Belgrade Belgrade is the former capital of Yugoslavia, and now it is the capital of Serbia. It is a city with a strong sense of history. Due to the NATO bombing 18 years ago, the city slipped from prosperity to decline. Here are some travel strategies for Belgrade.

We arrived at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport at 12: 45 noon local time. Before customs clearance, I had made all psychological preparations about Slavs' inefficiency.

But in fact, Serbian customs clearance efficiency is extremely high. Because of the visa-free, the customs just took a look at my China passport, and after checking it, it was released directly. Then pick up your luggage, buy a phone card and rent a car downstairs. The whole process takes less than an hour.

by the way, add two things. First of all, it is very important to buy a local phone card on Taobao before going abroad. Because the customs clearance time is likely to be very long, there is no phone card to sell outside the customs.

and buying a calling card at the local airport is likely to be a pit. In particular, I'm going to three countries this time, and I need to cross the border by land, and there is no phone card to sell for land crossing.

so I want to buy a flow card that is common in Europe, which is common in the three countries. But in fact, this card is very pit, and it will not take effect until the second day after I arrive in Serbia.

when I first arrived in Serbia, I was very desperate to see the screen full of "no signal". So please learn a lesson and don't buy this European universal calling card in the future.

the second thing is to rent a car. Renting and renting a car is a good platform for renting a car, but it will also go wrong. In short, if you want to rent a car abroad, pay attention to the following things:

1. The car rental company must cheat you, be optimistic, please argue with him, and please refute his threats and inducements. The insurance that AVIS gives you by default is more expensive than the fare, so please cancel it. It's enough to buy the one on the rental car for 2 yuan a day.

2. In order to avoid accidents, it is best to ensure that your driving experience is more than 2 years when renting a car. If it is only more than one year, you should carefully ask the specific policies of the car rental company. You cannot rent a car overseas for less than one year.

3. Don't return the car from a different place like me, unless $3 is not money for you.

in a word, I rented the cheapest car. 1.25L displacement Ford, manual transmission, full-body Sao red. This is basically a new car. When I drove to it, it only ran more than 2, kilometers. In the next two weeks, this delicate and powerless car with the endless mountain roads in the Balkans will bring me hundreds of flameouts and run in second gear all the year round.

Serbs like heroes, but their nationality is not big, so all kinds of people who look like ordinary heroes look like special heroes to them. Then a hero like nikola tesla, who even we think is a hero, is just fondle admiringly for the Serbs.

Although Tesla was born in present-day Croatia with an American passport and an American flag on his coffin, he is a Serb. Serbs are more ethnic. For example, this is the ashes of Tesla's old man that I saw in Nikola Tesla Memorial Hall in Belgrade:

The airport in Belgrade is called nikola tesla Airport.

although belgrade is the capital of a country with a population of 8 million and was once the capital of a country with a population of 3 million, its capital international airport is really only this big, which is equivalent to that of a medium-level city in China.

There are not many people in the airport, and everything is in good order. Of course, it's really hard not to be in good order at this scale. This reminds me of my Daqing airport. Daqing Airport has only four boarding gates, three of which are usually closed.

normally, there is only one counter for ticket handling, one security checkpoint for security check and one boarding gate for boarding. Tesla airport is a little stronger, about two or three.

from the airport to the land in the city, you can already feel vaguely that Serbia is a little bit like the northeast. The plain is full of corn, cars are speeding generally, and the old city is smoky.

Faced with such an urban area, I can't help but say: How can you live like this without Tito?

Street View of Belgrade

In p>216, the per capita GDP of Serbia was $5,348, while that of Thailand was $5,98. One is a former Eastern European power, and the other is a former four tigers in Southeast Asia. At the moment, I don't know whether to say "how do you mix like Thailand" to Serbia or "how do you mix like Serbia" to Thailand. Before its disintegration in 1991, Yugoslavia's per capita GDP was about 4, US dollars, eight times that of China at that time. After the disintegration, Slovenia naturally integrated into Europe, and Croatia also integrated into Europe after some struggles. Only Serbia got nothing but bombing and sanctions. In fact, even Yugoslavia was highly dependent on its relations with Europe. On the one hand, it disintegrated, and on the other hand, it lost contact with the west. It is really normal for the economy to go backwards.

belgrade railway station. This is the scale of the Central Railway Station in the capital. Like other European cities, the roads in Belgrade are very narrow, but there are no traffic jams because of the small blocks and the large proportion of roads. The only problem is that Belgrade needs to pay for parking on the roadside. Locals usually pay by SMS, but I finally didn't figure out how to pay, so I had to park in an expensive parking building and charge 1, dinars a day, equivalent to 7 yuan.

When driving on the parking building, Jiao was unable to stall for the first time because of the steep slope. I started it according to the half-lift clutch slope-lifting method I learned in driving school, and the result was that it was not possible at all. The strength of this car was extremely small. It happened that a big brother from China drove by and helped me drive to the parking building. He first stepped on the accelerator for 4 revolutions, then lifted the clutch and let the car rush up the slope.

it's already three o'clock in the afternoon after parking the car, and the urgent task is to find food. My first meal in Belgrade was in a restaurant called ToJeTo, which means "This is it".

this is a Turkish restaurant. In fact, according to my later observation, the dishes in the whole Balkan region are mainly as follows:

1. Turkish barbecue with pie. There are several kinds of barbecues: beef patties, finger-shaped beef strips, pork sausages (it's strange that Turkish dishes are mixed into pork sausages, yes, but this is Turkey with Slavic characteristics after all), pork slices, chicken breast slices and pieces of roast beef. In short, these are the kinds:

The white lump is cheese.

This cuisine is usually cheaper, and 1, dinars can guarantee a strong man of my size to eat his neck.

2。 Mediterranean style. Greece is the second most influential civilization in the Balkans. This is usually a dish with a strong maritime flavor and sea salt flavor, and it is not very cooked. With all due respect, its main feature is expensive.

3。 Hungarian-style dishes include Hungarian jiaozi and braised beef. This is mainly applicable to Vojvodina (the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) in northern Serbia.

4。 Saussurea medusa Of course, in fact, Russian cabbage is not common in this area. First of all, it is not that cold in the Balkans. Secondly, Yugoslavs and Eastern Slavs are quite different. Although they are both Slavs, the Yugoslav people are deeply influenced by the surrounding forces, especially the Turkish forces. Apart from drinking, there are many things that are different between Yugoslav and Russian.

For this meal in ToJeTo, I ordered a beef pie with pie and a pickled pepper. The beef patties are as long as the pie:

This beef patties actually have nothing to eat, and they are not very fresh. Sour cream is just that thing. But this pie, it's really delicious.

this pie is dough and hollow, but the outside is tough. It's different from the biscuits and naan I've eaten before. It's just a pie. Sorry, my vocabulary is poor. The pie is so delicious.

I don't know what this is either. Anyway, I mean that the Balkan is very Turkish, and I'm not bluffing.

As for pickled peppers, it should be said that this shop is one of the Serbian people who take peppers seriously. There are several kinds of vegetables in the Balkans: peppers, tomatoes, onions, cabbages, mushrooms, and potatoes (if vegetables are counted). Others just appear occasionally. Pepper is usually served as a separate side dish in the store. The usual way of serving is to serve a fresh crispy raw pepper directly without any treatment, with a few ice cubes beside it. It would be a great honor if you could marinate it.

In a word, the Balkans are basically lacking in food. After eating this meal, it goes without saying that everyone knows that I drove to this place:

I think there is nothing to say. As long as you know the place of Serbia and you think you are from China, it is impossible for you to come to Serbia without coming to this place.

Now, the original embassy has been demolished, and it has become a construction site, which was built by Shandong Expressway. There are some flowers in front of the construction site, which is obviously often taken care of.

General Secretary has said that the people of China and Serbia cherish special friendship. The so-called special friendship is the friendship that is beaten together. This kind of friendship is deeper than the friendship United by any other interests. The Serb aunt who passed by also asked me if I was from China. Although I don't understand Serbian, "Qidan" still understands it.

Pick an unknown wild flower and send it to the martyr. The mountains know me, the rivers know me, and the army that conquered the universe will never forget me.

Again, the death of a compatriot is not a reason for you to stop.

it's my habit to visit local supermarkets everywhere. Belgrade has a population of 1.68 million, and there is only one large comprehensive supermarket (later I found that almost all the larger cities have only one large comprehensive supermarket). Obviously, the light industry in Serbia is not good. Although the per capita GDP is not high, the prices of commodities in supermarkets are not low, including condoms, toiletries and other daily necessities, which are generally 5% higher than those in China, and there are very few kinds of snacks.

But it's cheap, and the bottle is big:

Due to the time difference, I went back to sleep at 8 pm local time. I woke up at five o'clock the next morning and went here:

Belgrade University. It is said to be a university, but there is no closed courtyard, just a few buildings along the street, including dormitories. This is very western, but obviously, the decline of Belgrade University has a lot to do with the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Then I went to Kalemegdan Castle. If you are used to seeing European castles, then the castle itself is nothing unusual. What matters is that there is a military museum in it, and there is this one in the military museum:

Yes, it was he who forced someone to lay the F117.

In the city, almost everywhere can be seen the portrait of the Serb youth Princip who assassinated Grand Duke Ferdinand on June 28th, 1914.

the early 2th century was a magical time. On the one hand, people began to believe that "princes would rather have seeds" and that big people are not sacred and inviolable, and small people can also have the power to rival big people; On the other hand, people have never questioned the importance of the great man himself. Under the influence of this thought, the little people believe that assassination can change history, and a large number of assassinations have occurred, and many little people have been recorded in history in this way.

However, with the continuous development of society, people gradually realize that great people are just pebbles wrapped in the torrent of history. Kill one or two big shots, the machine of history will quickly produce the next big shot, and the assassination will become meaningless.

So, the assassin is like a transition. There are no assassins in a society that is too superstitious about big shots. In a society that does not believe in big shots, assassins have no need to exist.

but even so, I still pay tribute. Not everyone dared to shout out that sentence.

princes and princes are alike, so it's better to have seeds.

And Tito's Tomb:

I met this children's park on the way. It has always been a children's park, and there are still children playing here with entertainment facilities. In 1999, NATO bombed the children's park and the church behind it. I was five years old, and if I were in Belgrade, I would be damn old.

There is also Saint Sava's Cathedral, the largest Orthodox church in the world.

However, Saint Sava's Cathedral has been under repair, and it has not been built yet. It is only open underground and can be used normally. When I went there, there was a wedding, and it was very noisy.

from the aesthetic point of view, the orthodox church is really higher than its one-wife compatriots, and I don't know where it is.

However, I still have a question. The aperture above the saint's head is either strictly divided and marked with mathematical symbols, or with words beside it. I always think they want to solve this circle.

Religious beliefs in the Balkans are generally fanatical. When Yugoslavia disintegrated, God, Dongzheng and Mou each kept their nearest thighs warm. The more fanatical the letter is, the more enthusiastic it can be, and the more it can grab resources and territory, so the result of the competition among the three companies is more and more fanatical.

Here, every community and every village has its own church, which is the tallest building in the whole community or village, and the attributes of the church also indicate the attributes of this community. The church covers almost all grass-roots folk affairs, from birth, marriage to death, and has successfully become the condensation core of grass-roots organizations, saving a lot of heart for grass-roots governance. But at the same time Serbia is a poor country, and its infrastructure is still a mess. There is only one expressway in the country.

under this background, it is conceivable that spending a lot of manpower and material resources to repair churches will drag down the national economy.

Due to the high efficiency of car rental, the main part of Belgrade was soon visited, and in the evening, I went to Zemeng, a small town outside Belgrade. Zemeng is located just beside the Danube River, and it looks like a leisurely small town of Gyeonggi. If you have a favorite classmate, go for a stroll. I have no feeling about this pastoral. However, the tower overlooking Belgrade can take one:

Finally, I would like to give you a grand introduction to my residence in Belgrade. This is a homestay, an apartment building along the street. The accommodation conditions are good, but the more powerful place is its elevator. There is a patio in the middle of this winding staircase, so the clever Serbs installed a circle of barbed wire in the middle and an elevator in the middle, turning this useless space into an elevator shaft.

It's a pity that Zhihu released a small video. This elevator has a history of more than 5 years, so it needs to close the internal and external doors manually.

If you don't push the door during operation, it will open itself and the elevator will stop automatically. Remember to close the door after you get off the elevator, or others will not be able to use the elevator.

At the beginning of the founding of Yugoslavia, in order to accommodate a large number of farmers who went to work in cities, the Yugoslav government built a large number of such rough and practical affordable housing.

They are called "Fauvism Architecture". This kind of building may be ugly in the eyes of Xiao Qingxin, but it is beautiful in my eyes.

No matter the success or failure of South Africa, we can't deny its sincerity when it was in power. It is a kind of sincerity that takes development as the key link and freedom from want as the creed, not some metaphysical feelings as the creed.

To borrow a sentence from Liu Cixin's Ball Lightning: This is a city that makes people feel nostalgic, but those ancient cities with a history of thousands of years can't make people feel nostalgic.

they are too old, too old to have anything to do with you, too old to make people lose their feelings. But like this,