NATO TARGET: Hotel Jugoslavija in Belgrade

Hotel Jugoslavija in Belgrade is one of the oldest luxurious Serbian hotels located on the Danube River bank in the Novi Beograd municipality. It was built in stages between 1947 and 1965 and opened in 1969 as one of the biggest hotels in the region. The architect was Lavoslav Horvat.

It was used as an accommodation for celebrities and high officials visiting Belgrade. Some of the famous people that stayed in hotel Jugoslavija include Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Queen Elizabeth II, Willy Brandt, Tina Turner, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, etc.
During the years the hotel with 130 rooms decayed and has fallen from 5 star hotel to a 3 star one.

NATO Bombing

The building was directly hit by 2 missiles, during the night of 7/8 May 1999, and the west wing of the hotel was totally destroyed. One guest got killed. The reason is not really evident for bombing the hotel.
In the same night the nearby Embassy of China in Novi Beograd was also bombed, four employees got killed, and five of them were heavily injured. Thas night was one of the heaviest attack since the beginning of the aggression (the buildings of the Yugoslav Army Headquarters and the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs were also hit again)

Reconstruction

Hotel Jugoslavija stands for Ex-Yu nostalgia and wonderful lifstyle. Since it was not a military building and is in a atractive location, private companies had big interest to start business again. In fact, in 2006 it was bought by Alpe-Adria Hotels then in 2007 Casinos Austria announced to invest 100 million euros into the hotel and transform it into a luxury casino. There are some plans to add new 33 storey twin towers.
July 2nd 2007, Casino Beograd opened its doors occupying 700m2 in Hotel Jugoslavija.


This is the first part of the hotel which reopened its doors. It celebrated its opening on february 9th 2008 and now covers an area of 9500m2.