Bele Vode

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Bele Vode (Serbian Cyrillic: Беле Воде) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Čukarica.

[edit] Bele Vode

Bele Vode is located in the southwestern part of Belgrade, as a western sub-neighborhood of Žarkovo. It is located west of the Ibarska magistrala (Highway of Ibar), bounded by Žarkovo from the north, Cerak from the east, Rupčine from the south and Makiš from the west.

Bele Vode is known for the central Belgrade waterworks plant located there, including the 'water factory'. Name of the neighborhood in Serbian means white waters. The local community (mesna zajednica) of Bele Vode within the municipality of Čukarica had a population of 11,920 in 1981 and 14,255 in 2002.

There is an elementary school within Bele Vode local community called "Milentije Popović".

[edit] Azbestno Naselje

A block of 28 buildings in the central part of Bele Vode was built in 1966 as a temporary settlement for the next 10 years. However, inhabitants were not resettled after 1976, and in the mid 1990's it was discovered that the buildings were built with the use of asbestos instead of concrete, thus they were suppose to be emptied after 10 years. Tenants began a campaign for the demolition of the settlement (which became known as Azbestno Naselje, Serbian for asbestos settlement) claiming deteriorating health and above average cancer occurrence rate (including deaths), as a result of the poisonous asbestos. City government promised help but refused to accept that asbestos is responsible for the health problems of the tenants. However, after over 10 years of protest and campaigning, the demolition of 14 buildings began in June 2006 and it is suppose to end by 2011. Problem is that buildings with asbestos are a threat for the environment so they can't just be demolished, instead they have to be deconstructed, so the process will be very slow.