Senjak

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Senjak (Serbian Cyrillic alphabet: Сењак, pronounced: [ˈsɛ.ɲɑk]) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia. Located in Belgrade's municipality of Savski Venac, it is an affluent and distinguished neighborhood, lavished with embassies and diplomatic residences.

1 History and etymology
2 Geography
3 Characteristics
- 3.1 Gospodarska Mehana
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History and etymology

Before it became interesting to Belgrade's upper classes, Senjak was an excellent natural lookout. As many farmers kept their hay throughout the entire city, fires were quite frequent, so it was ordered that hay has to be collected and kept on one spot, and the area of modern Senjak was chosen, also getting its name in the process (Serbian word for hay is seno). More romantic version of the neighborhood's name (from the word sena, Serbian for 'shade') confronts the former theory.

Senjak belonged to the municipality of Topčidersko Brdo, which in 1957 merged with the municipality of Zapadni Vračar to create the municipality of Savski Venac.

During the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, a number of buildings in the neighborhood such as the Swiss ambassador's residence were damaged or affected by the conflict.

The first tram link established in Belgrade was from the Kalemegdan fortress to Senjak.

[edit] Geography

Senjak is located 7-8 km south-west of downtown Belgrade, on top of the hilly cliff-like crest of the western slopes of Topčidersko Brdo, overlooking the Belgrade Fair right below and the Sava river (from which, at the closest point, Senjak is only 100 meters away). It borders the neighborhoods of Topčider and Careva Ćuprija (south), Mostar (north), Prokop and Dedinje (east). The triangularly shaped neighborhood has many smaller streets but it is bounded by two wide boulevards, named after Serbian army vojvodas from World War I: Vojvoda Mišić and Vojvoda Putnik. The population of Senjak (local community Topčidersko Brdo-Senjak) was 7,249 in 2002.

[edit] Characteristics

Just like the neighboring Dedinje, Senjak is generally considered among Belgraders as one of the richest neighborhoods in the city. After 1945, it shared much of the same faith as Dedinje: when Communists took over, they declared almost all former residents as state enemies and forced them out of their mansions, so the new Communist political and military elite moved in. Some measures in removing the former high class were brutal as only those who fled the country stayed alive. Those unlucky were taken into a nearby woods and shot, with their remains lying in unmarked graves for decades until they were exposed by construction workers clearing trees for a new soccer field.

Some of the main points of interest in the area are:

Military Academy; after World War I, military academy was constructed by orders of King Peter I. The academy's building is majestic, with heavy cream-colored walls and tall windows. During World War II the occupational German forces made it the headquarters for their military operations in the Balkans. The Allies bombed the neighborhood during the war in order to destroy the headquarters and the bridge over the Sava, but they didn't manage to hit it or cause any damage to the building or the bridge.

House of King Peter; a vacant summer house of King Peter I, it stands across the soccer field of "FK Grafičar" and close to the building of the military academy.

Museum of African Art; it was established from the private collection of a Yugoslav diplomat, and contains many rare pieces.

Ecole Française de Belgrade, an international French school founded in 1951. The school is composed of a nursery school, an elementary school, a middle school and a high school.

Senjak Gymnastics Club, which was a starting point for the future career of the renowned Yugoslav rhythmic gymnast Milena Reljin.

Stadium and restaurant "FK Grafičar" and the Archive of Yugoslavia, both in the vicinity of Topčiderska zvezda, small roundabout with streets spreading in all directions connecting Senjak, Dedinje, downtown Belgrade, Topčider and further to the south (Kanarevo Brdo, Rakovica, etc).

Two state protected trees of the Himalayan white pine, native to Afghanistan and Himalaya. They were planted in 1929, in the yard of the family of the famous scientist Milutin Milanković, in the Žanke Stokić street. ^[1]

[edit] Gospodarska Mehana

Gospodarska Mehana (Cyrillic: Господарска механа) is the easternmost section of Senjak. It occupies the slopes descending to the Sava, just across the southern end of the Belgrade Fair and north of the Topčiderka's mouth into the Sava. It was named after the famed and the oldest still surviving kafana in Belgrade, Gospodarska mehana. Kafana was founded in 1820 in what was at the time the end of Belgrade. ^[2] In 1830s and 1840s it was a location of the ferry which transported pigs across the Sava into the Austria and had it's own customs house. In 1859 when prince Miloš Obrenović and his son Mihailo Obrenović returned to Serbia, they landed at Gospodarska Mehana. ^[3] It was the final stop of the first Belgrade's tram line and still is on the important traffic route with important streets (Boulevard of Vojvoda Mišić, Radnička street), railway, public transportation lines (still surviving tram line), road elevation which connects Banovo Brdo and Čukarica to Belgrade (fromerly known as the "Gospodarska Mehana elevation"), etc. In 1930's, when most of Belgrade's upper class built houses in Dedinje, some decided to build houses in Gospodarska Mehana, including then Prime minister of Yugoslavia, Milan Stojadinović.