Staro Sajmište

Staro Sajmište (Serbian Cyrillic: Старо Сајмиште) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Novi Beograd and it was the site of the World War II Sajmište concentration camp (1941–1944).

Staro Sajmište is located in the Novi Beograd's Block 17, between the street of Zemunski put (extension of the Savski most bridge), the Mihajlo Pupin boulevard (extension of the Branko's bridge) and the Sava river. It extends into the non-residential neighborhood of Ušće on the north and into the newly developed Savograd on the west. Sajmište street curves within the settlement.

Although this is what is usually considered as the Staro Sajmište, local community of the same name also includes the entire Block 18 to the south, which is located between the streets of Vladimira Popovića and Zemunski put, Gazela Bridge and the left bank of the Sava.

In the period between the World Wars, settlements began to form on the left bank of the Sava river, closer to Belgrade, as the only existing settlement on the marshy territory of today's Novi Beograd at that time was the village of Bežanija, quite far away from Belgrade. Settlements were known as the Novo Naselje (new settlement) and Sajmište (fair ground). Settlements developed without any urbanistic plans.

A complex of buildings was built in Sajmište in 1938. It was the site of the new Belgrade fair (hence the name), spreading over an area of 15,000 m² with modern and artistic buildings and constructions, including high metal spike construction, which became known as the Central Tower. Designed by the architects Milivoje Tričković, Rajko Tatić and Đorđe Lukić, it was envisioned as the monumental modern complex, with the Central Tower as the domineering motif. Around it, pavilions for the exhibitions were built: five Yugoslav, one for the “Nikola Spasić Foundation” and national pavillions of Italy, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and the Dutch company Philips. It hosted international fairs, with task of promoting the economy of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well. In September 1938 one of the exhibitions on the fair was the first presentation of television in this part of Europe (it will be 18 years before first television station in communist Yugoslavia will appear), by Philips.

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