hi everyone and welcome to sunny serbia once again i'm still in the capital city
of belgrade and the big question of today is am i on a construction site apparently
so let me explain in the last video we jumped in a time machine back to 1973 to investigate
brutalist architecture in this city this video is the complete antithesis of that one i'm in
an area of the city which is very much a bone of contention for locals it could be described
in one of two ways number one a wonderful boost to local employment and the economy
or more than likely a diabolical monstrosity of biblical proportions financed by arab oil money
on that note let's check out belgrade waterfront
so
sexy youtubers be like is this dubai yeah i wasn't planning on doing this video if i'm honest because
i feel like it's kind of been overdone to death on youtube but i had a couple of hours freak so
i thought i'd come down here and put my spin on it i first came to belgrade back in 2019
and it feels like this development has been going on since the dawn of time obviously it's ginormous
it's massive so it will take time but it just feels like it's been going on forever you know
and there's an area i'm going to go to a bit later sava square which really highlights the
difference between what it looks like now compared to back then so i believe it's part residential
part commercial as you can see they're like little restaurants
in what look like sort of shipping container size sort of things awesome restaurants down the bottom
of that building over there and there's a galeria shopping mall over to the right of the screen
and really i think it's been put together to create like a proper modern downtown area in
belgrade which it does kind of lack i'm saying the positives first of all in case you hadn't noticed
now you might think that a lot of serbs are pissed off with this development purely
because you know the average serb probably couldn't afford to live here in terms of
prices of apartments and admittedly that's partially true because i'm sure the average
person who works part-time in shop and go or maxi or aroma probably couldn't afford one of these
apartments but there's more to it than that now i haven't seen anyone in belgrade driving around
in a maserati but apparently it's coming soon so you never know this is nice isn't it nice
little decking area there are people hugging behind that bush become a nice little walk
down by the river i'm sure in some ways it's kind of like the river down a hotel yugoslavia
on the way to Zemun in the you've got the walking bit you've got the bike bit i'm sure at some point
there will be you know little ice cream selling things here as well oh i can smell the water
and i can smell fish a lot of people on this embankment doing fishing there's some down
by the actual water on the rocks looks like they're gone now oh no there's one
i'm doing lots of awful angles today just to give you an idea of the scale of this development slash
project i just wanted to add about money and the fact that you know not everyone will be able to
afford these buildings of course in every country there are varying degrees of affluence right
some people are poor some people are rich and i'm sure there are many people in belgrade that would
be able to afford a place like this but let's face it in a lot of cases anywhere in the world
affluence is often gained via illegitimate means you know i remember a friend of mine who lives
here he told me about something about balkan cartels um and i remember i actually bought a
mercedes of a bulgarian guy once who i swear was like a balkan drug lord if you know what i mean
his uh bodyguards are in the kitchen in this massive house in northwest london
so you know i'm sure people will be able to live here whether they get that money
from legitimate means i don't know let me know down in the comments if i'm really
off base with that that's not the right expression if you know what i mean i must admit the one thing
that isn't so athletically pleasing is that building directly ahead i see it everywhere
and it from you know from every place in the city and it just it's a bit of an eyesore
i've got to admit at least these buildings here the residential ones you know they look
kind of okay you know and that that kind of design there i remember that sort of thing from like
singapore so you know there is that kind of middle eastern slash asian feel what's the maserati again
now the reasons for this development being such a bone of contention among locals are numerous and
multiple it kind of evolves around the fact that the government essentially changed laws illegally
um to allow them not to have any kind of tender process in terms of who was going to invest in
this development it was invested in by a company from the united arab emirates called eagle hills
which is responsible for the burj khalifa in dubai you can see the similarities right that's
why i said at the beginning about sexy youtubers i was taking the piss in an endearing way right um
and also there were issues such as the fact that locals weren't consulted about the construction
of this whether or not they actually wanted it and whether it actually fit in with the look and feel
of the city and numerous other things i've heard about in terms of low
paid workers construction workers from other countries that were treated badly um houses
and things that were demolished and people were basically forcibly removed from their dwellings in
this area to make way for this so there's a huge amount of controversy around it you know i hope
the serbian government doesn't kill me for doing this but i think it's something that locals are
talking about have been talking about for a long time and it needs to be spoken about because i
don't know whether i would want this if i lived in belgrade because it really doesn't match the look
and the feel of the rest of the city let me know what you think down below i'm sure you will anyway
is belgrade waterfront an example of polishing a turd absolutely in my opinion you know when
i think of dubai or abu dhabi i've been there i feel like it's just a metropolis of money it
has no substance belgrade has substance it's got history it's got general epicness everywhere in
terms of architecture culture art you name it and i feel like this doesn't add to it whatsoever it's
just a money hull if you know what i mean a cash cow now i'm sure in terms of the economy i'm sure
belgrade waterfront will bring money to the economy in terms of things like tourism and also
locals you know going down to bars and things or whatever on a saturday night by the river fine but
there's always the question with this sort of area you know yeah that money
is coming but where does that money go does it go to the people that need it
does it truly benefit actual locals or is it just for the rich people now one thing
i do like about serbia and always have lights is that if something is crap i can say it's crap or
even [ __ ] and locals don't give a [ __ ] um usually they agree with me um but on a positive
no i'm gonna try and be positive you know maybe this is like a high-rise cbd area that belgrade
kind of needs i don't know we will see i don't know when this finishes i'll have to look it up
lovely
A1 bus
tram spam
down by the bus station which is kind of next to the waterfront
this is a savamala down that way it's kind of OG belgrade for me it's where i first stayed when i
came here the first time two years ago and then another thing about eagle
hills i read that there's a historical building in savamala that's kind of been
converted into their headquarters and it was once you know this historical building and it's now
home to an arab property developer i remember this area well istanbul food shop there's sexy
shop up there i remember walking to my airbnb the first time i got here after getting off the a1 bus
like at two o'clock in the morning the place you're about to see sava square to my right was
very different last year when i was here now it's completely different what have they done
okay i'm joking i gotta admit it looks quite pretty with the trees and
the rather overly manicured lawns and seating areas everywhere um this whole area if i go back
to 2019 i'll put some shots over the top from some old videos you can see what it used to look like
the trams used to come around here but closer the road up there with the tram tracks is up there
but he used to come up here and then turn left up the hill towards slavija square
but now of course it's all this nice sunny green area relaxing
for a minute i thought that little bit down there was where the tram tracks used to be am i going
crazy i'm sure it used to come down here and then kind of go where i am now and there was a kind of
wide road here and a bus stop around there not a bus stop a tram stop now it's all the way back
there but this is the thing i'd like your opinion on well i'd like your opinion on everything in
this video but this particularly this statue with this bulbous gold base which wasn't here the last
time i was here um it's a little bit imposing it's a bit large isn't it i mean it's very nice
you've got like this green jade sort of color and this bluey mosaic with these little suns
but i do kind of like this look there's like this transparent floor and it's like mirrored
inside so this gold bulbus thing is reflected all the way down that is actually quite cool
right i'm back in the belgrade i know i'm in love um by the way earlier i
wasn't implying that everyone in serbia are drug dealers that was just an example
of course there are many people that work online people that maybe work for u.s companies earning
us dollars i earn in u.s dollars and i'm in serbia so you know i'm not saying that everyone
in serbia is on that average wage because it's it's questionable about how much that average
wage is many people say it's 450 other people say it's 800. so you know not everyone is in
the same position and i'm not saying that everyone is drug dealers are drug dealers
right okay i'm walking up the hill back home um i just want to say to end this video
a short video today that you know i'm sure that area will look lovely when it's finished i'm sure
it will add a lot to the city regardless of all of the issues i mentioned earlier you know when
uh a city has new styles of architecture or a new development there's always opposition right
and perhaps you know maybe this will just be the start of further development in belgrade so um
thanks for watching don't forget to like comment subscribe check out the end screens over there
for my many other serbia videos out of breath and see you next time catch you later