Čukarička padina ( sr-cyr, Чукаричка Падина) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of

Čukarica Čukarica ( sr-cyr, Чукарица, ) is a municipality of the city of Belgrade. Name Like several other neighborhoods of Belgrade, Čukarica was named after kafana. At the present location of the Sugar Refinery, there was a kafana in the seco ...

Location

Čukarička Padina is located between the neighborhoods of Čukarica to the east, and

Makiš Makiš ( sr, Макиш) is a forest and an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Čukarica. Location Makiš is bordered by the Sava river and Sava Lake to the west and north, Ču ...

to the west. Actually, it is the westernmost part of the Banovo Brdo neighborhood, a strip of land on the slopes of the hill alongside the ''Savska magistrala'' road, overlooking the

Sava The Sava (; , ; sr-cyr, Сава, hu, Száva) is a river in Central and Southeast Europe, a right-bank and the longest tributary of the Danube. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia and along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally t ...

river and

Ada Ciganlija Ada Ciganlija ( sr-cyr, Ада Циганлија, ), colloquially shortened to Ada, is a river island that has artificially been turned into a peninsula, located in the Sava River's course through central Belgrade, Serbia. The name can also ref ...

, thus the descriptive name, Čukarička Padina, which in Serbian means ''slope of Čukarica''.

Characteristics

The bank of the

river where the modern neighborhood is, was a starting point of the raft ferry line which connected two sides of the river. The merchants dug ''lagums'', underground rooms and corridors into the rock slope and used them as a storage areas. The ''lagums'' still exist, but the entrances are buried. Local communioty had a population of 9,296 in 2011.

Transport

Čukarička Padina is connected with other parts of the city by public transport: Bus lines: * No. 55: Zvezdara - Stari Železnik; * No. 56: Zeleni Venac - Petlovo Brdo; * No. 56L: Zeleni Venac - Čukarička Padina; * No. 87: Čukarička Padina - Banovo Brdo; * No. 89: Vidikovac - Novi Beograd (Blok 61); * No. 581: Beograd (Lastina stanica) - Lazarevac AS; * No. 581A: Beograd (Lastina stanica) - Lazarevac (Dom zdravlja); Night lines: * No. 511: Trg Republike - Sremčica

Čukarička Šuma

In time, a shanty town developed in the woods across the New Obrenovac motorway. It was named Čukarička Šuma (Čukarica Forest). An informal settlement, it is inhabited by the

Romanies The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with si ...

who work as a

waste picker A waste picker is a person who salvages reusable or recyclable materials thrown away by others to sell or for personal consumption. There are millions of waste pickers worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, but increasingly in post-i ...

s and mostly use fire to extract the valuable materials from the garbage. Since the early 2010s, as the settlement grew, a large, thick clouds of smoke and bad smell from the burning garbage began cloaking urbanized section of the settlement almost on a daily basis. Frequent gatherings and public protests of the citizens and limited communal efforts to clean, adapt and sanitize the forested area around the shanty town failed to solve the problem despite the fact that the activities which cause it are illegal. Municipality of Čukarica promised it will relocate the informal settlers and build a recycling center which will bring the activities of the settlers into the legal flows. As of March 2018, the shanty town had some 80 houses, and the pollution problems continued into 2019.

References

Neighborhoods of Belgrade Čukarica {{BelgradeRS-geo-stub