Ada Huja

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

Location

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 Rukavac (Cyrillic: Рукавац; Serbian for 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 bridge of Pančevački most to the east.

History

Ada Huja was previously an island, as its name suggests (ada huja, Turkish/Serbian for rustle island). After the World War II the filling up of the Danube's bed between the bank of Belgrade and Ada Huja began, with garbage and dirt being the most used materials, turning it into a peninsula. 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 km long and the entire area (filled and former island) covers 5 square kilometers.^[1]

Economy and future

Ada Huja is entirely industrial area. However, two Roma people slums (informal settlements, or locally classified as unhygienic settlements) developed on its eastern (Ada Huja) and western tip (Deponija).

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.

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.

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, gravel storages of Tembo and DV Trade, etc. Belgrade's largest kart racing track is also located here. The forested area of former island stretches from here to the east.

Plans for the future of Ada Huja vary. A company Eko Zona Ada Huja was founded to transform it into the future recreational zone, with marina, large shopping malls, facilities for water sports and sport terrains, though not much is done. Company still receives large quantities of garbage, earth and rubble which is used to stabilize the marsh in the central part and for continuing filling up of the Rukavac. In the current fashion of giving foreign names (especially a series of 'cities') to the newly built areas of Belgrade, this one, projected for 2008-2010 ^[1], is supposed to be called Dunav City (Dunav is Serbian for the Danube). The Faculty of Architectury however prosposed the name Vilingrad ("fairy town").

However, this may be in collision with the General Urbanistic Plan (GUP) of Belgrade, as the city government plans to construct another bridge over the Danube from Ada Huja which would intensify the traffic. Also a railway is supposed to be conducted through the area and over the new bridge, with the Belgrade's future main loco-freight railway station to be located in Ada Huja.

References

• Beograd - plan grada; M@gic M@p, 2006; ISBN 86-83501-53-1

1. ^ ^{a b} Politika daily, January 29, 2008, p.21