Gravediggers & Desperate Romantics

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October 8th 2009

Published: October 9th 2009

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John Miranda

Kneza Milosa St

Bomb damaged building on the junctions of Kneza Milosa and Nemanjina Streets

Belgrade - apart from a few perceptive pieces in the travel sections of the weekend broadsheet newspapers and a growing reputation amongst the dedicated followers of the club scene, it doesn’t usually get a glowing press. As a rule, it seems to suffer from the reputation which the previous tensions in the area brought about and unfortunately our visit coincided with some more international bad press after football related violence before a Europa League game in mid September and threatened violence around a subsequently banned civil rights march. I had read a number of pieces of travel literature and previous blogs on the subject of arrival at Nikola Tesla Airport, so along with the above reports fresh in mind and the warnings about over enthusiastic taxi touts it was with a bit of trepidation that we entered into the arrivals hall.

The onslaught of taxi touts failed to materialise to such an extent that I cannot recall even one approach. The small tourist information desk in the baggage hall furnished a detailed map, confirmation of where to catch the JAT Airways shuttle bus to the city centre and we proceeded into the late September sunshine. The only minor disaster to

Stadion Omladinski - OFK Beograd

.....business is booming at the West Stand turnstiles

strike was the failure of the ATM in the arrivals to issue any dinars, so we changed a few pounds in the AlphaBank to see us through to an alternative in the city. The favourable first few minutes in Serbia set the tone for the next 8 days and we would go on record to say that the Serbian people we encountered, pretty much without exception, were some of the most friendly and generous we’ve met in all the places to which we have travelled.

The JAT shuttle (250 dinars) only took about 35 minutes to drop us in Slavija Square, after an approach through the socialist architecture of Novi Belgrade, crossing the Sava River and a drop outside the Central Railway Station. The immediate visual impact was the hilly topography of the city with the looming structure of Kalmegadan dominating the junction of the Sava and the Danube.

It would be easy to wax lyrical about what great floating club experiences can be had in the summer months down by the Sava River, but 4 o’clock in the morning is a 4 o’clock too far for our ageing years. We did however have a disappointing experience down

Kalemegdan Park

Chess players in the park

by the Sava River on our first day, when the Sirona boat wasn’t doing a river cruise on either Friday or Sunday as per their advertised itinerary on their website. As part of the deal for being dragged around a number of the thrilling fields of Belgrade, a Danube boat trip was used as compromise offering and all that was left was to offer a somewhat overpriced, though excellent ice coffee in the very popular Coffee Dreams on Kralja Petra. The late afternoon sunshine and beverages within touching distance of Knez Mihailova Street were obviously to the liking of the mainly young, attractive, female clientele and very pleasant on the eye indeed - but more on the Tesla Girls in another blog. After a brief wander round the extensive grounds of the Kalmegadan Fortress with it’s statues, sports facilities, collection of military equipment, we then sampled our first Jelen Pivo of the trip in a bar on Republic Square, where the beautiful people continued to promenade after dark.

Football was the focus on Saturday and after making advance purchase of a number of bus tickets from a news stand - 42 dinars, as opposed to 80 dinars if purchased

Partizan Belgrade

The official club badge on Humska Street

on board from the driver (but don’t forget to punch them in the machines on the bus or risk a fine) - we took a Number 40 trolleybus in the direction of Partizan’s stadium on Humska Street. The match didn’t kick off until early evening, but it was a reconnaissance trip to check journey times and possibly buy a ticket in advance for later in the day. We alighted initially outside the House of Flowers where Tito is buried (200 dinars), which is directly up the hill behind the Museum of 25th May. As well as Tito’s grave, there is small museum which holds an assortment of the various gifts passed to the former leader over the years from a host of other countries near and far.

We strolled across to the Humska Street complex, checked out the pin badges on offer in their club shop and tried without success to advance purchase a ticket for the evening. The concept of buying a ticket is now firmly established in the English psyche, but clearly not for a run of the mill league game in Serbia. The ticket offices are actually located about 150 metres further down the road on

Partian Belgrade

The Gravediggers in full voice - the main Alcatraz flag in the foreground

the Dr Milutina Ivkovica St towards Red Star’s ground and didn’t open until 4 pm ..............they clearly weren’t expecting a last minute rush. As noted earlier Partizan have received some seriously bad press in the last couple of weeks as a result of the issues before their Toulouse game on 17 September, all our contacts with their staff and fans on the day were cordial and extremely friendly.

The Romantics turned out to be somewhat less than desperate ........at least for cash on the turnstiles. An enquiry regarding a pin badge produced no badge ........we don’t stock them anymore..........but produced two free tickets as “friends of the club”. It was a surreal situation, as most would have only been too keen to relieve the passing foreigners of more than the required cash. The official crowd recorded was 700, although I can’t work out whether that was the attendance or the people that paid. There certainly didn’t seem to be anyone in the Romatika Bar outside the East Stand who parted with any cash to get inside - especially the ones sporting the Replay and Armani Jeans. The Blue Union couldn’t muster a large gathering and the opposition, FK Smederevo

National Parliament Building

.....on the Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra

seemed completely devoid of any away following at all. The ground - a bowl of a stadium with an unkept cinder athletics track and a few blue and yellow fences - bore a strange resemblence to Wigan's former Springfield Park. The standard of the football was best described as disappointing ............a 10 man OFK secured a 1-0 win with a free kick through the keeper’s hands late in the 2nd half. We made a dash for Partizan via the 12 tram and 41 trolleybus and were in the vicinity in less than 30 minutes, so all prospective gorundhoppers out there can be assured that this is an easy transfer between games in time for kick off.

Anyway, enough of the football for the time being. What did we make of the city? It is described as a gritty, edgy, urban experience - pretty it is not? A series of conflicts over the years has left one of Europe’s oldest cities as a mixture of architecture, with the two dominant structures of Kalmegdan and St Sava as previously mentioned. The former covers a vast area of the fortress at the intersection of the Sava and Danube, which doubles up as

Partizan Belgrade

"Gravedigger" graffiti outside Partizan

one big recreational area for the population of Belgrade and hosts the basketball headquarters for both Partizan and Red Star (although both presumably play somewhere else in an indoor arena). It has views out over the rivers to Great War Island and Novi Belgrade. St Sava was in a state of internal renovation or finishing completion depending on your viewpoint and whilst very big and spacious inside, lacked the grandeur of other churches we had a look inside - can't we go anywhere and avoid the curse of scaffolding! We did the very Belgrade thing and sat outside the Hotel Moskva for coffee and cake with the beautiful people.

A lot of the pretty architecture is to be found on the main shopping street, Knez Mihailova and it’s environs. Knez Mihailova is pedestrianised between the entrance to Kalmegdan and Republic Square and features many of the well known brand shops popular in mainland Europe such as Lacoste, Replay and Camper. The shopping was restricted to the window version - £200 for Replay jeans seemed to be a bit more than £19.99 in TK Maxx! The other obvious buildings to note are those that seem to have received a missile

St Sava Cathedral

strike and have been left in a state of disrepair. The buildings on the junction of Neminjina and Knez Milosa Streets are the prime examples, although further down Knez Milosa are in a similar state. Were they the original targets or was it the Government buildings on the opposite side? We noted a lot of Police around and not being sure how sensitive an issue it was to take some photos, we exercised some caution and waited until Sunday to take the snaps. There was generally a hefty police presence in the city centre and particularly outside Government buildings and near the entrance to Kalmegdan.

After the swift transfer across town after OFK, Partizan tickets were secured with ease at a less than populated ticket office - 400 dinars for the best West Stand seats. The draw of BSK Borca from just across the Danube wasn’t enough to tempt most fans off the sofa, including surprisingly those from newly promoted and nearby Borca. There were more police in full riot gear than away fans, although this was advised as a normal state of affairs. It was interesting to note that two Americans who were in the queue for the

Nemanjina St

Tram en route to Slavija Square

area behind the goal with the Gravediggers were redirected to the West Stand queue. The atmosphere was very low key, there was no tension in the air and 4 BSK fans successfully managed to cheer their side’s goal in the 2-1 defeat from the comfort of their West Stand seats without anybody else nearby even raising an eyebrow. Partizan’s two goals were a dubious penalty and a scuffed mis-hit shot and even their own website subsequently reported that there wasn’t a lot of quality football on offer. However, so much for the life threatening experience that some websites would have you believe and certainly nothing like portrayed in the media after the Toulouse incident.

The public transport was on form after the match and we were back in a competetively priced Serbian restaurant in Dorcol within half an hour demolishing some very tasty meat ball type dish. One of the main night time haunts for dining seemed to be in Skardaska Street, where the tables were right out on to the cobble stones to entice the passing diners. It is probably the most overt tourist experience we encountered, with musicians serenading around the tables. The only missing factor here

OFK Beograd

seemed to be the tourists, as with the exception of a few Americans looking for their ancestry or a business deal or a mixture of the two, tourists seemed thin on the ground.

After the weekend, we departed for the more provinicial Novi Sad..............

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