Many people have yet to hear about Belgrade, but if you have you’ll know that Belgrade isn’t some pop-up city that occurred last night. It’s anything but that. The capital city of Serbia, Belgrade, is so deeply rooted within Europe, your history prof probably doesn’t know the complete history of this complex city. And until most recently, most people didn’t even know it existed. But alas, it exists.
Let’s get one thing settled before I continue. Belgrade isn’t a nice looking city. I mean, there are interesting and beautiful parts, but before I go to bed, I wash off the black soot that is left from walking outside in the Belgrade air. The streets are filled with people rushing to work, gypsy children begging on the corners and the occasional one-string violinist playing in front of the grocery store, I’m still trying to figure out how that works. The city itself has been bombed and destroyed so many times, over forty, that when you look past the dirt and hard faces you see a city built off of resilience. Serbia itself is a country which meets East and West yet remained non-conforming to either side.
But, those times have apparently changed. Rather East and West said, fuck Serbia and decided to take over by collaborating and building their own city within Belgrade for profit.
They call it Belgrade Waterfront. Looks nice, eh?
Belgrade Waterfront is a project of hotels, restaurants, retail space and office space along the Sava River. I didn’t want to get into what I personally think is wrong with the architectural layout of Belgrade Waterfront, but they left me with no option.
Firstly, as I said previously, Belgrade is a dirty city. Charmingly dirty, underground and filled with character. It’s really not your typical city. My gym is in a renovated bunker underneath a music school. My favorite jazz club is on the roof of an abandoned office building. You can see, it’s been coined the name of the Balkan Berlin for a reason. The city was never built on suits and ties, but rather on poetry, music, art and the human struggle. The city’s buildings are covered with symbolic and highly artistic street art, the buildings themselves are aged and deteriorating which is what Belgrade has always been. A hidden gem.
This is actually what Belgrade looks like.
So, to understand why Belgrade Waterfront is esthetically wrong, I need to you visualize this for a moment. Here you have a city like I described earlier and then out of nowhere, obnoxiously situated along the river will be futuristic, high-rises with sleek lines and crystal clear glass. I should note that the center of Belgrade has one high-rise. One.
As you can see Belgrade Waterfront was not built with the intention to understand and blend into the city and people, but rather bluntly impose the right way of living. Now, I’m not saying it’s a bad way, but it’s not in flow with the history of the area.
But really, this is all just fluffy bitching on my part. There are many serious issues related to this project aside from its aesthetics. There is a huge lack of transparency with regards to where the money is coming from, the taxpayers involvement and legal obligations are unclear. This is really the biggest problem. The people who paying for it, Serbian citizens, are not included and informed of the development of the project. Like any normal person, we want to know how much and where our money is going.
So, the whole project is cloudy with many unanswered questions, however, the project is moving forward. So, who is this project really serving? We can cross out the citizens because most of them cannot afford to buy an apartment in one of these futuristically bullshit designed apartment buildings. The average cost of an apartment is 400,000 euros. Did I mention the average salary is under 400 euros a month? I did, didn’t I. Glad we got that out of the way.
This project is designed with one thing in mind: profit.
Yeah, yeah, sure, it puts Serbia on that map as a tourist destination, but let’s not get sidetracked from the real reason. It’s for profit.
Let’s take a closer look at who it really caters too. The list isn’t long. Wow, it’s actually very short. It serves the Abu Dhabi-based developing company Eagle Hills, foreign investors, and the government. The rest of us can all fuck off.
The web page of Belgrade Waterfront claims that it’s, the new face of the ancient city, the district links the historical and modern quarters with a modern centre of excellence that takes prosperity to new heights, for the benefit of Serbia and its citizens.
Wow, sorry, I just needed to take a breath. I literally just typed out bullshit.
When they say, the new face of the ancient city, they mean demolishing it and rebuilding it into another profit based city like Dubai. By new heights, they mean placing fucking high-rises along the river bank, blocking anyone from viewing it unless you buy one of their pricey apartments. Are you getting where I’m going with this?
But, let me just point out their last statement, for the benefit of Serbia and its citizens. This is gold. Comedic gold. For the citizens. Right. See, I’m not sure exactly what they’re trying to say with that. Do you mean this project will provide more jobs to the Serbian citizens? Well, that will probably happen, especially since the labour is cheap, matched with a high unemployment rate. However, these jobs do what for the society of Belgrade?
Belgrade is filled with highly educated individuals, who will have to opt for waitressing or janitorial work rather than scientific research, teaching, arts, etc. Is this the way to boost the economy? Is this the way to get people working?
It’s important to not only realize but accept that Serbia is in a crisis. More young people are leaving the country for employment and better living standards, but, it’s quite obvious that they’re going to leave anyways if they are getting paid 300 euros a month to serve coffee while holding a Ph.D. in chemistry or mental health.
So, instead of using that money to essentially hide Belgrade and lay a cloak of lies and deception over the real city, the money, all 3.5 billion, would be better spent restoring the city centre and upgrading already existing buildings as many are abandoned due to their poor infrastructure.
But, you know, I shouldn’t be so pessimistic. It’s all about positively these days. So, this project isn’t all bad. There’s going to be a new mall!
<insert enthusiastic clapping>
A beautiful, luxurious 140,000 m2 shopping mall, the largest in the Balkans. Oh joy, because at the end of the day, the Balkans really need another shopping center. This is truly a gift, the cherry on top of the cake.
You know, I just took another peek at the website for Belgrade Waterfront. Ironically, Belgrade Waterfront arrogantly used a quote from Prince Stefan Lazarevic’s dated when he established the capital of Serbia. Prince Lazarevic said, I have found the most beautiful place since antiquity. So, like any respectful, empathetic and profit based organization, they decided to take his words and shove it back up his ass, because at the end of the day, it ain’t beautiful unless it’s making money.
thelonelyserb 