Bara Venecija

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Bara Venecija (Serbian Cyrillic: Бара Венеција) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Savski Venac.

[edit] Location

Bara Venecija is located on the right bank of the Sava river, roughly between the Old Sava bridge and Brankov bridge, some 700-800 meters west of Terazije, downtown Belgrade. It is basically a small sub-neighborhood of the Savamala, which used to cover much larger area.

[edit] History

As Savamala was among the first settlements built outside the fortress of Kalemegdan, construction began already in the 1830s. The area was originally a bog called Ciganska bara (Serbian for "Gypsy pond"), but the name was later changed to Bara Venecija ("Venice pond"). After the pond was drained, a new settlement which developed on its place was also named Bara Venecija.

[edit] Charactristics

Bara Venecija is almost entirely industrial and commercial area. Many hangars and depots, asphalt plants and oil tanks are located here, due to the proximity of both downtown Belgrade and Sava harbor (Savsko pristanište). It all gives the neighborhood industrialized, unattractive, gray look.

Being on the lowest part of the Sava's bank, Bara Venecija gets flooded during the extremely high waters of the river. It was completely flooded in 1984 and during the major flood of 2006