Europe, Headlines

SERBIA: Night Life Is For Museums

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 22 2008 (IPS) - Serbs appear like some others to have taken to visiting museums during the night.

A 'Night of the Museums' organised last weekend attracted a record crowd of 300,000 in Belgrade, besides another 150,000 who visited museums elsewhere.

That is a fair bit of the national population of about seven million.

For a 250 dinars (less than five dollars) ticket, visitors could circulate between some 63 museums and galleries in Belgrade. The 'Night of the Museums' was held simultaneously in another 23 towns.

"With a total number of 450,000 people who visited, the 'Night of the Museums' has become a very important cultural event," event spokesperson Marija Randjelovic told journalists at a press conference in Belgrade. "In the past five years, we were always afraid that people might not be interested in taking a walk into the museums or galleries, but luckily, each and every year we are pleasantly surprised to see that there are more and more visitors."

The first event of the kind five years ago brought 20,000 people into the museums in Belgrade, with the number reaching 200,000 in 2007.

"It is an opportunity for people to learn something new or something they missed; to discover the rich cultural possibilities of their own city or Belgrade," co-founder of Serbia's museum nights Mladen Petrovic told IPS. "All 140 locations are interesting in their own way and we recommended that visitors inform themselves and make their own tour, which they obviously did."

The idea of the museum night was introduced by young art history experts Mladen Petrovic and Ana Jovanovic after they saw similar events in Paris and Amsterdam.

"The idea was born in Berlin in 1997 with the first museum night, and it's now held in some 125 cities all over the world," Petrovic said.

The event in Serbia is financed by local authorities and co-sponsored by international cultural centres and private firms.

"For so many years our museums were neglected and run down, but I think there is so much to be seen, and so much we have forgotten," said Bojan Dragovic (47), standing patiently in the long queue before the downtown Nikola Tesla Museum around midnight.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), born in Croatia, is father of modern alternative current generators for power plants, and of wireless communication systems that led to the development of radios. He went on to live in the United States, but his belongings, and sketches of his inventions, were brought to Serbia after he died.

Most Belgrade museums became completely run down in the 1990s, during the times of wars and sanctions. Financing for culture became wishful thinking.

But over the past several years the climate has changed, and most museums are now being renovated. For many of them, the museum night is an opportunity to show collections kept in vaults due to the ongoing reconstruction.

"I didn't know there is a collection on pre-historic settlements, or the reconstruction of ways of life of ancient people here," Zoran Janicijevic (35) said after seeing a collection from Lepenski Vir at the National Museum dating back to about 5300 BC. "I was impressed with the pots and sculptures of pre-historic people."

Thousands gathered before the Belgrade University Rector's office to look at an Egyptian mummy, last displayed in the capital in 1915. It was brought to Belgrade in 1888 from Luxor.

"I could not believe there was one (mummy) in the part of National Museum which is restricted for the public," Marija Jankovic (24) said. "That's amazing – a Serb merchant brought it here from Egypt in the 19th century."

Many visitors went to a political exhibition in Belgrade titled 'Murders of Rulers' about Serb rulers who were killed in the 19th and early 20th century.

Visitors in Novi Sad, Serbia's second largest city, were able to see acts of Serbian medieval knights fighting, and try prehistoric meals.

"People here know little about what Serbia has; people abroad know even less about what Serbia can show," Randjelovic said. "We aim to make this event a European one, to put it on the map of European cultural events. Serbia already has a brand – the EXIT festival, and we hope to make the museum night the same."

EXIT, founded in 2000, is one of the most popular festivals of modern music, held in Novi Sad in July. It attracts star performers, and drew some 190,000 young people in 2007 from all parts of Europe, including the nations of former Yugoslavia.