Senjak

For the village in Iran, see Senjak, Iran.

Senjak (Serbian: Сењак, pronounced [sêɲaːk]) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia. Located in Savski Venac, one of the three municipalities that constitute the very center of the city, it is an affluent and distinguished neighborhood lavished with embassies, diplomatic residences, and mansions. Senjak is generally considered one of the wealthiest parts of Belgrade.

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 for hay to be collected and kept in one place, and the area of modern Senjak was chosen, apparently also getting its name in the process (from the word seno, Serbian for hay). A more romantic theory of the neighborhood's name (from the word sena, Serbian for 'shade' or 'shadow') confronts the former theory.

Senjak originally belonged to the former 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.

Geography

Senjak is located 3 km south-west of downtown Belgrade, on top of the hilly cliff-like crest of the western slopes of Topčidersko Brdo, overlooking 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.

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 fate 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:

References

  1. "Vekovi u krošnjama", Politika (in Serbian), 2008-04-26, p. 32

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Senjak.

Coordinates: 44°47′32″N 20°26′19″E / 44.792328°N 20.438669°E / 44.792328; 20.438669

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, March 17, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.