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Belgrade Stonemasonry
- A Story of Tenacity in the Face of Difficulties
Belgrade, the capital of the Republic of Serbia & Montenegro, was an important strategic stronghold of the Balkans for centuries. Situated at the confluence of two mighty rivers, the Danube and the Sava, the Romans built a fortress on a headland overlooking the point where the waters meet, thereby ensuring a powerful hold over the region. If you go to what is now Kalemegdan Park, overlooking the rivers, you will see the remains of the Roman fortifications overlaid with subsequent military installations, right up to those of the 19th century.
On a hill to the south of the city is rising a more peaceful - but equally impressive – building, the huge, but as yet unfinished Temple of St. Sava, a ‘cathedral church’ to honour the patron saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This is a site which I had wanted – but failed - to visit on my business trips to this region in the 1980s and early 90s, which were curtailed by the civil conflicts in the Balkans.
In August 2005, however, I had the opportunity to go back to Belgrade, with my wife Victoria, and to meet up with the many friends I had made there more than ten years ago. What a change it was. This was a more confident city showing the purposeful, but tentative, signs of economic and social revival, despite the still-fragile political climate. Cafes and restaurants spilled out on to the pavements, brightly lit shops had a choice of more than one of everything, but above all the population was clearly much more at ease.
That’s inflation!
There is still poverty, especially among pensioners who suffered so badly during the rampant inflation brought on by the troubles and sanctions of the 1990s. In the worst three months the highest value banknote in circulation went from 100 dinars to an astonishing one hundred billion dinars – the highest ever face value of any note - and they were running out of paper to print them on. Thus these higher value notes got smaller and smaller.If you didn’t spend your pension within hours of getting it (after queuing from very early morning) you couldn’t even buy a loaf of bread. Supermarkets gave up trying to re-price goods every few minutes and the public snapped up any item they could get their hands on.
Work on the new Temple of St. Sava started on site in 1934. It was planned on
a massive scale, but construction work has stopped for various calamitous reasons
for periods of some 40
years, including the Second World War, the recent Balkans’ conflicts and the
periods of sanctions. The building is designed in accordance with the usual Orthodox
church layout – a large, square central area with four short ‘arms’ of equal length,
all surmounted by a large, shallow, dome topped with a huge gilded cross. Comparison
with the scale of St. Paul’s Cathedral would not be too fanciful.
The structure is almost entirely of reinforced concrete, including the domes, and all the walls are clad externally with polished white marble. The effect, in bright sunlight, is of a glistening edifice rising above the city. The many domes, with their scalloped edges, are covered in copper sheet which has weathered to a pleasing green colour.
The Serbian for ‘hard hat’?
Huge oak doors lead into……a building site. While the exterior is largely complete, the interior is far from finished. Locally they say that completion will be achieved in ten years but (using my semi-professional, but rather cynical eyes) I believe it will be at least twenty years – assuming no further major interruptions. Access by the faithful and the general public is freely available however, along with dumper trucks, lorries, cranes and all the paraphernalia of a busy construction project. In the eastern ‘arm’ of the church, amongst the piles of materials and rubbish, and the noise and dust, they have made a temporary area for prayer and devotion, and candles flicker brightly in the greyness. Meanwhile, trucks rumble around, machinery whines loudly and cables run all over the floor. No attempt is made to separate the public from the working areas, and we wandered around examining all the work in progress. Health and safety is clearly of little concern and the concept of protective clothing and equipment would probably be laughed at. What’s the Serbian for ‘hard hat’? – don’t ask!
The parts of the inside which have been finished hint at glorious splendour. Polished marbles of many colours, most from parts of the former Yugoslavia, cover the walls in complex patterns. Some of the white marble is intricately and deeply carved, and the massive circular concrete columns are each being clad with two semi-circular marble sections carved from the solid. These columns will have richly carved capitols and plinths, some of which are already in place and looking strangely out-of-keeping against the rough concrete. Beautiful mosaic panels are propped temporarily in position awaiting their marble surrounds, and a metre-deep skirting in heavily moulded, claret-red marble is starting to be fixed in place. Amongst all this activity, banker masons are polishing the pieces of carved marble cladding, using miniature disc grinders. Other than the luxury of power tools, Sir Christopher Wren would surely have recognised the scene.
On our way out we pass a small, dilapidated glass kiosk which serves as the “cathedral shop”; among the trinkets, candles and religious knick-knacks they are selling cigarettes, probably for the benefit of the contractor’s workforce! We are briefly tempted by a sign which (we think) offers the opportunity to climb to the external balcony around the base of the main dome, but the steps look steep and dusty so we stay at ground level. On emerging into the sunshine, we look up and notice that the balustrade to the balcony is incomplete. Large sections are missing at the corners, but people are happily strolling around 35 metres above the ground. Health and safety – who needs it?
The main contractor for the project is one of the larger Serbian engineering firms, Trudbenik. I wondered whether they tendered for this job more than 70 years ago, or even whether the firm existed then! Will they still be in existence to see this amazing project completed, and how on earth are they paid for their work? God moves in mysterious ways.
Barry M. Woodman - Past Master, The Worshipful Company of Masons
