A mystery car in snowy Belgrade

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Is it not often the case that the less information we have about something, the stronger our desire is to learn about it? All we knew at first about this particular photograph was that it depicted ‘A car in the snow’, as the University of Graz’s caption told us. Where, when and by whom it was taken, and what car it shows, were all missing, so we conducted our own enquiry into it.

Several sources said it was taken in Belgrade in 1928, which seemed credible. Another told us more specifically that It shows ‘The National Assembly Building on Nikola Pašić Square in downtown Belgrade’, which appears to be correct. Although jammed in between other buildings, this impressive piece of architecture can still be found today and doesn’t seem to have changed all that much.

Next, we stumbled upon a newspaper clipping headed ‘The only two cars in Belgrade collided in 1903’, using this picture as its opening photograph. Translated, it reads: ‘Back in 1903, there were no more than two cars in Belgrade roaming the city streets. An interesting thing allegedly happened, which the citizens recounted for days afterwards. According to the newspapers of the period, those two, the only cars at the time, collided at the Mostar intersection in Belgrade and caused general chaos. Luckily, it was reported that none of the drivers were injured, and the only damage was to the car that allegedly caused the collision. The ‘culprit’ quickly fled the scene on foot and the owner of the second car, Vrzimir Točkanović, escaped with a few scratches. On that occasion, Vrzimir told the police and the gathered citizens: “Everything happened so fast that I didn't know what happened. He ran into the intersection and he must have been going faster than 20 an hour!” The driver who caused the accident, whose name is not known to this day, was sought for a long time because he also removed the number plates from his car before fleeing the scene.

Pardon us, we got carried away. The picture, clearly not of 1903 vintage, was just used to illustrate the piece with a picture of a historic car in Belgrade, but it was an interesting piece of trivia nonetheless. Anyone who knows more about the Vrzimir Točkanović accident on the Mostar intersection is invited to share their knowledge here. Meanwhile, we haven’t got much further with this lovely picture, so we’d love to hear from you about the car in the first place. A Mercedes of Benz, do we think?

Words: Jeroen Booij; picture: University of Graz
 

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