“I guess it doesn’t want to be pretty. It’s just massive, powerful, and it doesn’t give a fuck what you think about it. I can respect that, even if I don’t like looking at it.” anonymous Serbian friend of Darmon Richter, the Bohemian Blog
Belgrade was planned to be the second last city on my Balkan adventure, the culmination of all my Brutalist fetishes, where I would glean enough courage to venture into the darkest, most brooding, ominous and towering socialist suburbia of Brutalist high rises; after all, the Bloks of New Belgrade were the monochromatic hero images of any Brutalist architecture references. I was about to pluck up the courage to visit the infamous Novi Beograd, or New Belgrade, as it was named when the apartment complexes were born.
I had already experienced unplanned surprise Socialist Apartment Brutalism with Modernist details and geometric patterning in cities such as Albania, Skopje, Sofia and Nis but I expected Belgrade to be the pinnacle.
Most visitors to Belgrade seek out its ancient gates and fortresses with Roman ruins dating back to 3rd century BC, and there is only cult interest in visiting the parallel city across the river. Modern by comparison, the city opposite the old town was consequently named Novi Beograd (New Belgrade) when building was complete in the early 1970s. When construction of New Belgrade began in 1948, the area designed for the future urban expansion was divided in 72 blocks; these blocks came to be known colloquially as Blokovi (The Blocks).
As a trendy left winger, I always wanted to believe that these apartment blocks, ugly to many (guides refer to it as ‘soulless concrete sham’) were actually fully-functioning, environmentally friendly and appealing to those from all walks oflife. Therefore, I was delighted upon discovery that planned cities such as New Belgrade provided kindergartens to provide child care for the workers (which included women) and there was a canteen on every floor. In many socialist countries such as Lithuania, shuttle buses even transported workers to their workplace as they were not expected to own cars. In Postwar 1940s, it is easy to see how these new cities were considered Socialist Utopias.
With only three days in the massive Belgrade I had inadvertently procrastinated and left visiting Blokovi until my last day, adding the extra stress of making sure I returned to my apartment in time to make it to the station in time for my bus to Novi Sad, for the four day Exit Festival. Getting to New Belgrade was easy enough if you knew how to catch the public transport; I had found this rather difficult and was frequently waved off when trying to purchase a tram ticket from the main station. I had already exhausted my private tour budget on another tour, visiting a Spomenik or two whilst sitting in the front seat of a genuine original Yugo (remember, the Communist cars I wrote about in a former blog?) Out of principle for budget travelling I decided to take the plunge and wander out into the unknown, asking the public for help! I headed to a tram stop where I thought the tram heading to New Belgrade might be departing from; not clear which side of the road I should be standing on, I asked an innocent looking teenager if she knew. She chirpily replied in perfect English that she was in fact going to New Belgrade and generously invited me to walk with her to another tram stop. We conversed the entire time and when I enquired as to whether I could pay once on the tram; she replied ‘yes, but nobody does’, so I guiltily fare evaded all the way for the next half an hour as I absorbed the transition from the crowded and bustling Belgrade to what was rather unexpectedly the spaciousness and peacefulness of New Belgrade.
I eventually worked out that I was heading towards the renowned Blocks 61-63, which were previously the domain of the Yugoslav army. These blocks: Bežanijski blokovi are also known as "Oficirski blokovi" (or, in English, "The Officers' blocks") Consequently, a large portion of the inhabitants of the Bežanijski blokovi are the families of the retired army officers who bought out their apartments from the Army. Most aerial views of New Belgrade focus on the 60s blocks because of their imposing and rigid geometric presence. From the air they appear gigantic but at ground level there is actually plenty of space between buildings, nothing like the high rises of New York. The population is quite diverse with artists, intellectuals and bus drivers living in the same building as doctors and lawyers. The Serbian band Riblja Čorba wrote the song Neću da vidim u Bloku 65 (‘I don’t want to live in Bloc 65’) but for me, rather than urban ghetto, I found Blokovi a peaceful suburbia with evidence of parks and only half an hour by public transport to the main centre of Belgrade. I would prefer to live there and commute to Belgrade proper than live in the crowded city across the river. And the excellent Museum of Contemporary art is also on this side.
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