at the corner

These symbols were embedded in the sidewalk

The cigarette is circled in red but there’s no line through it implying that you could smoke indoors!

Nikola Tesla Museum

We stopped at the Teslar Museum just in time for the last tour of the day.  I really knew nothing about Tesla and know pretty much nothing about how electricity works, but the tour guide did a great job so made it interesting and fun.  Wish I’d had her for a science teacher.  She reminded me of the TV Mr Wizard but with a sense of humor.

The museum is quite underfunded, the public toilets were out of commission and the show and tell equipment had to be coaxed and jerry-rigged into working. 

“In the middle of 1882 he travelled to Paris to join Edison’s Continental Company, and in 1883 moved to Strasbourg and made the prototype of the induction motor. In 1884 he travelled to USA to start working in Edison’s company. In 1885 he left Edison, founded his own "Tesla Arc & Light Co." and started producing motors and generators for polyphase alternate currents.

http://www.tesla-museum.org/meni_en.htm tells much more about Tesla, his discoveries and his collaboration with Westinghouse.

Nikola Tesla Museum is located in the central area of Belgrade, in a residential villa built in 1929 according to the project of Dragiša Brašovan, a distinguished Serbian architect. The building was used for various purposes until December 5, 1952, when Nikola Tesla Museum was founded in accordance with the decision of the Government of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.

     The material for the Museum arrived in Belgrade according to the decision of the American court, which declared Mr. Sava Kosanovic, Tesla’s nephew, for the only rightful heir. In 1951, in accordance with Tesla’s last wish, Mr. Kosanovic transferred all the documents and Tesla’s personal things in Belgrade.

http://www.tesla-museum.org/meni_en/nt.php?link=tesla/t&opc=sub1

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Lika, which was then part of  the Austo-Hungarian Empire, region of Croatia. His father, Milutin Tesla was a Serbian Orthodox Priest and his mother Djuka Mandic was an inventor in her own right of household appliances.  (Her father also had been a Serbian Orthodox Priest.)

http://www.teslasociety.com/biography.htm

Why Belgrade you ask? Below is from a visit Tesla made to Belgrade in 1892:

    “- I feel much more than I can say. Please do not measure the extent of my feelings by the weakness of my words… If I am fortunate enough to fulfill at least some of my ideals, that will do good for the whole of mankind. If that is achieved, I will be glad to say that a Serb has done it. 

     Then he took a specially decorated horse carriage to the Imperial Hotel which used to be near Captain Misha’s Building (today the Rectorate of Belgrade University). On June 2, he was received by the young Serbian King, Alexander Obrenovic. Tesla told the Serbian King that Belgrade will need to introduce electricity. The King was fascinated by Tesla’s words and demonstrations. Belgrade, at that time with a population of 60,000 people, got electricity the following year (1893). It was a huge and widely celebrated event. 

    The King wanted to award Tesla with the Medal of St. Sava for extraordinary contribution to science. But, since Tesla was legally a citizen of the United States of America, the medal was sent to him later on, via diplomatic postal service. The then US Secretary of State John Foster approved the action and Tesla got the medal of the Serbian King on January 27, 1893 – on Saint Sava Day.

http://www.teslasociety.com/serbia150.htm

In the third room of the Museum, in the gold-plated sphere on the marble pedestal is the urn with Tesla’s ashes. After death Tesla was cremated and the urn was transferred to Belgrade in 1957.

http://www.tesla-museum.org/meni_en/nt.php?link=tesla/t&opc=sub1   (I took no photos as I thought the guide said that would be disrespectful.)

A fight over Tesla’s ashes:

Inventor and scientist Nikola Tesla, whose ashes are to be moved from the museum bearing his name.

A furious dispute has erupted between Serbian scientists and the Orthodox church after it was announced that the remains of the inventor Nikola Tesla will be reburied in a church…….

A Facebook campaign, Leave Tesla Alone, started almost immediately after the announcement was made and has already gathered more than 30,000 supporters on social media who want to see Tesla’s ashes stay where they are.

http://www.theguardian.com/

I couldn’t have explained this but I found a blogger who could –

“Next they demonstrated the wireless transfer of electricity using a generator and fluorescent tubes filled with neon gas. They asked for volunteers to hold the tubes, and the other people were all a bit nervous so I volunteered. A couple of guys followed. The guide switched on the generator, and as little sparks of lightning shot out the top, the fluoro tubes – which we were holding a metre from the generator – all lit up like lightsabers.”

http://curiouscatontherun.wordpress.com/

Our group had lots of volunteers.  Unfortunately my tube lit up bright white, too hard to see in the daylight.  But you can see that your hands could limit the color change but I don’t remember why.

Put your finger near the lower part of the round spindle and you would get zapped.   If you actually touched it, nothing happened.  I tried this too.  You definitely heard the zap more than felt it. 

Under her photo are the words “Very little is known about May Cline,” and annoyingly that seems to be true if you’re limited to the Internet for information.  But I was interested in her because of her watercolors.

“May Cline (? – ?)

This is the woman who wrote the greatest amount of letters to Tesla. There is scarce information about her, i.e. her letters to him are not well-known because they were not explored. The archive of Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade keeps about 2500 her letters and different papers (newspaper articles, drawings, natal charts…), which tells us she wrote to him very often, almost every day. She exchanged letters with Tesla between 1891 and 1942. She lived in New Jersey. There are two of her books in Tesla’s library: “The Principles of Bird Flight“  (published in 1905) and “Trailing Evolution“.  She was a member of New York Academy of Sciences. There are no copies of his letters to her, so we do not know whether and how often Tesla answered to her. Many things about their relationship are still mysterious, and the mystery is greater because a long time will pass until her letters are deciphered, because she had very unreadable handwriting.  https://ru-ru.facebook.com/

From the museum we went off to meet Rick’s friend for dinner. 

Rick, Mary, Predrag and his wife Dr. Markovic who is a family practice doctor

Rick and Predrag are longtime work colleagues as well as friends.  We met at Pedrag’s computer software company after the Teslar Museum and then all went to dinner.  We all drove back to DoraMac for a brief visit.  I should have written down Dr. Markovic’s first name but I’m afraid I’ll mangle it as neither Rick or Mary is absolutely sure of the spelling. Draga perhaps?  They have a son studying engineering  and a daughter still in high school who is interested in art.

In the Fortress and Kalemegdan Park

Pals taking a double selfie on the Fortress  wall overlooking the Sava River.

Readers in the park.

Chess tables were set up in the park

Ping pong table too.

Smiling at my camera?

Tending the roses in the park

Knez Mihailova Street :   Prince Michael Street

The place to go if you want to shop.  We didn’t, so didn’t spend much time there.  We basically walked through on our way to Republic Square for the start of our walking tours.  I do wish they’d had a tour of Knez Mihailova Street because the building architecture overshadowed by all of the shop windows and advertisements were lovely.   

“Prince Michael Street is the main walking street in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is a pedestrian zone and shopping center, protected by law as one of the oldest and most valuable landmarks of the city. It has a large number of impressive buildings and mansions built at the end of the 1870s 

    Today Knez Mihailova is a common meeting point for Belgraders. The street has been named one of the most beautiful pedestrian zones in Eastern Europe and is a constant buzz of people and tourists. Thousands of people stroll along the street every day as it is the shortest path from Terazije to Kalemegdan park and fortress.

     History of Area : The street follows the central grid layout of the Roman city of Singidunum.  During the time of Turks, there were gardens, drinking-fountains and mosques along its lengths. In the middle of the 19th century, the upper part of the street bordered the garden of Knez Aleksandar Karađorđević. After the implementation of the regulation plan of Belgrade (1867), by Emilijan Josimović, the street soon gained its current look and architecture. Houses were built there by the most influential and wealthiest families of Belgrade society. In 1870, city authorities officially named this street – Ulica Kneza Mihaila (Prince Michael Street).” 

http://www.balkansgeotourism.travel/

Remember that great youtube video when everyone comes out to join the street musicians?  That didn’t happen here, but lots of people stopped to listen.

I had no small bills or change so sadly had nothing to put into his case.  He was quite brave but really needed more practice.

A drinking fountain and a pigeon bath.

Pop-up book and record shop.

Nothing seemed to disturb him. 

The City Library on the left

At the entrance to Knez Mihailova Street

The city swallowing the country

http://www.telavivhummushouse.com/?lang=en