Saints, sinners, and slivovica (Serbia 2024)

[kileskus]

Saints, sinners, and slivovica*
Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Banja Luka (BiH), and some places along the way


A couple of months ago I visited Kosovo. After seeing the Serbian churches there (the Kosovar city of Peć being once the seat of Serbian Orthodoxy) and passing through Belgrade, I decided to dedicate my next trip to Serbia. There'll be a lot of churches and history in this report as that's what I'm interested in, and not any spas or food as I'm not interested in those (but Serbia is known for its spas/springs and has an interesting cuisine that's a mix of Slavic, Turkish, Austrian, and social realities).

I went MEL - HKG - ZRH - BEG. There was a 1 hr layover in Hong Kong but a Cathay representative was waiting to take us Zurich passengers through priority screening. Then a 45 minute layover at Zurich but the airport was almost empty and the transfer was smooth. All in all it was about 27 hours to reach Belgrade, which I was pleased with given it's a less common destination and I was trying to make the most of my 2 weeks of leave.


View of the mountains leaving Zurich


Arriving in Belgrade you see this old Convair 440. It was operated by JAT Airways (the Yugoslav carrier that became Air Serbia) until a belly landing at Titograd (Podgorica) and then donated to the aviation museum in Belgrade. The museum is currently undergoing renovation and some of the pieces are stored outside. This is the most obvious one. If you happen to take any tarmac buses you might see some others.

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Before I get into the cities, some info and advice for anyone else wanting to visit:
Telecomms - local SIM cards are pretty cheap for Europe, I used A1 and they have prepaid cards for visitors. I found myself needing to text some people here. If you don't plan to get a local sim and know you'll be interacting with locals/services e.g. drivers, then maybe get Viber before you leave Aus as they use that more than WhatsApp for calling/messaging.

Intercity transport - I highly recommend renting a car if you intend to explore regional Serbia or go to other cities. National parks, remote monasteries, small historical towns, winery routes, a lot of these are hard to reach without hiring a driver or going with an organised tour. However, there are parts of Serbia where the roads are so poorly maintained/nonexistent that you have to go through Croatia to reach them, so plan your route if you're driving.
Buses of course are always an option. The national rail service is called Srbija Voz and they recently made it possible to book tickets online, but although the trains are new they are very slow, needing almost twice the time as driving.
Air Serbia has domestic flights to Niš and services several other cities in the Balkans.

Belgrade transport - taxis are fairly cheap and there is a service called Yandex Go, the Russian version of Uber. There is a comprehensive network of buses and trolleybuses, you can pay via the app BeogradPlus or not pay like most of the locals.

*Technically it's šlivovica with a sh sound but I can't come up with anything else alliterative that is equally apt

 

[Seat0B]

I love the language and history knowledge you impart in your trip reports @kileskus, so I’m looking forward to this one.

 

[kileskus]

Topola/Oplenac

There is probably not a mile of Serbian land that hasn't had some sort of bloodshed occur on it.



In 1389, then-ruler Prince Lazar fought Ottoman invaders in the Battle of Kosovo. He and the sultan both died and both sides suffered significant losses, but the loss of such a large portion of the Serbian army paved the way for centuries-long Ottoman occupation.

In 1805 some discontented janissaries assassinated Belgrade's pasha and ran riot over Belgrade, killing the locals and about 100 Serbian nobles. This sparked the First Serbian Uprising, led by a man named Djordje Petrović, who was called Karadjordje (Black George) because of his ruthlessness and violent temper.

Karadjordje set up shop southeast of Belgrade, and it was here that he declared an independent Serbia:

Karadjordje Town today, with only one bastion of his fort remaining

His rebels would take large swathes of land from the Ottomans. But infighting and the drying up of Russian aid (due to Napoleon's invasion) led to the Ottomans retaking that land in 1813 and murdering the male inhabitants and raping and enslaving the women and children. Karadjordje went into exile.

In 1815 the Second Serbian Uprising started, led by Miloš Obrenović. Karadjordje returned but Obrenović, knowing how uncompromising he was, feared he would disrupt peace talks with the Ottomans. He was murdered in his sleep, decapitated with an axe by a close friend on Obrenović's payroll.

The Obrenović family ruled Serbia for the next decades until one of their princes was assassinated before he had heirs. Peter Karadjordjević was chosen as the next ruler. He built the Church of St George near Karadjordje's Town and had the family mausoleum built beneath it.


The church is dedicated to St George because he shared a name with Karadjordje. On the tympanum is a depiction of St George slaying the dragon, but he has Karadjordje's likeness:



Inside, the church is decorated with mosaics depicting saints and biblical stories. The chandelier is made of metal from melted down cannons from the first uprising. The centre of the chandelier is in the shape of an inverted crown, to represent the loss of Serbian sovereignty to the Ottomans.


The lowest row of mosaics depicts saints. The three on the left were former Serbian rulers who were canonised, and they are each holding the church that they built/patronised or where their relics are kept. Below the mosaics is a portrait of Karadjordje.


A mosaic of archangel Uriel. In his left hand is a cross with two letters in each of the quadrants - this is something you will see everywhere if you visit Serbian Orthodox churches. IC XC is old Church Slavonic for Jesus Christ, and NI KA at the bottom means 'victorious' (like the goddess Nike).



The mausoleum of the house of Karadjordjević

 

[kileskus]

A little roadtrip east

I hired a driver and asked him to take me to a few monasteries in the eastern part of the country. We go southeast through the Homolje region, a verdant, mountainous province known for its honey - you can see signs outside houses advertising honey as you drive along - and almost all the way to Bulgarian border. This region also has a significant amount of ethnic Vlachs, who like to repaint their houses according to life events (there is no need to gossip in the villages about who is getting married to whom!)

Just a little outside Belgrade is the town of Požarevac.

WWI memorial

There's nothing impressive about this town, with the stoic concrete blocks on the main strip giving way to small houses and gardens along loopy one-way roads. There's no madman son of a dictator running around the streets wielding a saw, my driver tells me, claiming the whole town as his birthright. While I can't verify the story about the saw, it is true that Marko Milošević once terrorised the town, while his father Slobodan did the same to the whole Yugoslavia.

Milošević Senior denied being a Serb nationalist, claimed to be a proponent of Brotherhood and Unity, but his actions and storytelling indicated otherwise. He worked the Battle of Kosovo into Serbia's national story, portraying the Serbs as victims of the Albanians and, later, of the Croats. The Yugoslav Army under his leadership supplied weapons to the Serb nationalists of Bosnia and Croatia, and his generals were the ones who ordered the ethnic cleansing and massacres of the Yugoslav wars, usually with his foreknowledge.

Milošević's extradition to the UN, like that of other war criminals, was controversial in Serbia and in some degrees still is. His grave in Požarevac has its visitors. My driver declined to take me there.

The first monastery we visited is Zaova:


According to legend there was a very beautiful girl who was adored by her brother. Her sister-in-law was jealous of her beauty and killed her newborn and blamed it on the beautiful girl, and convinced her brother to execute her using the Serbian version of drawing and quartering. Monasteries were built at the places where her body parts fell. The Zaova monastery is one of the four.


The frescoes as usual depict Biblical scenes as well as medieval Serbian monarchs (despots). Behind the polyelaios is also a fresco depicting the girl from the legend.

Outside of Orthodox churches in Serbia there's usually a stove-like contraption to put votive candles in. The top layer is for prayers for the living and the bottom is for the dead.


Next was Vitovnica monastery, originally built in the 13th century but rebuilt many centuries later.



The last monastery we dropped by was founded in the 14th C by Prince Lazar himself:

Gornjak monastery, built into a gorge of the same name. Just off the side there is a cave that was also made into a church.

During the centuries-long Ottoman rule, the Muslim Ottomans would burn Serbian churches. Thus the Serbs came up with some adaptations: they built small wooden churches that would be easy to pack up and transport, and with low doorframes so that the Ottoman soldiers couldn't ride in on their horses without knocking their heads; they built churches in remote locations, like on mountaintops; or they set up churches in places like caves.



We had a late lunch at a restaurant in Zaječar, overlooking a lovely pond that is apparently over 20 m deep and has a battle tank at the bottom.


Succulent local trout, ćevapi, somun (the flatbread), and at the front mućkalica which I hadn't heard of before coming but was my favourite dish. It's different types of stewed meat inside bell peppers.


And of course kajmak, goats cheese found throughout the Balkans and Central Asia. Here I made the biggest mistake of my trip - I saved a few slices for the next day but forgot to put it in the fridge overnight. Nevertheless, brainless end user that I am, decided it smelled all right and I could have it for breakfast anyway. Then I went to the airport to catch a flight to Niš, and proceeded to spend my two days in Niš in the bathroom vomiting. But otherwise it was delicious.

 

[SCM]

I visited Serbia for 3 weeks earlier this year, amazing country - so much to offer.

Good to see more tourists heading that way, your photos look brilliant!

 

[kileskus]

Niš (sort of)

About 1/3rd of Air Serbia's fleet consists of ATR 72s. JU 1104 to Niš is on one such plane. The callsign is a holdover from when Air Serbia was Jat Airways and connected Yugoslavia to itself and to the rest of the world. Jat saw its heyday between WWII and the 90s, when planes weren't associated with bombs and the airline had the newest Boeing 737s and one of the highest-ranked meal services in Europe. In 2000 the CEO was assassinated on Milošević's orders. In 2006 all that was left of 'Yugoslavia' was simply Serbia, and in 2013 Etihad bought a 49% stake and the airline rebranded.

Even on a short trip of less than 50 minutes, a little snack and bottled water was provided. The inflight magazine was also well-designed and informative.


Niš airport is named after some guy called Constantine who didn't do much in life except end the tetrarchy, convert Rome to Christianity, and change the name of one of the greatest cities in the world. He was born in Niš, then called Naissus in a land that roughly formed the northern border of the Roman empire, and his residence Mediana is a preserved archaeological site in Niš.

The airport, being owned by the government, is also a base for the Serbian Air Force and the day I was there you could see a paratrooping drill.


Inside the airport is a plaque dedicated the Russian brothers who helped clear the airport of cluster munitions during the NATO bombings


And just outside the airport is the Russian-Serbian Humaniarian Center that the US claims is the base of Russian spy operations in the Balkans. My taxi driver scoffed as we drove past it. "Russians. We pretend we like them."

His name was Alex and he was a Niš native who had spent decades in Greece as a sailboat skipper. He'd returned to Niš to marry and start a family, and while he missed his time on the seas he was happy back in his hometown. He did taxi driving part-time, owned a pizza shop and made the best pizza in town with his deft sailor hands.

I didn't try his pizza because I spent most of my time in Niš kneeling on the bathroom floor. In general there is a wide variety of dining options in the city, from medium to high-end restaurants to ubiquitous food stalls selling shawarma or lángos.

The only place I visited was the skull tower.


During the First Serbian Uprising (led by the ill-fated Karadjordje as I mentioned in my second post) there was a battle at a place called Čegar not far from Niš. The Serbian commander, sensing their imminent defeat after much fierce fighting, decided to fire at and blow up their gunpowder kegs, thus killing the rebels and the Ottoman troops nearby. The Ottomans built a tower with the skulls of the rebels. I'm told that at night the locals would come and remove as many skulls as they could. But the tower became such a symbol of resistance that six decades later the Pasha of Niš ordered for the skulls to be removed, which is why of the almost 1,000 skulls only 58 remain to be seen today.

I recovered from my food poisoning in time for the train trip back to Belgrade. A well meaning stranger had told me the Belgrade-Niš rail trip was a must-do, but as much as I ended up loving Serbia that trip was very skippable. It took twice as long as driving would take; the trains were new but the tracks were not. I was the only passenger in my carriage who stayed for the whole trip. They changed conductors twice and the third didn't bother to check my ticket - he must have seen the boredom on my face and figured I had originated from Niš. The stations and the odd church were interesting to look at but not the scenery and I would highly recommend flying or driving between the two cities.




All in all - Niš should still be on the list of any Serbian trip due to its historical and cultural significance and food options, though my review of the city is very limited.

 

[kileskus]

Novi Sad

Modern day Serbia roughly formed the southern border of first the Kingdom of Hungary and later the Austro-Hungarian empire. From the 1500-1800s Serbs comprised an elite military unit called the šajkaši that helped patrol the border and fight off Ottoman invasions.

During one such skirmish the Ottomans succeeded in taking some land from Hungary that is now in northern Serbia and built a fort on the Danube at a place called Petrovaradin. Several decades later the Habsburgs took it back and, border guards notwithstanding, expelled the local Serbs and their Orthodox Christianity from the city and told them to settle on the other side of the river - and named that settlement Novi Sad (new land).


The Petrovaradin fortress

Novi Sad would be where the first inklings of a Serbian national identity, culture and language began to take form, before a Magyarisation campaign saw thousands of Serbs killed and Hungarians become the dominant ethnic group. It wasn't until after WWI that the region was governed by Slavs under the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Today Novi Sad is the second largest city in the country, it hosts the Matica srpska (national academy), and Petrovaradin is one of its suburbs. Its architecture and cultural heritage is similar to other cities in the Slavic world that were under Habsburg occupation, like Lviv.



It still has a sizeable proportion of Hungarians and notably the Name of Mary church, a Catholic church that hosts services in Hungarian and in which can be found art with Hungarian inscriptions. It was partially destroyed in the 1848 revolution.



The fortress is a nice spot for running and has some cafés on the terraces so can get pretty lively. There's an annual European music festival held on the grounds. There are also tunnels underneath that you can explore




The clock tower has its hour and minute hands reversed

There's also a museum here that showcases the history of the Vojvodina province of which Novi Sad is the capital. The museum is best known for its three gold-plated Roman ridge helmets from way back when Serbia was the northern border of the Roman empire.


After Julius Caesar's Gallic campaign the Roman army developed a helmet style called the Imperial helmet based on what they saw the Gallic warriors wearing. This is what is classically seen in movies about gladiators or centurions for instance. They were in use until the late 3rd century when ridge-style helmets were developed and used especially in the eastern parts of the empire. Part of this was possibly in response to fighting the Dacians north of the Danube as the ridge helped provide extra protection from the characteristic Dacian falx swords that could crack the tops of the smooth, curved Imperial helmets. Jewelled, gold-plated helmets like the ones found in Vojvodina were probably used for parades or as symbols of rank rather than in battle.


Another photo of the main square. In the foreground is a utility box with some art on it depicting the fortress' reversed clock and three figures in traditional Serbian costume. The two on either side are playing an instrument called a tamburica, generally associated with Bosnia, Croatia, and northern Serbia. Vojvodina hosted many tamburica orchestras and Radio Novi Sad plays some of them. I thought this painting was a nice local touch.

Then it was back on the train to smoggy Belgrade. The Belgrade-Novi Sad line is newer so has some pretty fast trains (c.f. my post on Niš). If you want to take a train from Belgrade enter Beograd Centar into Maps and not Belgrade train station - the latter is the old, aesthetic but now defunct station.