Tuesday 23 April 2024
Highlights: Yugo Car Tour, Semlin Concentration Camp, Genex Tower, Learning about Josip Broz Tito leader Yugoslavia, Nikola Tesla Museum

Today we had booked two optional activities, a Yugo Tour (6,000 Dinars / 50 Euros) and a tour of the Nikola Tesla Museum (500 Dinar). These activities would take most of the day starting from 9 am. Rain was forecast in the afternoon so the hope was we would miss it.

Yugo Tour was a tour using a Yugo Car to get around Belgrade. These are communist era cars that were declared the worst car of the the last millennium. Compact and low maintennce they are making a comeback as a throwback to an older era.

We were split across 5 yugos with 3 passengers to a car and 1 driver. Darby went in a different car to me and seemed to have a lot of fun. There are seatbelts but only in the front seats. It was a unique way to get around an see Belgrade.

Our first stop on the tour was at an area that housed the Semlin Concentration Camp. All up 40,000 people died at this camp. They would load people up in a truck, they them they were being deported, then drive into the city and slowly gas the passengers. These passengers would scream for help as they died. The purpose was to put fear into citizens this could happen to them. After WW2 the new Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito ‘erarsed’ this history since locals helped run the camp. To this day most Serbians have little knowlede of the camp the lead to the total elimination of Jewish population in this country.

We moved onto the Hotel Yugoslavia once the pride of Yugoslavia but now run down. Heads of State stayed here including UK Queen Elizabeth (on multiple occasions) and Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Next stop was a very unique building, Genex Tower. In it’s heyday it was a major building and point of pride. However the business tower was abandoned in the late 1990s. The residential tower is still in use. You can see it would have been amazing in Belgrade in it’s day.

The final major stop was Josip Broz Tito Museum. Tito, which was originally it’s undercover name under the Monarchy before he add it as an additional surname, was the post WW2 leder of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1980 (his death).

Tito was an interesting leader, a Communist who said no to Stalin and kept Yugoslavia as a non-aligned country. As a result Yugoslavia played significant roles between USSR and USA during the cold war. Tito did do the usual dictator things like ‘disappearing’ opponents but he was also loved by a lot of his people, in particular Serbs who hosted the captital of Yugoslavia.

Our Yugo tour completed most of the group was dropped off at the Nikola Tesla Museum. Serbians claim Nikola Tesla as one of their own. Tesla was born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan, within the Austrian Empire. That village is now Croatia so they are completing claims.

Nikola Tesla is credited for creation and wide usage of alternating current (AC) electricity supply system which is used today. It created many important inventions related to electricty and was a great rival of Thomas Edison. Most of his significant work occurred in the USA.

We watched a video of his life and then took part in some interactive demonstrations. Very cool.

At this point with mild rain Darby and myself headed part of the hotel but others continued exploring.