A Visit to Nikola Tesla's Museum in Belgrade

Nikola Tesla, the inventor, scientist and futurist whose creations shaped the 20th century and still wield a powerful influence on our daily life today, was born on July 10th, 1856 in Smiljan, a small place situated then in Austro-Hungarian territory, present day Croatia, to a Serbian family (his father was a Serbian orthodox priest) - a true Yugoslav.
His destiny would have him study in Europe and live & work most of his life in the United States. He only visited Belgrade once, but it is here, in the Serbian capital, that Tesla has a museum dedicated to him, a museum containing over 100,000 items (tools, sketches, projects, models, experiments, devices) created and/or formerly owned by the famed man of science.
Not far from the busy Slavija crossing, on Krunska street nr 51, on the ground floor of an imposing mansion, the Museum of Nikola Tesla is open for visitor Tuesday through Sunday, from 10am to 6pm,with guided tours in either English or Serbian on every exact hour, all for a modest fee of 250 RSD (cca. 2 euro). Photographs are allowed, free of charge, there is no restroom available though.

Museum Nikola Tesla

The museum is, for all its boasted rich collection, astonishingly small - just 4 large rooms, yet it makes for an interesting, well-appointed introduction to the life and work of Nikola Tesla.
A short 20-minute film opens the presentation in the first room, then one of the curators proceeds to explain a few of Tesla's life's milestones and major inventions, as well as demonstrate a few of these by operating the various devices on display.

En route to the second room, where Tesla's remote controlled boat is exhibited (the first device of its kind in the history of mankind), the visitor gets to participate in a semi-interactive experiment. By using an induction motor and its generated magnetic field, neon tubes held in the hands of the tour participants light up seemingly out of the blue, a fun effect producing "ooohhh"s and "aaahhh"s from the audience and reminding all of the epic Star Wars battle with laser swords between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

Getting ready for...Star Wars!!!

The third room serves for temporary exhibitions, now containing works of art (sketches, caricatures, paintings) of Tesla.
Last, but not least, at the end of the presentation the guide urges the visitors to see the last room, which showcases, in a sombre setting, one single item: the sphere shaped urn containing Tesla's ashes. The sphere was his favorite shape - and it appears he had an obsession for the number three, as well - all hotel rooms where he spend most of his adult life had to have a number which could be divided by three!!! For a scientist, that's already a lot of superstition!!! :)

Nikola Tesla's resting place

All in all, a well spent hour and a great introduction to one of the key personalities of mankind, which Serbia is very proud to claim as their own.
Tours2Serbia currently includes a visit to Tesla's Museum in all our full day tours of Belgrade - so you are kindly invited to join us for a visit next time you are in Belgrade.
Srdacan pozdrav!