Virtual Exhibition / KAFANA “GOOD MORNING”
Monday-Monday / AUGUST 22 – SEPTEMBER 17, 2022 / SASA Gallery of Science and Technology
Taverns were an eternal inspiration and a place of work for numerous writers from the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century. Who knows how many countless poems and sketches, on tables covered with tablecloths dotted with cigarette holes, first saw the light of day in these institutions? Every Kafana in Belgrade is filled with secret lives, strings of inspiration, and memories that get destroyed when the new, more impressive buildings with 5 or more floors are built. One of those kafanas, whose secrets have disappeared from Belgrade concrete was Kafana “Good morning”.
The Kafana “Good morning” stood for years at the corner of today’s Nemanjina and Balkanska streets. At the very entrance to the rapidly developing city, surrounded by streets with whitewashed houses with “divanas” and windows made of “pangerli paper”, stables, and artisan shops; the tavern “Dobro jutro” was undoubtedly visited daily by travelers passing through Belgrade and merchants who came to the former Tobdzijska market for trade. The very name of this tavern evokes the smile on the waiters’ faces and the smell of fresh coffee and Turkish delights in the morning. The word kafana comes to us from the Persian language (qahve hane) and is a compound meaning “a house where coffee is poured”. Although the culture of drinking coffee, which we inherited from the Ottomans, may have changed since then, a good morning is still unthinkable without the smell of this beverage. This tavern was demolished in 1935 to replace it with the Hotel Belgrade. Thus, the greatest secrets of “Good Morning” sank into oblivion.
