Nikola Tesla Museum – Belgrade
Sane Mind Serbia

Nikola Tesla Museum – Belgrade

There is a place in Belgrade that I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time. Remarkably, I’ve never been there. Not even when I lived in Belgrade, before I moved to London. If you ask me why, I wouldn’t know what to say. Perhaps, I thought of it as a place that was right there and very easy to visit. Somehow, I never actually managed to do it. Until now. The place that I am talking about is the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade.

So, on the occasion of my latest visit to the Serbian capital, I finally visited this museum. I went there three times before I managed to enter. The museum is extremely popular, especially with foreign tourists. The first two times, the available museum tours were not convenient for me. The third time, I was lucky. But, more about this later in the post.

Everyone knows who Nikola Tesla is. So, this post is not about him. Whoever wants to learn more about this great Serbian-American scientist, there is ample information about his life and work on the internet.

This post is about the museum and my experience there.

 

 

ABOUT NIKOLA TESLA MUSEUM

 

The museum is in this beautiful villa in Krunska Street 51. It’s very close to Slavia Square and it’s also very easy to find. It’s a small museum. As a matter of fact, the museum is just the ground floor of this villa, the upper floors are offices and staff rooms.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Museum Building

 

 

NIKOLA TESLA

 

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), was a Serbian-American inventor and scientist, a pioneer in electrification, who significantly influenced the technological development of our civilisation by his poly-phase system inventions. That system is the cornerstone of modern electro-energetic systems of production, long distance transmission and usage of electrical currents, electricity and communication.

Since the beginning of its exploitation towards the end of the last century, until now, the poly-phase system, together with the asynchronous motor, has been perfected and improved to remarkable and inconceivable dimensions.

He was a very imaginative scientist whose ideas led to many important discoveries without which our civilisation would lack many of its technological comforts (radio, radar, television, all kinds of motors, high frequency fields, coils, computers). Some of his ideas are still to be realised.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Nikola Tesla Museum

 

He was born in Smiljan in Lika. At the time, the village was within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, under the Emperor Franz Joseph I.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Nikola Tesla

 

 

MUSEUM TOUR

 

The museum tour starts with an excellent 15 minutes film presentation about Nikola Tesla’s life and achievements.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Projector Room

 

In that same room, there are several very interesting exhibits. One of them is the original nameplate from the two-phase generator in the Niagara Falls.

The nameplate lists 13 patents, 9 of them belonged to Nikola Tesla.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Adams Power Station Two-Phase Generator Nameplate

 

Another interesting exhibit is the induction motor with the short circuit rotor.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Induction Motor With the Short Circuit Rotor

 

Next to it, there is a model of the induction motor with the egg-shaped rotor, better known as “Tesla’s Egg of Columbus”. In the photo of a projector room, you can see these motors below the screen.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Tesla’s “Egg of Columbus”

 

The absolute star of the museum and clearly the most interesting exhibit is Tesla’s 500 KV oscillating transformer. Just to see this transformer switched on and working is more than enough. What happens is that they give you the neon bulbs, that you can see below, and, while the transformer is working, the bulbs light up in your hands. It basically demonstrates the wireless transmission of energy. It’s a fascinating experiment.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Tesla’s 500 KV Oscillating Transformer

 

In that same room, there are several more models of Tesla’s inventions. It’s a part of the museum where several more experiments are done.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Various Exhibits

 

Additionally, his remote-controlled boat with “AND” logic Gate is equally fascinating.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Tesla’s Remote-Controlled Boat with “AND” Logic Gate

 

This transformer is a smaller version of the previously mentioned, more powerful oscillating transformer.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Tesla’s 250 KV Oscillating Transformer

 

 

TESLA’S BELONGINGS

 

The other part of the museum is dedicated to Tesla’s life. It is also interesting to see it.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Blue Portrait of Nikola Tesla – Princess Elisabeth Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy (New York 1916, copy)

 

The bust of Nikola Tesla was made by the great Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Bust of Nikola Tesla – Ivan Meštrović (1952)

 

You can also see his various personal items.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Nikola Tesla’s Possessions

 

Tesla’s nephew, Sava Kosanović, shipped his entire estate to Belgrade in 80 trunks marked N.T. in 1952.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Nikola Tesla’s Possessions

 

You can also see Tesla’s boots, his hat, gloves and belt.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Nikola Tesla’s Personal Items

 

Tesla was 1.88m tall and his suit is also exhibited.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Nikola Tesla’s Suit

 

Tesla died on the 7th January 1943, at the age of 86. He died alone in the room 3327, in the New Yorker Hotel. The safe that you can see below was in the room where he died.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Safe from Tesla’s Room 3327 in New Yorker Hotel

 

Tesla’s ashes were transported from the United States to Belgrade in 1957. The ashes are displayed in the museum, in a gold-plated sphere, on a marble pedestal. There are other museums in the world dedicated to him, but the urn with his ashes makes the Belgrade museum the only legitimate Nikola Tesla museum. 

 

Nikola Tesla Museum - Belgrade
Urn Containing Nikola Tesla’s Ashes

 

 

HOW TO VISIT THIS MUSEUM

 

So, how to visit the museum? It’s a very popular museum, with more than 135000 yearly visitors. You can enter at 10am, 11am, noon, 1pm, 2pm and so on. Additionally, tours are either in Serbian or in English. It is important that you choose a tour in a language that you understand. Thus, you will be able to follow the explanations and especially the experiments.

You can see below that tours marked in blue were in English and in orange in Serbian. I attended a tour in Serbian. The entrance was 500 dinars, which is just over 4 euros. The museum only accepts cash.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Museum Opening Times

 

Nikola Tesla’s Archive consists of the unique collection of manuscripts, photographs, scientific and patent documentation, which is indispensable in studying the history of electrification of our world.

In his honour, the magnetic induction unit (tesla) of the SI system is named after him.

The collection documents the most important era in the history of development of the modern world, which thanks to the Tesla system, made the easy energy production and distribution possible.

His archives, held in the museum in Belgrade, were included in a UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2003.

 

Nikola Tesla Museum Belgrade
Nikola Tesla’s Signature

 

If you go to Belgrade, don’t miss this small, but very precious museum. Personally, I am very glad that I finally managed to visit it. Learning about this great person and seeing some of his experiments will certainly blow your mind.

Also, a concept of the wireless transmission of electricity is something that I am still trying to fully comprehend …

 

 

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