Marijana Vukcevic The long tradition and stormy history of the modern capital and today the leading business center in the region In the constant movement through space and time, we forget to stop and listen to what the cities we live in, through which we are always passing through, or those we are just planning to visit, are telling us. Podgorica, the capital and largest city of Montenegro, is one of the cities that has a truly impressive history and whose passage through time has left its mark on the infrastructure, lifestyle and population structure. Through that long and stormy past, Podgorica has survived many cataclysms, as evidenced by its five names.

Podgorica once upon a time - a look into the recent and distant past of the city The oldest remains of material culture tell us that the area of today's Podgorica and its immediate surroundings was inhabited as far back as the Stone Age. Two thousand years ago, the Illyrian and Roman city of Birziminium was located at the mouth of Ribnica in Morač. In the Illyrian period, this area was inhabited by two tribes, the Labeati and the Dokleati, who most directly influenced the creation of local settlements. The Labeats inhabited the area from Shkodër to today's Podgorica. They had their fortress Meteon (Medun) and a developed organization of life, especially the military. The Dokleates were settled in the valley of the Zeta river and thanks to the fertile plain and favorable geographical and traffic position, they had a rapid economic rise. Their largest settlement was Duklja. Duklja was first mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century BC and is located about three kilometers northwest of today's center of Podgorica, at the point where the Zeta flows into the Morača. During the time of the Romans, Duklja became the center of the province of Prevalis and experienced a further rise as an economic, political and religious center. According to some data, at that time it had 8-10 thousand inhabitants. After her, the wider area was called Duklja, and only after the eleventh century did the name Zeta become established.

In the fifth century, at the time of the beginning of the collapse of the Roman Empire, the first Slavic and Avar tribes arrived in these regions. The interest of the Slavs in creating their own state and the interests of Byzantium were in conflict, so there were constant battles during which Duklja was also destroyed. That most likely happened in 602, because since then there is no more mention of it as a living city. In the eleventh century, a more significant new settlement, Ribnica, was created on the site of the former Alata. Ribnica later received the name Podgorica, and it seems that both names were used side by side until the fifteenth century. The name Podgorica was first mentioned in 1326 in a document from Kotor, and it comes from the name of the hill Gorica in the northern part of the city. In the Middle Ages, Podgorica was an important commercial, religious and cultural center. Located in a fertile plain, it was an important crossroads of trade routes.

With the fall to the Turks in 1484, it changed a lot. In it, the Turks built fortifications, city ramparts, towers and houses, giving it the appearance of a military oriental city. And in 1878, Podgorica was annexed to the Principality of Montenegro by the decision of the Congress of Berlin. At that time, there were about 1,500 houses in Podgorica, with more than 8,000 people - of the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Islamic faiths. During the First World War, Podgorica was occupied by Austrian troops, and was liberated in 1918. In the period between the two world wars, it had about 13,000 inhabitants. In the Second World War, it was bombed more than seventy times and was completely destroyed, and 4100 inhabitants died. She was released on December 19, 1944.

Under the name Titograd, it began its new life on July 13, 1946 and became the capital of the then Republic of Montenegro. After the liberation, the reconstruction of the war-ravaged city began. Since then, the dynamic development of Podgorica began, with the rapid development of which the number of inhabitants also grew. Tito's former city with typical socialist residential blocks, monotonous parks and streets that resemble each other, with an urban plan that predicted sixty thousand inhabitants after the war, today has three times as many and an infrastructure that even larger European centers cannot boast of. Podgorica today The old lady is proudly located in the fertile plains (Bjelopavlić and Zeta), surrounded by hills (Vranjska gora 85 m, Ljubović 101 m, Gorica 130 m, Dajbabska gora 172 m, Malo brdo 205 m, Hum 276 m, Vranjina 303 m...) intersected by the flows of as many as five rivers: Zeta, Sitnice, Ribnice and Cijevne, which flow into Morač Lake Skadar. Lake Skadar, proximity to the sea, altitude, relief, and latitude have created a sub-Mediterranean climate with mild winters and very hot summers. Podgorica is located at an altitude of 44 meters above the sea, only about a hundred kilometers from the famous seaside resorts and attractive centers of winter tourism. With the construction of the Sozine tunnel, you can reach the Adriatic Sea in just half an hour's drive. It is being built at such a speed that the foundations of new buildings are being laid almost every day, cultural, scientific and educational institutions, modern roads (especially bridges), business centers, promenades, schools, hospitals, monuments, catering and sports facilities are springing up. It can rightly be said that today's Podgorica is the undisputed administrative, cultural, financial, commercial, traffic and service center of the country.

Business Mecca, university center, cultural capital, city of youth and future. One of today's symbols of Podgorica is the largest bridge on Morača, Millennium, which dominates the panorama of the city. Along with the famous grape brandy and even more famous wines (from the largest vineyard in Europe - AD plantation), impressive cultural monuments (of which there are very few due to the massive destruction of the city in World War II), along with the far-famed Staro Podgorica humor, bohemians, songs and "beautiful women", Podgorica really has something to offer the intending traveler. And it doesn't end there. With the restoration of statehood, Montenegro and Podgorica as a center of scientific, cultural, economic and political institutions are just beginning their megalomaniacal life and development. Foreign investments of several hundreds of millions of euros during 2006 and the announcement of new and larger guarantees are for even faster development of the city. New embassies, representative offices of the world's most famous corporations, international and domestic cultural manifestations bring the local business and cultural elite, and Podgorica has all the predispositions to become a modern European city in which the past reminds us and the future obliges us to preserve, improve and create a suitable environment for the times yet to come.