At the beginning of the week, I had the pleasure of traveling to Belgrade for a meeting with a potential sales partner interested in distributing the ANOW! Automation Platform Suite from Beta Systems Software AG. The platform is rated as a leading software by prominent analysts such as Gartner and Enterprise Management Associates.

Belgrade is considered the “Berlin of the Balkans” and—it must be said—is simply a lot of fun. I will get to why in a moment. But first, a big thank you to my colleague Miroslav Jelicic, an excellent technology connoisseur and sales professional with extensive experience in South Eastern Europe. As a true Belgrader, he provided me with the best insider tips to maximize my quality time. This ranged from hotel recommendations (Mama Shelter) to pointers on the best cultural highlights.

During my city exploration, I consistently used Gemini as my personal city guide. It proved to be a very knowledgeable guide, capable of answering endless follow-up questions on all sorts of peripheral topics. Equipped with a smartphone and earbuds, I immersed myself deeply in the city’s history and architecture. Even though everyone can now get a great picture of Belgrade via LLMs, I would still like to highlight a few topics—not least some that fascinated or occupied me as a hobby geologist.

Shopping & Smoking

The “Mama Shelter” hotel is located directly on the rooftop of a shopping mall. Here, I experienced the first minor “culture shock”: while shutters go down on Sundays in Central Europe, Belgrade is in full swing. In Serbia (and also Romania), Sunday is seen as an important consumption day to boost economic growth. Malls in Belgrade often function as social meeting points for family entertainment, not just for shopping. This does not apply to the entire region; in Croatia, for example, the Catholic Church has strongly influenced legislation to protect Sunday as a day of rest. In Serbia, while the Orthodox Church is present, it hardly interferes with shop opening hours.

Shopping on Sunday is a culture shock that doesn’t really hurt. What is much harder to get used to, however, is that smoking is deeply rooted in Serbian culture. A significantly larger proportion of the population smokes, and it is omnipresent: in cafes, restaurants, and certainly outdoors. Take, for instance, the recommended restaurant “?” (Znak pitanja), which is practically a living monument. It is considered Belgrade’s oldest still-operating kafana (tavern), built in 1823. The food is delicious, the beer is good… and people smoke continuously.

The low ceiling in the entrance area has a characteristic dark patina, the result of over 200 years of tobacco and wood smoke. In the past, there were no extractor hoods, and tobacco smoke ate its way into the wood and plaster layer by layer. Additionally, the house was formerly heated with open fireplaces and stoves. The soot from the wood fires contributed to this deep, dark coloring over generations. During restoration, the decision was made to preserve this “patina” because it breathes the history of the place. This dark patina thus represents the deeply rooted smoking culture in Serbia.

A Few Historical Basics

It is advisable to be familiar with a few basics of the history of Serbia, Belgrade, and—more broadly—Yugoslavia. A turbulent history is reflected in heterogeneous architecture, numerous monuments, ruins, and even mugs featuring Vladimir Putin’s likeness in souvenir shops at Kalemegdan Park.

The Executive Summary:

• 13th Century: National hero Sava established the full independence of the Serbian Orthodox Church (autocephaly).
• Ottoman Rule (1521–1867): A long phase lasting nearly 300 years. Prince Mihailo Obrenović, the “Liberator,” is honored with various monuments, including an equestrian statue on Republic Square.
• Europeanization: After the last Ottoman troops left in 1867, mosques were demolished and magnificent buildings in the style of Viennese architecture were erected.
• World War II: Belgrade suffered a brutal occupation until it was liberated in 1944 by partisans and the Red Army. Tito’s partisans provided such resistance that they were recognized as official allies by the USA, UK, and Soviet Union. Yugoslavia was the only occupied country to liberate itself largely through its own efforts.
• The Yugoslav Era: Belgrade was the political, cultural, and economic center of Yugoslavia from its founding after WWI (1918) until its final collapse in 2003.
• The 1990s: This was the darkest modern chapter, marked by the breakup of Yugoslavia, wars under Slobodan Milošević, and isolation.
• 1999: During the Kosovo War, NATO bombed targets in Belgrade for 78 days. Some bombed-out ruins (like the former Ministry of Defense) still stand today as memorials in the city center. This history explains the tension between Western orientation (Serbia has been an EU candidate since 2009) and relations with Russia.

The Largest Orthodox Church with precious Stones from Around the World

The neo-Byzantine Church of Saint Sava is one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world, accommodating about 10,000 worshippers and tourists. The mosaic inside is one of the most massive art projects in the modern Orthodox world, covering approximately 15,000 square meters—more than two football fields worth of mosaic tiles.

Over 40 million tesserae were used, and the mosaic in the main dome alone weighs about 40 tons. These mosaics consist of glass pastes (smalti) and real leaf gold melted between two layers of glass, ensuring it never corrodes. It is estimated that around 500 kilograms of gold were used in the Church of Saint Sava.

To put that into perspective:

• If you cast 500 kg of gold into a single cube, it would be surprisingly small—roughly 29.6 cm on each side, barely larger than a large shoebox.
• Processing 1 kg of pure gold into standard leaf gold yields an area of 500 to 600 square meters. That is nearly the size of three tennis courts from a piece of gold barely larger than a standard 250g pack of butter.

From a geological perspective, the church is also a project of superlatives. The exterior shines in pure white Pentelic marble from Mount Pentelicus near Athens—the same marble used for the Parthenon on the Acropolis. The interior features a mix of Carrara marble from Tuscany, green marble from Guatemala (actually a serpentinite), and red marble from local Serbian quarries or the Middle East, symbolizing the blood of martyrs.

Belgrade: The White City

Belgrade translates to “The White City”. Why? The Kalemegdan Fortress and the core of the old town sit on a limestone plateau known to geologists as Sarmatian limestone. Millions of years ago, this area was covered by the Pannonian Sea, and the stone consists of the remains of countless shells and marine microorganisms. When this limestone is freshly broken or struck by sunlight, it glows bright white to yellowish-white.

Imagine being a merchant or soldier in the 9th century sailing up the Danube or Sava. You would see a high ridge (today’s Kalemegdan) rising out of the marshland and dark forests. The bright white limestone walls of the fortress would gleam in the sun. When the Slavs first mentioned the city in 878 AD as “Alba Graeca” or “Beograd,” this glowing white silhouette was the reason.

Jadarite – Lithium for Europe

On my way to Belgrade, I encountered media coverage regarding significant lithium deposits in the Jadar Valley of Western Serbia. These deposits could make Serbia a key player in the green transition, but they face massive ecological risks. The company Rio Tinto discovered a unique mineral there called Jadarite. It is estimated there is enough lithium to supply 1.1 million electric cars per year, meeting roughly 10% of projected European demand.

Since 2024, the EU (especially Germany) has pushed heavily for this project to reduce dependence on Chinese lithium processing. However, a massive protest movement has formed in Serbia due to fears of irreversible contamination of groundwater and farmland.

In Eastern Serbia, particularly around Bor and Majdanpek, where copper and gold mining are controlled by a Chinese company, the consequences of such mining are already visible. Bor is considered one of the “dirtiest places in Europe,” with regular exceedances of limits for sulfur dioxide, arsenic, lead, and cadmium. Local health studies show rates of asthma and cancer far above the national average, and children in the region have been found with elevated levels of lead and arsenic in their blood.

While I am a proponent of European digital sovereignty and the energy transition, the risks and opportunities must be fairly distributed. Mining is a “dirty business,” and we must ensure it is socially fair and avoids ecological collateral damage. We are still far from that, and currently, I would clearly stand on the side of the protest movement.