The sky above Belgrade is wide and high, unstable but always beautiful; even during winter serenities with their icy splendour; even during summer storms when the whole of it turns into a single gloomy cloud which, driven by the mad wind, carries the rain mixed with the dust of panonian plain; even in spring when it seems that it also blooms, along with the ground; even in autumn when it grows heavy with the autumn stars in swarms. Always beautiful and rich, as a compensation to this strange town for everything that isn’t there, and a consolation because of everything that shouldn’t be there. But the greatest splendour of that sky above Belgrade, that are the sunsets. In autumn and in summer, they are broad and bright like desert mirages, and in winter they are smothered by murky clouds and dark red hazes. And in every time of year frequently come the days when the flame of that sun setting in the plain, between the rivers beneath Belgrade, gets reflected way up in the high celestial dome, and it breaks there and pours down over the scattered town. Then, for a moment, the reddish tint of the sun paints even the remotest corners of Belgrade and reflects into the windows, even of those houses it otherwise poorly illuminates.
Written about Belgrade by: Ivo Andrić, Nobel prize laureate
Belgrade is situated at the place where the river Sava joins the Danube. Belgrade is one of the oldest cities in Europe and, beside Athens, the greatest urban whole of the Balkan Peninsula. The oldest archaeological artefacts from Belgrade area date back to the fifth millenium B.C. The members of a Celtic tribe founded Singidunum in the III century B.C., while the first record of the name Belgrade dates back to 878 A.D. During its long and tumultuous history, Belgrade has been conquered by 40 armies, and 38 times it has been raised up from the ashes. Belgrade has around 1,6 million residents. In the field of traffic and transport, it is a city of the highest importance as a road and railway center, as a port for river and air traffic, and as a telecommunication center. Important economic and agricultural capacities are developed in Belgrade, especially metallurgy, metal-working industry and electronic industry, then commerce and banking. The free trade zone is located in the wider area of Belgrade, on the banks of the Danube river, covering 2,000 sqm of business space. Belgrade is the capital of culture, education and science in the southern Europe. It has the greatest concentration of institutions of national importance in the field of science and art. Belgrade has the status of a separate teritorial unit, having its own autonomous city government. Its territory is divided into 17 municipalities, having their own local governmental bodies.
