soundbytes from serbia

few weeks ago, i joined a tour to the royal palace in belgrade. it is organized by tourist organization of belgrade, and the tours are held every weekend in sept & oct. when i reserved six seats for my friends and family (it was sort of a take-your-mom-along, mother-daughter bonding idea), we were the only visitors on the list. but on the date of visit, the group was full! mostly visitors from slovenia, who are still nostalgic about yugoslavia days and like to visit belgrade.

once we entered the royal complex, it was a nice walk along the gardens and the guide was very professional, providing us with lots of facts and stories to bring the palace to life. it was nice to see the decorations and the old furniture, since each piece has a story (either unique place of origin, or gift, or artist, or usage). however, personally for me, it was not so interesting, since i’ve seen a lot of more extravagant items in vienna’s schoenbrunn palace. fair enough, since serbia is a small and modest country, it’s only fair that exhibit items are also small and modest in comparison. in addition, a lot of work needs restauration. for example, there was a painting “a boy with blue eyes”, and when i walked up to double check that his eyes were blue, since they appeared black on the painting, the guide mumbled: “yes, the painting needs a bit of restauration, the eyes are not blue anymore…”. i discovered, and enjoyed, a lot of work by french baroque painter poussin, there is quite a large collection of his work. there were a lot of paintings generally and sculptures by a famous sculptor ivan mestrovic. i like his work a lot, the sculptures are very realistic and look like they can come alive at anytime.

however, my enthusiasm significantly grew when we reached - the basement! this is where the true magic of the royal palace tour happens. there is a whole city under the building, with its own story - here are only a few of my favorites:

• the ceilings and walls were decorated as an homage to russian art by russian workers who were living and working in serbia
• “whisper room” do discuss important matters, with a small fountain so to prevent eavesdropping
• private movie theater for tito (a famous marshal and historic icon of yugoslavia)

at the end, even the prince himself came to meet us and took photos with us, and we could ask him any question about his life! my mom was curious if his boys like belgrade, to which she got an affirmative answer.

serbia is always like that. when it tries to be grand and compare to others, it leads nowhere. but when it shows the visitors some rugged, charming, quirky sides of its life, then it leads to many pleasant surprises. (…aren’t we all like that…?)