Čukarica

Čukarica (Чукарица, t͡ʃukǎrit͡sa) is a municipality of the city of Belgrade, Serbia. Like several other neighborhoods of Belgrade, Čukarica was named after kafana. At the present location of the Sugar Refinery, there was a kafana in the second half of the 19th century. It was very popular as it was located at the point where two roads, one from Obrenovac and other from Šumadija, meet at the entrance to Belgrade. It was owned by Stojko Čukar and after him the kafana was named “Čukareva kafana” which later gave name to the settlement. The village of Čukarica asked to be transferred to the Belgrade municipality in 1906, but the plea was rejected. It was transferred from the Vračar Srez under the administration of the Belgrade municipality on 8 July 1907. Municipality of Čukarica was established for the first time on 30 December 1911. After a popular referendum, inhabitants of Čukarica voted to split from the municipality of Žarkovo and as a result were given the municipal status by the king Peter I of Serbia. Popular folklore rivalry still exists among the inhabitants of Čukarica and Žarkovo, even though today they are both part of Belgrade. Modern settlement began to develop as the first social housing for the workers of the sugar refinery, on the hill above the hyppodrome. Čukarica became known as the “workers settlement”. The first president of the municipality was an industrialist with the surname Novak, who emigrated from the Czech Republic. He changed his surname to the Serbian version Novaković and his direct descendants are the actress Olivera Marković (granddaughter) and her son, director Goran Marković (great-grandson). During the existence of the narrow-gauge railway Belgrade-Čukarica-Obrenovac, the tunnel was dug under the ending slope of the Banovo Brdo hill. There were two railway stations. Station Čukarica was located at the entry point from the Belgrade direction, at the sugar factory industrial complex. On the exit side, at Obrenovac Road, there was a station Jedek.