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Belgrade (Serbian: Београд or Beograd ) is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is one of the oldest cities in Europe, first emerging as prehistoric Vinča in 4800 BC, it was settled in the 3rd century BC by the Celts, before becoming the Roman settlement of Singidunum.• It is the largest city on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and by population ranks fourth in the South Eastern Europe behind Istanbul, Athens and Bucharest. Belgrade has the status of a separate territorial unit in Serbia, with its own autonomous city government. Its territory is divided into 17 municipalities, each of which has its own local council. Belgrade spreads over 3.6% of the territory of Serbia, and 21% of the Serbian population (excluding that of the Kosovo province) lives in the city. It is the central economic hub of Serbia, and the capital of Serbian culture, education and science. Geography
Climate
History The Vinča culture existed in or near Belgrade and dominated the Balkans about 7,000 years ago. Settled in the 3rd century BC by the Celts before becoming the Roman settlement of Singidunum, the site passed to the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. Middle Ages Singidunum experienced occupation by successive invaders of the region—Huns, Sarmatians, Ostrogoths and Avars—before the arrival of the Slavs (Serbs) around 630 AD. The first record of the Slavic name Beograd dates back to 878 A.D., during the rule of the First Bulgarian Empire. For about four centuries the city remained a subject of warfare between Byzantium, Royal Hungary and First Bulgarian Empire. It finally passed to Serbian rule as a part of Kingdom of Syrmia in 1284. The first Serbian king to rule over Belgrade was Dragutin (1276–1282), the ruler of the Kingdom of Syrmia, who received it as a gift from his father-in-law, the Hungarian king Ladislav IV. Following terrible losses at the Battle of Kosovo of 1389, the Serbian Empire began to crumble, the south being conquered by the Ottoman Empire. However, the north resisted in the form of the Serbian Despotate, which had Belgrade as its capital. The city flourished under Despot Stefan Lazarević, son of the famous Serbian ruler Lazar Hrebljanović. Its ancient walls were refortified, along with its castles, harbours and churches, which helped the Despotate to avoid surrender to the Ottoman Turks for almost 70 years. At that time Belgrade became a haven for many Balkan peoples escaping Ottoman control. It is thought that the city had a population of some 40-50,000 at this time. During the reign of Đurađ Branković, most of the Serbian Despotate fell to the Ottomans, but Belgrade itself invited in Hungarian kings for protection. The Ottomans, however, wanted to conquer Belgrade as it presented an obstacle to their further advance into central Europe. They attacked in 1456, leading to the famous Siege of Belgrade where the Christian army under John Hunyadi successfully defended the city from the Ottomans. Turkish conquest Under Suleyman the Magnificent, on 28 August 1521, the fort was captured by the Ottoman Empire. The city was largely razed to the ground by the conquering Ottomans. For the next 150 years or so it was a peaceful town, and the seat of the district (sanjak). It attracted new traders and inhabitants - Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Ragusan traders, and others. It is thought that the city's population was around the 100,000 mark in the 17th century. It became more of an Oriental town, with Ottoman architecture and many new mosques. It was affected by a major Serb rebellion in 1594 (the Banat Uprising), which was crushed by the Turks, who burned churches and the relics (mortal remains) of Saint Sava on the Vračar plateau, an event the Temple of Saint Sava was built to commemorate in more recent times. Thrice occupied by Austria (1688-1690, 1717-1739, 1789-1791), it was recaptured and substantially razed each time by the Ottomans. During this period, the city was affected by the two Great Serbian Migrations, in which hundreds of thousands of Serbs, led by their patriarchs, retreated together with the Austrians into the Habsburg Empire in 1690 and 1737-39, settling in today's Vojvodina and Slavonia. During the First Serbian Uprising the Serbian rebels held the city from January 8 1806 to 1813, when it was retaken by the Ottomans. In 1817 it became the capital of the autonomous Principality of Serbia (except in the period from 1818–1841, when Kragujevac was the country's capital). After independence The capital was moved from Kragujevac to Belgrade by Prince Mihailo Obrenović, following the departure of the town's Turkish garrison in 1867. With Serbia's full independence in 1878 and its transformation into the Kingdom of Serbia in 1882, Belgrade once again became a key city in the Balkans, developing rapidly. Nevertheless, despite the opening of a railway to Niš, Serbia's second city, conditions in Serbia as a whole remained those of an overwhelmingly agrarian country, and in 1900 the capital had only 69,100 inhabitants. On the other hand, by 1905 the population had grown to more than 80,000, and by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, it had surpassed the 100,000 mark, not counting Zemun which then belonged to Austria-Hungary. After the occupation by Austro-Hungarian and German troops in 1915-1918 during the First World War, Belgrade experienced faster growth and significant modernisation as the capital of the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the 1920s and 1930s, growing in population to 239,000 by 1931 with the incorporation of the western suburb of Zemun, formerly on the Austro-Hungarian bank of the river. By 1940, the population had reached about 320,000. The population growth rate between 1921 and 1948 averaged 4.08% a year. On March 25, 1941, the country joined the Axis, signing the Tripartite Pact. This was immediately followed by a coup d'état and mass protests in Belgrade. On 6-April 7, 1941, the city was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe, killing thousands of people. Yugoslavia was invaded by German, Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces, aided by domestic Albanians and Croats, and the western suburbs were incorporated into a Nazi puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia. The city was bombed by the Allies as well, on 16-April 17 1944. Both bombings happened to fall on Orthodox Christian Easter. Most of the city remained under German occupation until October 20, 1944, when it was liberated by communist Yugoslav Partisans and the Red Army. In the post-war period Belgrade grew rapidly as the capital of the renewed Yugoslavia, developing as a major industrial centre. In March 1972, Belgrade was at the centre of the last major outbreak of smallpox in Europe. The epidemic, which was contained with enforced quarantine and mass vaccination, was over by late May. Recent history On March 9, 1991 massive demonstrations, led by Vuk Drašković, were held against Slobodan Milošević in the city. Two people, 17 year old high school student Branivoje Milinović and policeman Nedeljko Kosović were killed, 203 people were injured, and 108 were arrested in the protests. According to various media outlets, there were between 100,000 and 150,000 people on the streets that day. Later that day tanks were deployed onto the streets in order to restore order. After alleged electoral fraud at local elections, protests were held in Belgrade from November 1996 to February 1997 against the government of Slobodan Milošević. These protests brought Zoran Đinđić to power as the first democratically elected mayor of Belgrade in the post-communist period. NATO bombing caused substantial damage to the city during the Kosovo War in 1999. Among the sites bombed were the buildings of several ministries, the RTS (Radio Television of Serbia) building, which killed 16 technicians, several hospitals, the Jugoslavija Hotel, the Central Committee building, the Avala TV Tower, and the Chinese embassy. After elections in 2000, Belgrade was the site of major demonstrations with over half a million people on the streets (800,000 by police estimates, over 1,000,000 according to Misha Glenny) which caused the ousting of president Milošević. Government & politics The current mayor of Belgrade is Nenad Bogdanović, a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected in 2004. The first democratically elected mayor of Belgrade in modern times was Dr. Zoran Đinđić, elected in 1996. Belgrade has the status of a separate territorial unit in Serbia, with its own autonomous city government. Its territory is divided into 17 municipalities, each of which has its own local council. Municipalities The city is divided into 17 municipalities, ten with "urban" status, and seven with "suburban" status. The suburban municipalities have slightly expanded municipal powers, mainly with regard to construction, town planning and public utility provision. Demographics Belgrade has a population of 1,576,124 as recorded in the 2002 Serbian census. The main ethnic groups were Serbs (1,417,187), Yugoslavs (22,161), Montenegrins (21,190), Roma (19,191), Croats (10,381), Macedonians (8,372), and Muslims by nationality (4,617). There are an estimated several thousand Chinese in Belgrade, who began immigrating in the mid-1990s. Blok 70 in New Belgrade is known to Belgraders as the Chinese quarter. Also, many Arabs live in Belgrade. Most of these Arabs arrived in Belgrade to pursue their studies during the 1970s and 1980s, and have remained and founded families in the city. Most come from Syria, Jordan and Iraq. Economy Belgrade is the most economically developed part of Serbia. More than 30% of Serbia's GDP is generated by the city, which also has more than 30% of Serbia's employed population. The city's economy has been growing strongly since 2000. During the 90s, the city was severely affected, like the rest of Serbia, by an internationally imposed trade embargo. The hyperinflation of the Yugoslav dinar, the highest ever recorded in the world, also decimated the city's economy. The National Bank of Serbia is located in the city. Major companies based in Belgrade include Jat Airways, Telekom Srbija, Telenor Serbia, Delta Holding, and many others. As of September 2006, the average gross salary in Belgrade amounted to 40,891 Serbian dinars (about 510 euros, 650 US dollars, or 350 British pounds) the highest of any district in Serbia. The average net salary was 27,998 Serbian dinars (about 350 euros, 445 US dollars, or 240 British pounds). Culture Belgrade hosts many annual cultural events, including FEST (Belgrade Film Festival), BITEF (Belgrade Theatre Festival), BELEF (Belgrade Summer Festival), BEMUS (Belgrade Music Festival), Belgrade Book Fair, and the Belgrade Beer Festival. The Nobel prize winning author Ivo Andrić wrote his most famous work, The Bridge on the Drina, in Belgrade. Other prominent Belgrade authors include Branislav Nušić, Miloš Crnjanski, Borislav Pekić, Milorad Pavić and Meša Selimović. Most of Serbia's film industry is based in Belgrade, and one of the most notable films to be made there was 1995's Palme d'Or winning Underground, directed by Emir Kusturica. The city was one of the main centres of the Yugoslav New Wave in the 1970s: VIS Idoli, Ekatarina Velika and Šarlo Akrobata were all from Belgrade. Other notable Belgrade rock acts include Riblja Čorba, Bajaga i Instruktori and others. During the 1990s the city was the main centre (in the former Yugoslavia) of a musical style known as turbofolk. Today, it is the centre of the Serbian hip hop scene, with acts such as Beogradski Sindikat, Škabo, Marčelo, and most of the Bassivity Music stable hailing from or living in the city. There are many theatres, the most prominent of which are the National Theatre, the Yugoslav Theatre of Drama, the Zvezdara Theatre, and Atelje 212. The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is also based in Belgrade, as is the National Library of Serbia. Museums The most prominent museum in Belgrade is the National Museum, founded in 1844, which houses a collection of more than 400,000 exhibits - including many foreign masterpieces. The famous Miroslavljevo Jevanđelje (Miroslav's Gospel) is in the museum's collection. The Military Museum is popular with foreign tourists, in part as it houses parts of a F-117 stealth aircraft shot down by Yugoslav forces, in addition to a wide range of more than 25,000 military exhibits dating as far back as to the Roman period. A similar museum is the Museum of Yugoslav Aviation which has more than 200 aircraft, of which about 50 are on display. A few of the aircraft the museum possesses are the only surviving examples of their type, such as the Fiat G.50. This musuem also displays parts of shot down US and NATO aircraft. The Ethnographic Museum, established in 1901, contains more than 150,000 items showcasing the rural and urban culture of the Balkans, particularly the countries of the former Yugoslavia. The Museum of Modern Art has a collection of around 8,540 works of art produced in Yugoslavia since 1900. The Nikola Tesla Museum, founded in 1952, preserves the personal items of Nikola Tesla, the inventor after whom the Tesla unit was named. It holds around 160,000 original documents and around 5,700 other items. The last of the major Belgrade museums is the Museum of Vuk and Dositej, which showcases the lives, work and legacy of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Dositej Obradović, the 19th century reformer of the Serbian literary language and the first Serbian Minister of Education respectively. One of the more unusual museums in Belgrade is the Museum of African Art, founded in the days of socialist solidarity with the undeveloped nations of the Third World. Education Belgrade has two state universities and several private institutions for higher education. Belgrade University was founded in 1808 as a Great Academy. It is one of the oldest educational institutions in the country (the oldest higher-education facility - the Teacher's College in Subotica - dates back to 1689). More than 70,000 students study at Belgrade University. There are 195 primary (elementary) schools and 85 secondary schools. Of the primary schools, there are 162 regular, 14 special, 15 art and 4 adult schools. The secondary school system consists of 51 vocational schools, 21 gymnasiums, 8 art schools and 5 special schools. There are 230,000 enrolled pupils managed by 22,000 employees in over 500 buildings that cover around 1,100,000 m². Nightlife
Sport There are around a thousand sports facilities in Belgrade, many of which are capable of serving all levels of sporting events. Belgrade has hosted several relatively major sporting events recently, including Eurobasket 2005, the 2005 European Volleyball Championship, and the 2006 European Waterpolo Championship. Belgrade will be the host city of the 2009 Summer Universiade, defeating the cities of Monterrey and Poznań. The city launched two unsuccessful candidate bids to organize the Summer Olympic Games: for the 1992 Summer Olympics Belgrade was eliminated in the third round of International Olympic Committee voting, with the games going to Barcelona. The 1996 Summer Olympics ultimately went to Atlanta. The city is home to Serbia's two best football teams, Red Star Belgrade and FC Partizan, as well as a few other first league clubs. The two big stadiums in Belgrade are the Marakana (Red Star Stadium) and the Partizan Stadium. Belgrade Arena is used for basketball matches, along with Pionir Hall., while the Tašmajdan Sports Centre is used for waterpolo matches. Ada Ciganlija is a former island on the Sava river, and Belgrade's biggest sports and recreational complex. Today it is connected with the shore, creating an artificial lake on the river. It is the most popular destination for Belgraders during the city's hot summers. There are 7 kilometres of long beaches and sports facilities for various sports including golf, rugby, football, basketball, volleyball, baseball, and tennis. Extreme sports are available, like bungee jumping, water skiing and paintballing. There are numerous tracks on the island, where it is possible to ride a bike, go for a walk or go jogging. car.jpg|250px|thumb|left|Knez Mihailova|Prince Michael Street. Courtesy of http://zivotic.com/photo/ Zoran Zivotic Tourism Since 2000, in line with country's revival of diplomatic relations with Western Europe and the USA, Belgrade has been seeing a return of foreign holidaymakers absent since the wars of the nineties. The historic areas and buildings of Belgrade are among the city's premier attractions. They include Skadarlija, the National Museum and adjacent National Theatre, Zemun, Nikola Pašić Square, Terazije, Students' Square, the Kalemegdan Fortress, Prince Michael Street, the Federal Parliament, the Temple of Saint Sava, and the Old Palace. On top of this, there are many parks, monuments, museums, cafes, restaurants and shops; both sides of the river Sava, not to mention views of the city from the Avala Monument, on a hilltop overlooking the city. Josip Broz Tito's mausoleum, called Kuća Cveća (The House of Flowers), and the nearby Topčider and Košutnjak parks are also popular, especially among visitors from the former Yugoslavia. In recent years growing numbers of young people, especially from Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, have visited Belgrade to enjoy the city's nightlife. Media Belgrade is the most important media hub in Serbia. The city is home to the main headquarters of the national broadcaster Radio Television Serbia - RTS, which is currently in the process of being transformed into a public service broadcaster. The RTS music publishing operation is also based in Belgrade. The most popular commercial broadcaster is RTV Pink, a Serbian media multinational, known for its popular entertainment programs, which are considered by some to be sensationalist and of low quality. The most popular mainstream "alternative" broadcaster is B92, another media company, which has its own TV station, radio station, and music and book publishing arms, as well as the most popular website on the Serbian internet. Other TV stations broadcasting from Belgrade include Košava, Avala, and others which only cover the greater Belgrade municipal area, such as Studio B and TV Politika. Numerous specialised channels are also available: SOS (sport), Metropolis (music), Art TV (art), Cinemania (film), while Happy TV (children's programs). High-circulation daily newspapers published in Belgrade include Politika, Večernje novosti, Blic, Glas javnosti, and Sportski žurnal. Other dailies published in the city are Press, Borba, and Kurir. A new free distribution daily, 24 sata, was founded in the autumn of 2006. The two most popular Serbian weekly newsmagazines, NIN & Vreme, are published in Belgrade. Architecture
Transportation Belgrade's public transport system is based on buses (112 lines), trams (12 lines), and trolleybuses (8 lines). The system is mostly run by the City Traffic Company (Serbian: Градско Саобраћајно Предузеће or Gradsko Saobraćajno Preduzeće, ГСП or GSP), in cooperation with some private companies on various bus routes. Belgrade also has a commuter railway network, Beovoz, run by the Serbian Railways. The city's Main Railway Station connects Belgrade with other European capitals, as well as with many of towns in Serbia. However, more popular in Serbia is travel by coach, and the capital is well served with daily connections to all major and minor towns in the country, as well as in the region. The motorway system provides for easy access by car to Novi Sad to the north, Niš to the south, and Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, to the west. As a city situated at the confluence of two major rivers, the Danube and the Sava, Belgrade has many bridges - the two main ones are Branko's Bridge and the Gazela, both of which connect the core of the city to New Belgrade. The Port of Belgrade (Serbian: Лука "Београд" or Luka "Beograd") is on the Danube, and allows the city to receive goods by river. The city is served by Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport (IATA: BEG), a few kilometres west of the city centre. At its peak in 1986, almost 3 million passengers travelled through the airport, though that number dwindled to a trickle in the 1990s. Following growth since 2000, the number of passengers reached about 2 million in 2004. Names through history International cooperation Belgrade is twinned with the following cities: Other forms of cooperation and city friendship similar to the twin/sister city programmes: Honours The City of Belgrade has received various domestic and international honours, including the Legion of Honour, the War Cross, Karađorđe's Star with Swords, and the Order of National Hero. In 2006 the Financial Times of London awarded Belgrade the title of City of the Future of Southern Europe. Belgrade in video games Belgrade was recently featured in the popular video game Battlefield 2142 made by EA Games. The map is a city map and features the European Union fighting the Pan-Asian forces for control of the city after a major futuristic ice age. Further reading Footnotes | |||||||||||||||
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