Tag: Serbia

It’s complicated: Belgrade

Travel enriches us. It allows us to not only see new places but let go of assumptions and clichés about those places. And while I know there’s no way that one day in Belgrade makes me an authority on the city, it does give me some things to ponder.

Take Tito’s mausoleum.

long, low building with frescoes on the front, amidst extensive garden grounds
This is in the middle of an extensive park.
Life size stone sculpture of man gazing at ground seriously, wearing sweeping, serious military greatcoat
Can’t really be a dictator without at least one self-aggrandizing statue of oneself. At least Tito’s is only life-size.

Contemporary news and culture taught me that all Communist dictators were oppressive monsters who kept their citizens in perpetual fear and despair. Our guide wasn’t a fan, but insisted that, like many things in Serbia, Tito’s legacy is “complicated”.

Yes—Tito was a dictator who ruthlessly sentenced political opponents to forced labor and constrained human rights when it suited him. Yet he is still held in some regard (by my guide, and I’m guessing she’s not alone based on the large crowds at the mausoleum) because he kept Yugoslavia together, kept the Russians out, and allowed open (by Eastern Bloc standards, at least) borders.

Within sight of the this secular shrine—actually, within sight of much of Belgrade—is the astonishing Orthodox cathedral of St. Sava.

massive green domed white marble church with golden cross on top

Construction started in the 1930s and though interrupted by war, invasion, and politics, is still crawling towards completion. It’s among the largest Orthodox churches in the world, but it doesn’t need size to impress. I’d seen pictures of Orthodox iconography and frescoes, but nothing compares to the three-dimensional reality.

heavily gilt altar and screens, surrounded by frescoes and icons
If I remember correctly St. Sava’s icons and frescoes are made using medieval materials and techniques. The reason we see more gold than blue here is because while lapis lazuli was expensive and rare hundreds of years ago, it really isn’t anymore. To show wealth/prestige gold is now the obvious way to go.
vaulted, frescoed ceiling of Orthodox church over inlaid marble floor
Gilt everywhere. Photo by Charlotte Dries.

Belgrade has been destroyed and rebuilt around 40(!) times in its long history, and much of the city center is still rebuilding after the wars of the 1990s that broke up Yugoslavia. Right across from a restored 19th century train station are the ruins of the Yugoslavian Ministry of Defense, bombed out by NATO.

collapsing, bombed out building
Photo by Charlotte Dries.

I felt a little weird viewing it, though our guide pointed this out without any apparent ire (surprising [or not?] given that most of us were from NATO countries). I was even reluctant to include it in this post, but decided to leave it in because my reaction reveals some of the complicated facets of being a tourist. History is often a series of violent events, but I think the recentness of the violence got to me. The bombing was only 20 years ago, and even though this building was on the tour and the decision to leave it a ruin is deliberate I still felt like an ugly American enjoying a morbid thrill at Serbian expense.

After a very long day walking around Belgrade we walked a bit further to our one off-schedule stop: the Tesla Museum.

blacked bronze plaque with relief of Tesla's face and "Nikola Tesla Museum" in English and Serbian

It was a leeetle underwhelming, but to be fair we were also quite rushed (when the boat leaves it leaves, whether you’re on it or not). It’s only about three rooms (or at least, that’s all we had access to) and we stepped in between English-language tours. They have his ashes, as well as the safe he used in his rooms at the Waldorf Astoria and some of his characteristic gloves and hats.

bronze spherical urn
Of course Tesla’s urn looks like an atom.
large, industrial size safe
The very safe from which the U.S. government took Tesla’s papers upon his death.
gray and white gentleman's gloves, upturned bowler hat
Not sure if these are reproductions or the genuine article, but Tesla was a natty (and germaphobic) sort.

As near as we could tell most of our fellow patrons spoke English but Serbians hold him in high regard as well – he appears on their 100 dinar note and every souvenir shop we passed had a Tesla-themed something. The museum itself emphasized his technical achievements to the point that even the gift shop has scientific monographs and collections of Tesla’s correspondence instead of magnets and coffee mugs.

What followed was a mad dash back to the boat in a very fast, very economical taxi. I left Belgrade intrigued, a bit uncomfortable, and thinking of some questions to ask.

This is my last post before I take a break from the blog. I’m not sure for how long. These take a long time to write and research (even the link dumps) and between the holidays coming up and a real need to make some headway on my book, something has to give. I hope you’ll check out the archives and/or join me on social media (Twitter | Facebook | Mastodon).

unexpected Roman ruins: Viminacium

If you love Roman history you should go to… Serbia.

I know, right?

But it’s not that surprising when you realize that if Romania was named after Rome, the Romans had to go through what is now Serbia to get there (and get to everywhere else they colonized in Northern Europe). As it turns out, some 15 Roman emperors were born in what is now Serbia, and there’s ample archaeological evidence of Roman occupation.

My entire travel party was excited to see the ruin of Viminacium, a provincial outpost of the Roman Empire ca. the 1st-4th centuries C.E. I think we were all impressed. What follows is a thumbnail of what I learned on my visit, along with some of my pictures. I recommend the Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae site if you want to get into the weeds.

Viminacium was near the present-day town of  Kostolac, Serbia. The archaeological site (and it is an ongoing excavation) is fairly isolated on a grassy plain. The only other nearby structure is a modern electrical plant, and it’s a bit odd to pass industrial towers belching steam to arrive in a field with only a cluster of low buildings and tents.

But oh, what you see in the tents!

mausoleum archaeological site under a tent, with above and below-ground tombs

This is the grave site and you can go right in (guided, of course). This is the largest number of graves found at a Roman site (nearly 15,000). The presence of Christian and Pagan burials side by side is noteworthy but not unheard of, and suggests that Christians and Pagans lived together in relative harmony.

skeleton with arms crossed over the chest
Christians buried with arms crossed over the chest…
skeletons with arms at its sides
…pagans with arms at sides.

I faced down another phobia (dark, small spaces) to visit to the underground mausoleums (photography not permitted). The well-preserved frescoes are worth stumbling through the dark in a crouch; I can’t imagine many Roman sites would let you get that close.

They’ve also excavated some of the baths (because the Romans everywhere loved their baths) but due to the stage of excavation this is as close as I could get:

round brick cisterns

The amphitheater is partially excavated and partially reconstructed. Not sure what I think about building modern reproductions nearly on top of the ruins, but they do illustrate how things might have looked when Viminacium was a bustling town of 40,000.

wooden amphitheater seats with stone ruins in foreground
The stone in the foreground is original.

Then on to the villa.

inner atrium of apparent Roman villa, open to the sky
Not original to the site, obviously…

Well, not quite. The Domus Scientiarum Viminacium has the floor plan of a Roman villa but is a research and conference center. The upper levels contain scientific libraries, laboratories, and accommodations for visiting scientists; the lower level is a combination of museum (open to the public) and climate-controlled storage (not so much, though I did get a glimpse). I wouldn’t mind having my corporate retreat here.

Thus far archaeologists have only excavated around 4% of Viminacium. Though described as a “colony”, the speculative city plan reveals something far more extensive, cosmopolitan, and permanent than that word suggests:

scale model of extensive network of streets with houses, an amphitheater, baths, coliseum, and other public buildings
If you have the facilities to host the Roman equivalents of the Superbowl, “Hamilton”, and Beyonce you’re a city, dammit.
gold tile "P" on dark blue tile background
Early Christian symbol floor in the villa mosaic that the guides asked us not to step on.
trapezoid panel with stylized woman painted on front propped against a wall, two warped oblong boxes in foreground
So much going on at the site that they haven’t been able to catalog everything yet. This wooden panel and lead coffins from were in a downstairs hallway.

The aim of the larger Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae project is to connect a network of other Serbian Roman ruins, reproduction Roman villas, and motels along the route of the old Roman roads. Part tourism, part scientific study, it would provide a lot of local jobs (a concern because Serbia isn’t part of the European Union [yet?] and much of the traditional farming is dying out).

And finally, the mammoths.

large pile of fossils not quite dug out of the ground yet, in a wooden chamber

A bit of a non sequitur amongst all of the Roman artifacts, but these were found at the same site (in a much earlier strata, obviously) and are on display in a wooden chamber. If I remember rightly, only some of the fossils were found on site; others were brought in for comparison.

After walking around all day and putting so many things in our heads, we all slept well. Which is good as the next day we were in Belgrade, and in addition to the guided tour made an extracurricular visit to the Tesla Museum.

biweekly links 8-24-2016