Belgrade, Serbia

Hello again!

It’s been awhile since I wrote something and the reason is that I travelled back home (Belgrade, Serbia) and spent about 10 days with my family and friends. Everyone who lives abroad knows how hectic it can get when you go home and you need to catch up with so many people in a short period of time. 

While I was in Belgrade, I was thinking if maybe I could write a bit about the city I come from. Even though I am happy that I moved away, this city is where I grew up and it will always have a special meaning.

Belgrade is located on the confluence of two rivers, Danube and Sava, and beside being the capital of Serbia, it is also, by the number of people that live there, the 4th largest city, in south-eastern Europe (after Istanbul, Athens, and Bucharest). Belgrade could also be called an ancient city, since some of the parts exist since 4800 years BC. Through the decades, the country changed so many names and forms. However the history of the city you can easily find online and the point of this post is to talk about the city nowadays. 

Some cities change slowly through the decades and some change rapidly in a few years, but the truth is that they all do change. I have moved away almost 4 years ago, and every time I go back I have a feeling I’m in a different city. This is probably not very realistic, and I’m sure there are lots of people who don’t feel the same way, but most of the places I used to go to are either closed or have a new owner and it is just not the same anymore. The day before I had my flight back to Berlin I took a long walk with my mom and dog. We passed next to my high-school. This street where I spent 5 days a week for 4 years (with breaks from July to September) seemed so foreign to me. The building of the school is a very old architectural jewel, and it is listed as a monument. And what used to be one of the nicest schools in the city now looks like a ruin. I finished my high-school 6 years ago, and since then I maybe passed this way only a few times. I do spend a lot of time in the area but I never really pass next to the school, I’m quite sure that subconsciously I choose the streets around it. 

I remember last year, I haven’t been home for about 3,4 months, and this might seem like nothing to some people that go home every year or even longer. But when I came back one of the streets that is 3mins away from where I live just didn’t look right. I got really confused. I remember thinking was I going crazy, this is the street whose every inch I know by heart. How is it possible that I can’t figure out which way to go? And then I realized something, all of the trees were cut, there were no trees anymore. Those massive treetops that were making a nice shade in the boiling hot summers were gone. And then I started to understand how when just one little piece of the puzzle is lost, you can’t see the whole picture and you get lost. 

Now, my friends and family know I am not the biggest fan of our city, and I am not one of those people who tend to market their country and go around and tell everyone they should come and visit, actually when someone tells me they either want to see it or they have a trip planned my question is often why. But the more I live abroad, the more I start to realize some little things that I love about the city. Yes the traffic is so bad and stressing that makes your life shorter by half, but if you forget about that and you can just go everywhere by foot it can be really nice. The way the cities function is again very different from town to town, and that’s normal. Culture, history and geography have a strong impact on how the city is going to be like. Belgrade is geographically speaking, on the contrary of Berlin, completely in hills, you constantly go up and down and this is something I sometimes miss in Berlin. 

I have a loooot of thoughts I could put here but since this is already getting pretty long, I will write on one more topic.. social life, and maybe I’m not using the best term here but soon you’ll understand what I mean. There is something that I have only seen here, and even though I often find it as a bad thing, when I think more about it, maybe it’s not. Cafes and restaurants!! If you pass through the city center, which is full of all kinds of cafes and restaurants, you can barely find an empty spot. Every day through the entire day, the situation doesn’t change much. This is something that some of my foreign friends who visited also noticed, and it’s often something people find really strange. And then we do all complain about this, and it is weird I agree, but there is something warm and cosy about it. You see how much people do socialize and do spend time together. And you can see two old ladies having coffee and cake while talking about the good old days, and then you can see few kids from high-school doing their homework together, and you can see business people, and friends catching up, and the stories you can hear just by sitting there are enough to write hundreds of books. I’m sure someone will say, yeah that you can find everywhere. But I will argue that this kind of phenomena, that is actually pretty hard to explain, is very unique. 

Belgrade also has a very vivid and crazy night life, but since literally everything changed since the time I was going out in the city, I won’t write about it. Maybe next time I go back I will explore it again and then come back and report about it. 

I wish you all a lovely week!
Ena :)