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The Belgrade Zoo was founded in the year 1936. It was founded by the
mayor of that time, the industrialist Mr. Vlada Ilić. It was
ceremonially opened on the day of St. Peter - July 12th.
The first inhabitants of
the zoo were: lions, leopards, polar and brown bears, wolves, macaquaes
and mangabey monkeys, blackbucks, buffalos, zebus, bighorn sheep, deer,
roe deer, storks, gruiformes, peacocks, common pheasants, owls, pelicans
and parrots.
Soon upon the opening,
the Belgrade zoo became one of the most preferred places where the
Belgrade citizens used to come. It has also hosted several times the
members of the royal family Karadjordjević. The queen Marija used to
spend the time aimed for entertainment with the princes Tomislav and
Andrej precisely in the Zoo, and the young king Peter II was regularly
interested during the visits for the further plans and construction.
When formed, the Zoo
occupied a space somewhat bigger than three and a half hectares, to be,
very quickly, widened to seven and then, with the construction of the
restaurant “Kalemegdanska terasa” (“The terrace of Kalemegdan”) and the
annexation of one part of “Donji grad”, even to somewhat more than
fourteen hectares, and on that surface it met the World War II. But,
during the World War II, the Zoo was bombed twice: at first in 1941 by
the German fascists and then also by the allies in 1944. Almost the
whole fund of animals was destroyed. Due to the destruction and
drastically reduced number of exhibits, the surface of the Zoo was,
unfortunately, reduced after the war to about seven hectares, which is
how much it occupies also today.
As per the saying of Dana
Savkovic-Gligorić, whose father, Milorad Savković, was the director of
the Zoo at that time, during the bombing in 1941 the inhabitants of the
surrounding buildings believed naively that the Zoo would not be a
target of the bombers, so that they rushed altogether to find a refuge
in it. But, the bombs were falling uncontrolled, so that in the Zoo,
especially in the cave which are today shelters for the zebras and
blackbucks, many people perished. She saw also with her eyes how many
animals, stricken by the bombs, fly in the air. She remembers
particularly the image of an elephant shattered to pieces. Many animals
escaped then from the destroyed cages, and those which represented a
danger for the surrounding had to be killed in order to avoid a bigger
tragedy. Among the rare ones which remained were the hippopotamus Buca
and the alligator Muja.
List of directors:
1) Aleksandar Krstić (up to WWII, 1936 - 1941)
2) Miodrag Savković (during WWII, 1941 - 1944)
3) Ante Tadić (1944 - ?)
4) Milorad Lazarević (? - ?)
5) Milorad Medenica (? - ?)
6) Radivoje Tričković (? - 1986)
7) Vuk Bojović (1986 - 2014)
8) Gvozden Radenković (2014 - 2015)
9) Srboljub Aleksić (2015 - still)
Source: offical site of
Belgrade Zoo
(2017)
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