AT LEAST STRAWBERRIES ARE VERY GOOD AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR
Showing posts with label art in serbia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art in serbia. Show all posts
Belgrade's Top Five Museums
After visiting Kalemegdan, Knez Mihailova Street, St Sava Church and quaint Skadarlija, there are some fine museums to explore;
Nikola Tesla Museum We are all used to neon lights and remote controls nowadays, but it’s amazing to see the work that the Serbian scientist Tesla did back in the 19th century and how much he was ahead of his time - Tesla invented electricity and Edison copied his work. There are all type of models, displays and several exceptionally valuable collections in the museum.
Website: www.tesla-museum.org
Ethnographic Museum One of the oldest museum in the Balkans with different folk costumes, textiles, embroidery, lace, musical instruments, furniture and art from all around Serbia. The permament exhibit takes up three levels of the building. The first floor represents the popular assembly, the second is related to textile production and the third is about culture of living. The symbol of the musuem is the Decanska Fountain located at its centre. Website: http://www.etnografskimuzej.rs/
Military Museum I love this Museum! It's located at the heart of the Kalemegdan Fortress and you can’t miss it as outside the main entrance are a row of tanks and cannons. The 3,000 exhibits date from ancient times through the medieval era then towards more modern times, so there are Roman swords, Greek helmets, knights' armour, axes, shields, guns, badges and uniforms, and it's latest acquisition, parts of a US F-117 stealth aircraft which was downed by Serbian forces during the 1999 NATO bombing. Webiste: http://www.muzej.mod.gov.rs/
National Museum Once one of the best Museums in the region has been more or less closed for refurbishment for the last 8 years, but the 3rd floor however is open and hosts an art gallery displaying just part of a very large collection of national and regional art. The most precious part of the collection consists of drawings of French and west-European artists of the 19th century and include C. Corot (Meadow by the Swamp), E. Degas (from the series Ballerinas and Women at Toilet), P-A. Renoir (from the series Guitar Players, c. 1897), C. Pissarro (Market at Pontoise), J-L. Forain (from the series Satirical Scenes), P. Picasso (Interior with Three Figures, 1926). Also work of Mattisse ( head of Women, 1939) and Rodin ( Female Nude, 1905) can be found here. Website: http://www.narodnimuzej.rs/
Tito’s Museum or The Museum of Yugoslav History, or the House of Flowers I am sentimentally fond of this museum even though my first visit was only last year when I took my friends from London to visit it. I was born and grew up under Tito's regime and remember when he died the whole country came to a standstill, rightly worried what would happen now that he was gone. He died in Slovenia and transferred to Belgrade's House of Flowers as it was known then for his final rest. At the beginning there were guards in very nice shiny uniforms giving the whole place a sense of importance, but nowadays the guards have been abolished and there is only one security guard in a small office on site. The graveyard is very simple – white marble with his name and date of birth and death, in gold. Some sceptics are saying that he wasn’t communist as there is no star on his grave, the communist symbol he fought for all his life. The place is interesting as it has a huge collection of relay batons, some of them dating back to 1945 when organised mass youth relays across Yugoslavia were common practice to express dedication to communism, Tito and the Party. Not far from Tito’s grave there is a permanent exhibition of the presents Tito received from dignitaries in Yugoslavia and abroad. I love a richly engraved 16th century sword from Iran.
The museum used to have more space before Milosevic moved into the neigbourghhood and decided to take part of the land from Tito's residence. Now on the right side there is a big brick wall and sometimes you can see part of the empty Milosevic residence. Outside the Museum in the main building there is a huge space which usually is used for exhibitions. webiste: www.mij.rs
Museum of Serbian Orthodox Church It’s worth mentioning a visit to the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church which is situated opposite the Cathedral Church of St. Michael the Archangel. A few years ago the Royal Academy of Art in London organized very successful exhibition called Byzantium where exhibits from the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church were on display. Today the exhibits can be found in Belgrade and also a large number of icons, church textiles, metal liturgy objects, manuscripts and old printed church books, portraits, graphics, etc. dating back to the 13th century. Webiste: http://www.spc.rs/
Among other museums there is the Historical Museum of Serbia (http://www.imus.org.rs/ ) situated not far from the Ethnographic Museum and which hosts a large collection of Serbian flags and military badges. Also it's worth mentioning the Aviation Museum (http://www.muzejrv.org/ ) situated near Airport Nikola Tesla, the Museum of Natural History (http://www.nhmbeo.rs/) situated at Kalemegdan Fortress and which is well known for hosting very unusual exhibitions. I would also mention the Railway Museum (www.zeleznicesrbije.com)
close to the Railway Station for enthusiastic trainspotters.
For private guided tour in Belgrade please email Tara@ReadyClickAndGo.com or check our website at www.ReadyClickAndGo.com
Art, Wine and Honey in Novi Sad, Serbia
The National Museum in Belgrade, Serbia is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia, and has over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces. Unfortunately the Museum has been closed for renovations for more than five years.If you wish to learn more about Serbian national art we at ReadyClickAndGo would suggest you visit Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city, just an hour and a half north of Belgrade along scenic country lanes, or, if you can read the Cyrillic alphabet, you can get the train, or take the bus down the motorway.
The Matica Srpska Gallery in Novi Sad is to be found in the old Stock Exchange building and it has more than 7,000 works of art, especially that from Vojvodina from the 17th century onwards. All the exhibits have English translations. On the ground floor are copies of the frescoes painted by Christopher Zefarovic at the Bodani Monastery in 1737, on the first floor are paintings and carvings, including precious icons from the Orthodox churches of Vojvodina. The second floor has a permanent exhibition called People and Events, and displays pictures from 1900 to 1940 when the country was fighting for freedom and its national identity, and on the third floor are superb paintings from some of Serbia’s greatest artists, classic, romantic and realist – Constantine Daniel, Dure Jaksic, Uros Predic, Paja Jovanovic, Save Šumanović and Milan Konjovic. There are also the famous paintings ‘The Cockfight’ and ‘Wounded Montenegrins’ and one by Jovanovic for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900, a huge historical composition, ‘The Proclamation of Dusan’s Law’. The Matica Srpska Gallery is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 1000–1800, Friday 1200-2000. The entry fee is RSD200 whcih is around 2 euros. Try to visit during the week as there will no one there except you and you can have the whole place to yourself. Next to the Gallery there is the Memorial Collection of Pavle Beljanski who was a diplomat and huge lover of art who dedicated his collection to the Serbian nation. This gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday 1000–1800 and on Thursdays from 1300- 2100. Entry is RSD300.Opposite these two galleries there is another, this time of a collector called Rajko Mamuzic who also dedicated his collection to the Serbian people - it is well worth a visit and is also free of charge.
On the way back to Belgrade we stopped at the Musuem of Bee Keeping and Wine Celler at the Zivanovic family home. We met Mr Zarko Zivanovic whose great-grandfather was a professor at the famous Karlovac grammar school but was also the founder of modern beekeeping in Serbia and a man who had a great knowledge of wine making. In the family house is a unique beekeping museum with objects you rarely see nowadays but which used to be common – such as beehives made of thin strips of dried wood woven into a dome shape and covered in mud – very different from the beehives made today. Extracting honey in the old days was rather hit-and-miss and of course, there were no protective clothes then either – but people did believe that beestings were good for the blood! The honey at the Zivanovic farm is very clear and thick, not runny, which shows there are no preservatives added, unlike what you get in a supermarket.
Along with beekeeping and producing high qualilty honey the Zivanovic family is at the forefront of wine production in Serbia and are winning awards, diplomas and medals at home and internationally. They own huge vineyards 200 m above sea level near the Danube on the slopes of the Fruska Gora mountain, and their wine is produced in 300-year-old cellars. Their Ausbruch wine was on the wine list on the Titanic. Their greatest secret is the old recipe, passed down through the generations, from which is prepared Bernet wine, and this Bernet was served at the Russian, English and Viennese courts right up until the First World War. Similar to Port but much stronger, it is made from natural wines with the addition of 27 different ingredients such as raisins, beans, mustard, nutmeg, vanilla and figs.
If you are passing through Novi Sad visit this unique place and you won’t regret it - you can book combined visits to the museum and the wine cellar with wine and honey tastings too. As an added bonus I would recommend you try to sneak inside Mr Zivanvic’s house to meet his grandmother, a beautiful, charming lady with an unbelievable zest for life which I guess is the result of plenty of healthy honey and fine wine!
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