Belgrade Aviation Museum

While I didn’t reckon on a 40 minute bus journey from the middle of town to the Aviation Museum, I should have, given its location within the city’s airport boundaries. After the odd sensation of getting off an airport bus with no luggage and no fellow passengers carrying luggage, I headed for the museum - a striking, unmissable flying saucer shape complex obscured by various airport buildings. The walk to it involved tiptoeing along sides of roads like a cheap hijack drama, as if I was playing the role of some chump in the credits who’s zoomed early on, caught in crosshairs, then surrounded and shot by careless unshaven personnel in military jeeps.

Happily, this was not my fate. As I approached the museum, two things became evident; firstly, both the outdoor exhibits and the stairs up to the entrance were in a sorry state of repair. Second; there was no action or activity. Both feelings were further illustrated by the sad spectre of a moss and verdigris splattered JAT Caravelle hulking over assorted remains of what looked like a number of small military planes.

Despite appearances, the museum was open. The man selling tickets was surly. You couldn’t blame him. Upstairs, past the impressive-but-closed catering and shopping concessions, a friendlier lady was polishing relics and remains.

“I normally guide people,” she told me, before giving me a potted tour, which she illustrated with a whirling Serbian-version Mr Sheen and duster. I felt slightly uneasy when she started crowing about a few items upon which the Museum prided itself and was curious at her celebratory tone when alerting me to the remains of a couple of American planes brought down in the NATO bombings.

“Am I alright to take pictures?” I asked, not sure if I should pretend to be American or make it absolutely clear I wasn’t.

“Of course,” she replied.

I looked round. The museum was impressive. A bit “war”, with numerous variations of fighters and fighter bombers to the fore, but impressive all the same. I enjoyed it; and I think the same could be said for the museum’s other visitor at that time - some bloke in a heavy metal t-shirt.