GRAFFITI – Belgrade, Serbia

I wasn’t expecting much from the capital city of Serbia – Belgrade.
But how did a visit to Serbia’s biggest city totally win me over?

Sat on the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers this quirky, battered city didn’t seem to have much to offer. At first what appeared to be an endless grey concrete jungle full of 60’s and 70’s brutal architecture but when you dig a little bit deeper and wander off the beaten track my view began to change and it’s true beauty shone through.

Armed only with my Samsung SII mobile phone I thought I’d try and capture some of the range of graffiti and street art that adorned it’s many walls and well… ummm… just about any door and surface.

Graffiti seems to play an important part in the city with a lot of political pieces and even more about their football teams.

Here a rather bleak looking park totally covered in snow was only brightened up with this really colourful piece – does anyone know what the text says?


Nowhere could escape the graffiti and my greatest find was this train in the Belgrade train station. Sat amongst a recent dump of snow it was time to get every carriage – check out the link below for all the photos.
https://djleekee.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/graffiti-trains-in-belgrade/

Crossing over the Old Sava Bridge onto the ‘other side’ of New Belgrade and as usual bridges and underpasses were a favourite for graffiti artists.






Continuing along the River Sava and passing the many graffiti’d floating nightclubs and other buildings onwards to a really intriguing place called Zemun.

It was like an old market town with a large town square but was really picturesque and a total contrast to the concrete brutallity of Belgrade itself. Once again graffiti lined many roads, lanes and every wall was a canvas for more pieces.



Football seems to be a huge passion for many people living in Belgrade and this is reflected in the amount of football based graffiti, tags and stencils around the whole city.
There are many groups of fans from The Ultras to The Dragons all supporting their own teams like Red Star Belgrade and Partizan Belgrade but still fighting corruption apparently!







Moving back towards old Belgrade and an area marked on Google Maps as Brankov Most and this was the first location which featured some half decent street art and not just graffiti. The shame was it was night by the time I arrived and the flash on mobile phones are generally awful (oh well it’s an excuse for another visit to the city!)
The first thing that hit me was the size of this piece of a chap eating a brocolli tree next to a petrol station with some other smaller pieces at ground level.



Just before this petrol station was a road interchange and a set of steps leading to a small underpass and an ideal place for loads of creative graffiti and street art!











These two little cheeky chaps popped up everywhere – as did this DJOX tag. It was on nearly every other shutter on every street!


And finishing on my favourite piece – so simple but love it when an artist makes the best use of what’s available!
You can view the whole set by clicking on the play button below. Big thanks to http://belgradegraffiti.wordpress.com