​EDDIE GERALD

For most people around the world, still, Balkan cities conjure up greying men with stern faces and apartment buildings dotted by bullet holes. And still, there are plenty of beer bellied 40 year-olds proudly packing man purses and old Communist apartment blocks that needed new pain a century ago, but Belgrade is a city on the move.

 

More than 40 invasions have coloured the architecture, and stained its history with blood, The ruins of structures bombed by Nato in 1999 remain, a seemingly defiant reminder of the not-so-distant past but Beyond its Soviet-era commercial quarter one can find a vibrant city surprising in its diversity and rich in its history.