Kalemegdan Park

Kalemegdan Park is a green oasis in the heart of the city. With its position, historical importance and functionality, it plays a special role in the life of the city as well as in the life of its citizens.

It is one of the very few parks that can boast of more than a century long continuity in constructing and decorating. One of the oldest, and to Belgraders, one of the most beutiful, and certainly the dearest park, is currently marking an anniversary. For this part of the world,  this anniversary is a quite remarkable one – 137 years of  continuous works on arranging and decorating.

Kalemegdan Park has grown together with the Belgrade Fortress, the most significant monument of the city, and together they make one inseparable entity.

It occupies 57 hectares and it consists of the following parts : Great and Small Kalemegdan, Upper and Lower Town, Sava and Danube Slopes and the ZOO.

In 1979 the Fortress and the Park were prochlaimed cultural treasure on the state level.

The history of Kalemegdan as a park, started in April 1867, on the day when the Turks handed over the Belgrade Fortress to the Serbian princ Mihailo Obrenovic.

The works started in 1869 in the Great Kalemegdan and upper Town.

The monuments erected here over the past years are of special value to the park : The Victor, which is, in a certain way, a symbol of Belgrade. the Monument of Gratitude to France, monuments and busts of public figures and  cultural workers. As far as natural resources are concerned, there is a considerable number of various species of trees and bushes of different vitality, age, dimensions and origin, and, therefore,  of different esthetic values. At this point, eight trees are under the protection of the state.

Apart from the remains of the fortress, in the park there are also Military Museum, Natural History Museum, Cvijeta Zuzoric Art Pavilion, Ruzica church, St. Paraskeva’ s Chapel, fallen heroes’ tombstones, tennis and basketball courts, restaurant, clubs, etc.