If you’re thinking about visiting Belgrade you might be considering if it is safe. Belgrade has always been a safe city for travelers, without no-go zones. Paradoxically, it has been less safe for its inhabitants, if looking at wars, battles and bombings occurring here since the Middle Age, up to NATO bombing in 1999. Some of those war stories we tell at our Big Picture Tour of Belgrade Fortress.
This last Saturday night, that was 29 March 2025, I was walking from the bar Idiott, next to Belgrade Botanical Garden, to my home at Vračar. It was around 2am when I left the bar, the clock changed, so it was instantly around 3am. Not my typical time to be out in the street or awake at all, but that evening we were celebrating a childhood friend’s birthday. The night was clear, without wind. The walk took around 20 minutes. I felt good and realized how lucky I was to be able to walk freely on a spring night, not looking over my shoulder.
There were few cars and people along the way. I saw or heard no-one making noise or drunkly peeing in the street or misbehaving in any other way.
On Sunday morning I slept in, so I took to Kalenić Farmers Market around 11, later than usual. I bumped into that same friend, who’d picked her cheese and tomatoes, so we sat for a coffee at Robusta bar. She had a cup of green tea she found delicious and was excited about Kali Yuga, a Hinduist concept, according to which the present era of egoism and sin would end soon, replaced by a better time. I had an espresso and was curios to hear about this, yet maintaining that good moments happen in bad eons and vice versa, all of it being life.
Another neighbourhood friend appeared, with his charming bulldog, ready to discuss the headline of the moment, the student and civic protests happening all over Serbia. To many of us it is more than a headline and a moment, but a moral choice between good and evil (yup, it is that big of a deal!)
Last Sunday, at this farmers market, the protesters expressed their revolt at the governing party’s hired activists who installed the boots to agitate for support. What was not in good taste is that the ruling party’s activists are employees of state owned companies. The friend was telling us about another experience from the week before, an initiative to have local entrepreneurs discuss local issues in public, as an alternative to the government’s regulation that stripped the local communities of any voice in the local matters.
We’re all looking up at university students who brought the long awaited catharsis, hope and competence at being democratic and responsible. They managed to engage 300k people to demonstrate together peacefully and not leave a single bit of litter in the street. When they march across Serbia, they walk together no matter the religion or social status of the families they were born into. Next, the students will be cycling from Novi Sad to Strasbourg, from 3 to 17 April, to address the EU Institutions that could call for the responsibility of Serbian institutions for the tragic killing of 16 people in Novi Sad on 1 November 2024 and its inadequate processing afterwards. I love the idea to assess the condition of applicant cyclists and their bicycles beforehand. You do what you can to the smartest and most responsible you can. I trust the students. After all, these are our youngest and brightest!
I don’t know your criteria, but to me safe and sane is quite like what I described: you walk freely, you meet people, you exchange ideas, experiences and emotions, your religions do not divide you, yet you know how to set boundaries where there should be some.
And you’re able to get real and nutritive food made by your people, with smile and handshake.
For the official safety information and advice check out your embassies websites.