Deponija, Belgrade

Neighborhood of Belgrade
Deponija (Serbian Cyrillic: Депонија) is an urban neighborhood (informal settlement) of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Palilula. As the settlement developed around the Vuka Vrčevića Street, and former industrial zone in it, it is sometimes referred to as the Vuk Vrčević settlement.

Deponija is located under the Pančevo bridge, spawning along the Vuka Vrčevića street, near the right bank of the Danube. It is bordered by the neighborhood of Ada Huja to the east, Viline Vode to the west and Bogoslovija to the south.

Deponija is actually a slum, Brazilian type favela, officially classified as an unhygienic settlement. Settling of the area began in the mid 1970s. As the area became informal (wild) landfill (deponija, Serbian for landfill, thus the name), tens of thousands of cubic meters of garbage were dumped in the area in the next few decades. Major influx of population occurred after the expulsion of the non Albanian population from Kosovo after the Kosovo War in 1999. Romani people who took refuge in Germany were deported back to Serbia and some of them settled in the area. Already as of 2000/01, name Deponija emerged as a name of the settlement. It is estimated that Deponija is the largest of the 15 unhygienic settlements in the territory of the municipality of Palilula where altogether 15,000 people live. The exact number of population of Deponija itself is not known and the estimates vary from 900 to 2,000.