Ada Huja

About

Ada Huja (Serbian Cyrillic: Ада Хуја) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Palilula.

Ada Huja is a peninsula on the right bank of the Danube. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Viline Vode and Deponija to the east and Bogoslovija and Karaburma to the south. It engulfs a bay of Dunavac (Cyrillic: Дунавац; Serbian for Danube armlet) on the Danube, which separates its eastern half from the neighborhoods of Višnjica and Rospi Ćuprija to the south. The area is generally bordered by two traffic facilities: the Višnjička street to the south and the Pančevo bridge to the east.

Ada Huja was previously an island, as its name suggests (ada huja, Turkish/Serbian for rustle island). The island and the entire Danube's bank across it (Viline Vode, Karaburma, Višnjička Banja) is rich in springs of the sulfur water. Across the island, in the modern neighborhood of Rospi Ćuprija, remains of the major Celtic necropolis are found. The remains belonging to the Scordisci, a Celtic tribe which founded Singidunum, the predecessor of Belgrade, were found on the island. In 2018, it was announced that a recreated Celtic village would be built on Ada Huja as a tourist attraction. Ancient Romans cultivated grapevines and used thermal springs for public bathhouses. At the beginning of the 20th century, the island was covered with lush vegetation and vineyards, helped by the favorable micro-climate (winds) and thermal springs. It was a green oasis with wild beaches on the shores. The area was covered in oak and ash forests, while the surrounding waters were abundant in carp. In 1960 it was designated as the official city landfill and remained so until 1977 when the new landfill was opened in the village of Vinča. The filling up of the Danube's bed between the bank of Belgrade and the island began, with garbage and dirt, effectively turning Ada Huja into a peninsula in the 1960s. The filled area covers the western part of Ada Huja while the former island now forms the eastern half, with a separate island-like extension on its eastern tip. Today, from the Pančevački most to the easternmost tip, Ada Huja is almost 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) long and the entire area (filled and former island) covers 5 square kilometres (1.9 square miles). At the bottom of the Danube next to Ada Huja is the ruin of a plane of the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force. It was shot down in April 1941, during the Axis attack on Yugoslavia in 1941. In the late 1990s, a Czech environmentalist company conducted a survey of the water and found all sorts of toxins in it. A famous restaurant, "Carska Ohota", was located on the Danube's bank in Ada Huja. After a 2014 car crash when three young adults were killed when their car fell into the river, the ramp was placed on the access road to the quay. Built from wood, the restaurant burned to the ground in August 2018. In December 2021, city announced restoration of the riverine public transportation, which was discontinued decades ago. One of the first two proposed lines should be Borča-Ada Huja. In the same month, construction of the pier at Ada Huja began. Apart from the public transportation, it was said it will also be used for nautical tourism. However, new mayor Aleksandar Šapić stated in July 2022 that the riverine public transportation project will not be pursued further, calling it too expensive and "pointless".

Ada Huja is entirely an industrial area. However, two Romani people slums (informal settlements, or locally classified as unhygienic settlements) developed on its eastern (Ada Huja) and western tip (Deponija). The western section generally spawns around the Vuka Vrčevića street. It is filled with many hangars and companies for building and construction, including a series of concrete plants and gravel and aggregates storing and treating facilities. The central section is still mostly unused. Except for several hangars, the area is grassy, forested and marshy. During high levels of the Danube waters, entire bank of Ada Huja is flooded and companies very often don't work until the water recedes. As of 2021, Ada Huja is still the only official location in Belgrade where the waste and fecal water is being dumped into the Danube, by both the city owned communal company, and privately owned companies. Still, it was estimated that at least on some 30 other locations, the waste was dumped directly into both the Danube and Sava all over the city. Eastern section, on the western tip of the Rukavac is generally referred to as Ada Huja by most people, as the former island begins here. Some of the largest industrial facilities of Ada Huja are located here: paper and cardboard factory Avala-Ada, furniture factory Novi Dom, several gravel storages, etc. Paper factory, popularly called Kartonka, was founded in 1921 and is the oldest paper factory in Serbia. It was closed in the 1990s and reopened in 2008. In 2017-18 Kartonka came into the spotlight because of a series of fires: 19 July (two fatalities) and 10 August 2017, and a series of four fires in two months in 2018 after which the factory was temporarily shut down. As of 2018 it works only with the recycled paper. The shore is arranged in this part, turned into a quay and the promenade. There are several restaurants, children playgrounds, volleyball and tennis courts. Balkan's largest kart racing track is also located here. A small dock was constructed on the quay. The forested area of the former island stretches from here to the east and covers 13.9 ha (34 acres).

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.