fortress that is alive at night too, the lake in the middle of the city, the bohemian end of Skadarlija, the promenade alongside the river and life on the river. “Pop Art often offers a better time than the rafts, so guests stay with us all night,” adds Fatma Tina Al-jidah on the list of the favourite places of her guests and the hostel itself. Belgrade gets under the skin of foreigners so much that not only do they return, but some of these travellers even decide to stay in Serbia. “The powerful thing about hostels is that you can influence human destinies, change one’s life course. We advised one guy where to go out and there he met a girl who he later married. There are also many who return to Belgrade because we have become good friends in the meantime,” says Djordje Milojević from the Star hostel. A BOOK AS A REASON FOR PILGRIMAGE “Hostel anecdotes are wonderful. In that way our job gains its full meaning,” says Nikola Vacić from Sun hostel. He recalls a variety of interesting guests – the Germans who came to Belgrade by kayak, the Tunisians who have returned to the hostel for the past three years in a row, a train driver from Los Angeles lost his job and embarked on a two-year journey and the route brought him to Belgrade... And perhaps the most interesting story is the one about a Mexican whose grandfather gave him a book on the history of Yugoslavia. He wished to get to know the country that his grandfather told him about, so he came to Serbia. The atmosphere at the Big Hostel
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Autumn | Jesen 2012 BelGuest
BEING RECOGNISABLE And while the map of Belgrade’s hostels is constantly expanding, the owners must ensure they remain on that map, by finding a way to become recognisable and give their little place for overnight lodgings a unique charm. “At the moment when we opened the hostel we were the only floating hostel in Europe,” says Miodrag Zrnić, owner of Arkabarka, a small zen paradise on the beautiful blue Danube. “I used what Belgrade has and other cities do not – its two rivers, the park, the island,” says Zrnić, explaining that the combination of urban and nature is their main advantage. The Hedonist hostel also offers its “refuge from
the din”. Despite being in the midst of an urban hotspot, on Simina Street, hedonists find tranquillity in the garden. “It’s a place where our guests prefer to stay and where they easily get to know each other. We barbecue in the garden, where we organise parties, set up a projector on which we play concerts and major sporting events,” says Milovan Mitrović. The Sun hostel is located in the Vračar neighbourhood and so, lacking an exotic strictly downtown location, Nikola Vacić decided to fill his garden with exotic African details. “The details mostly arrived directly from Botswana and represent unique local pieces of art. The paintings were done by naïve artists, their art trend being called Tinga Tinga.” Pop Art is somewhere on the border between a hostel and a museum. Belgrade artists Mladen Lisavac and Danilo Nađ painted the hostel walls with icons of pop art culture and when guests first enter they see Kalemegdan painted in a pop art style. “ It is an artistic direction that we like and we thought that the younger generations would like it. And we were right,” explains Fatma Tina Al-jidah, owner of the hostel. One of the largest hostels, not only in Belgrade but the entire Balkans, is, as its name suggests, The Big Hostel. “We have eighteen rooms and one hundred beds. Besides accommodation, we offer space for organising seminars, an entertainment area, a large living room with multimedia facilities etc.” says Tanja Šimšić describing her hostel. DrAgAnA BArJAktArević