This is the Real Belgrade 🇷🇸

Right now I'm in my favorite city Belgrade and in this video I'm going to show you why it's one of the coolest cities in Europe and an insanely historical place. Let's do this. It's 5 30 a.m right now and I'm in Belgrade, Serbia which is one of my favorite cities in the world if not the favorite city. I'm in Zeleni Venec which is a very very central hub of Belgrade. I see a lot of buses here, people coming to work. All right time to get some Serbian breakfast. I'm eating this cheese burek. It's really hard to eat without making a mess which is why I'm not even trying to do it while holding a camera in one hand. This is a pretty heavy thing to eat for breakfast by the way. It has some really good old European vibes. I'm at the church of which is the largest eastern orthodox church in all of Serbia and the Balkans and it's probably the most recognizable building in all of Belgrade and it's actually one of the largest churches in the world with a height of 82 meters around 270 feet. If you're looking at the dome at the top and that reminds you of the Hagia Sophia it's because this church was kind of modeled after the Hagia Sophia. I'm in the church of Saint Sava and there's a little bit of renovation going on but the interior here is just freaking incredible. There's about 12,000 square meters of golden mosaics covering the interior and the construction of this interior was actually partially financed by the Russian state two years ago. Vladimir Putin was actually here and he symbolically put one of the stones in the mosaics. So in 2020 when the Hagia Sophia was sort of converted back to a mosque from a museum there was a lot of interest expressed as this place sort of symbolically replacing the Hagia Sophia as a spiritual orthodox center for the world. Right now I'm at Third Republika, a republic square and to me this place sort of symbolizes the very center of Belgrade because on that side behind me you have basically all the government buildings, the churches, some of the more historical stuff. On this side you have the start of Dorcol which is probably the fanciest neighborhood of Belgrade and that's where all the universities are. And in the middle of all of this you've got Republic Square with the National Museum on this side, the National Theater on the other side and in the middle of all of it you've got a statue of Prince Mihailo who was a Serbian prince assassinated in the 19th century and he was a great reformer and he was one of the first people to advocate for this Balkan federation of a sort to fight back against the Ottomans for more autonomy. This is the National Assembly of Serbia but up until about like a decade ago or a little more than a decade ago for almost the entirety of the 20th century this building served as the parliament of Yugoslavia. For most of the 20th century all of these Balkan states which is Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia did come together to make sort of one big country called Yugoslavia with the capital of it based right here in Belgrade and this was the parliament building for that country of Yugoslavia where representatives from every single country came and discussed national matters or state matters. So a lot of very very very important history has happened behind me right here in this building. I kind of want to make a very important point about politics in Serbia. At least since the days of Jozef Tito Serbia hasn't really had the best group of politicians. The leaders of this country have ranged from convicted war criminals back in the 90s to the people now who are actively trying to suppress freedom of the press. So because of that Serbia often gets a bad reputation in the international community. But I want to emphasize and say that the Serbian people that you meet in Belgrade or young people or even older people that you meet anywhere are nothing like these politicians. Serbians are some of the friendliest and most welcoming people to foreigners I've seen in my life. So whenever I mention that I'm coming to Serbia or staying in Serbia a lot of my friends who haven't been here are often concerned about safety and that's just ridiculous because Serbia is so safe. It's way way safer than Western European cities like Paris, Brussels. There's like no one going around pickpocketing people. You can walk home from the bars or wherever you are at 3am. That's not really something that happens even in Western Europe. Forget about it in an American city. I mean I've been to hundreds of cities in my life and this is the only city where I've stayed for like three months total in the last four years. There's a reason I keep coming back guys. All right enough about politics. Now we're gonna go see the actual real life in Belgrade. All right so I'm back in Zelenovina because I can't possibly do a Belgrade vlog without some pljeskavica. One. So one very important thing to note is the word for thank you. In Serbia and Croatia and pretty much this whole region is hvala. H-V-A-L-A. The first two years in the Balkans I was calling it hvala like the animal. None of my friends told me. This is a pljeskavica, a Serbian national dish and probably my favorite food in this whole region if not one of my favorite foods in the world. This is delicious. So as much as I love Belgrade I hate the street crossings because they're really confusing. The pedals are confusing too but sometimes it's the best way to get through. I am in Skadarlija which is one of the fanciest streets in all of Serbia. This is probably one of the biggest tourist hot spots in the city so you can come here and come to one of these many cute little cafes with cute little flowers outside it if you want something really scenic and peaceful I guess. I personally like to go to this other place which is a couple of hundred meters that way which is where there are cafes where the locals like to hang out called Setinska. Of each of the three right? This is Setinska 5 and Setinska is basically this huge area with I don't know 15 bars or more than that. I think it's like 10. There's a lot of bars, 10 bars and a lot of cafes essentially so this is where more like the locals and the local hippies come and chill out and this is where I work every day. Nikola does too. This is Nikola one of my best friends in Serbia. I think you are my best friend in Serbia by the way. You're my best friend from five minutes. So we usually work here every day but this is not a work video. Today we're gonna try Rakija which is the Serbian national drink. It's a Balkan spirit but yeah if you come to Serbia you have to try at least three Rakijas. Rakija might be good but I'm just not a fan so if it looks like I'm in pain it's not because Rakija is bad. It's just I can't drink Rakija. Rakija is this basically this distilled fruit drink which is extremely popular and it's also very popular to brew it in your home. I feel like everyone I know has like at least one grandparent that makes Rakija and drinks it in the morning and there's like all these legends about how everyone thinks Rakija cures everything. Yeah during corona that was like one of the most popular not even a meme or something it was like I think the president let himself drink one Rakija every morning and you're gonna be fine. Don't take medical advice from Serbian presidents. The first time I actually drank Rakija was on a boat in a boat party. No one told me how strong. I had no idea that a shot could have like 60 plus percent of alcohol. Rakija should be like 40 percent to 50. Yeah but the homemade ones are like yeah yeah and and here like they we sort of go in a more extreme you know way so here is like 55 or something you know. We're trying three different kinds of Rakija. The first one's apricot or or kajsija in Serbian or kajsija. You want to talk about Rakija? You good? Yeah. To be fair this guy can you do a review of it like zero to ten or something? Tastes like very strong alcohol but people like it a lot a lot of foreigners like it too so it's yeah you can actually taste the apricot not that this is the first time they actually focus on the taste. You just finished the shot but one way of drinking it that some people have told me is that you sort of inhale put it in then exhale that's how you taste it more but I don't know how true that is. I'll put this away for now. Oh god this one looks like the scariest one to me. Yeah it is. I think plum is usually the... That's the standard one right? Whoa we just made a grave ass mistake. The one we drank is a plum. We drank the plum one. What we just drank is not apricot. That was dunja or quince Rakija. Yeah quince Rakija. I feel really bad as a Serbian but for some reason my brain just froze. Don't worry. You can actually taste the apricot. You can actually taste the apricot. So this one's actually apricot. Yeah. And what's the Serbian? Kajsije. Kajsije okay. Yes. So wait. Živjeli is cheers in Serbian and you're supposed to look each other in the eye and Živjeli but it's bad luck. It's actually more tolerable. It's sweeter I think than the other one. Definitely like this a lot more than last shot. All right so number three this is plum Rakija. It's good. I tried better but it's good. It's good. Honestly vinijek is also a Serbian drink and it's I think a lot better than this. Yeah. Taste won't go away. If I had to rank those three I'd rank the apricot one is the sweetest and the best. This one plum was I guess okay. Dunja was the hardest one to drink and you have to finish mine right now. That's it for Rakija tasting. On to the next scene. Yeah. So right now I'm at the Belgrade fortress which is on this 125 meter high ridge that's sort of overlooking the meeting point of the Danube and the Sava rivers. Two of the major rivers in this region and that's the main reason this fortress was built over here. So what you see inside this fortress over here is the oldest part of Belgrade and for centuries the entire city of Belgrade was inside the walls of this whole fortress. Archaeological remains suggest that people have lived in the area around Belgrade for 8,000 years since about 6,000 BC. But the first ever historical records of this particular Belgrade fortress can be found back in the 3rd century BC so 2,300 years ago. After that it was taken over by the Byzantine empire in 535 AD. Justinian the Great, if you remember from my Istanbul vlog, the Byzantine king, rebuilt this fortress again. And from then on this was sort of like a Byzantine stronghold all the way until the 12th century when this emerging kingdom of Serbia sort of took back this fortress. After that this whole region changed hands between empires a couple of times. Mehmed the Conqueror from Turkey tried to take over this place but failed in a siege of Belgrade. Finally in 1521 the Ottomans took over this fortress pretty much along with the rest of Serbia and it remained in Ottoman hands until about the 19th century when the kingdom of Serbia re-emerged and took over this place. This is easily one of the most visited sites in Belgrade by locals and tourists alike because it's free entry. I used to actually come here a lot when I used to live like 10 minutes away from here. If you do come here make sure to come to this huge monument in the Danube river. It's quite the sight to see around sunset time like right now. So right now I'm in this sort of area called Zemun on the outskirts of Belgrade. It's only 15 minute bus ride away from the very city center near Zeleni Vinac but it's on the other side of the Sava river. So because of that small separation this place has been under different kingdoms and often even different empires throughout Serbia's history. Even up until World War I this whole area was controlled by the Austro-Hungarian empire and the other side everything else you saw in Belgrade was controlled by the kingdom of Serbia. So when World War I broke out these two cities were actually like fighting against each other across the river. So the difference in these two cities is very evident if you just pay attention to the architecture around you. It's most evident when you look at the most notable landmark in Zemun in the middle of Zemun fortress. So right now I'm on top of Gardos tower or millennium tower and this was actually built in 1896 when all of Zemun was under the Hungarian empire and this is called millennium tower because it was built in order to commemorate Hungarians living in this part of Europe for a thousand years. Ironically they were driven out less than 20 years after that. This place was built on top of this hill it's a bit of a walk to get to a lot of stairs but it's a really nice view when you get to the top you can see the Danube and the Sava and the rest of Belgrade back there. The vlog is coming to an end and I just realized I never talked about one of the coolest parts of Belgrade which is the Belgrade nightlife. So I've been to pretty much every city in Europe and I don't think I've seen nightlife like this anywhere maybe for except Berlin. I've had some of the wildest party nights of my life in Belgrade which is one of the reasons I keep coming back and the best place to see Belgrade nightlife is to come right here to the Sava and go to one of these boat clubs. If you go down from the bridge and keep walking you'll see about dozens of boats and each of them is their own club with their own boat party. First time I was in Belgrade I was going to one every single night like if nothing was open you could just walk up to an empty boat and if you show up with enough people they'll open up a bar and start serving you booze and playing music. It's a crazy party city. I'm actually about to go finish that vignette that I just got and probably go out to one of these clubs or bars with my friends. That's it for this video from my favorite city Belgrade. 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