Famous artist used to live or had houses in Herceg Novi. Among the most famous ones were the literates Mihailo Lalic and Dusan Kostic, and a good part of the year the Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric, Zuko Dzumhur, Branko Copic, Desanka Maksimovic and many other painters and actors also spent in Herceg Novi. Many foreign and domestic politicians spent their winter and summer vacations in Novi, above all the former president of SFRJ Josip Broz Tito, who stayed in villa “Galeb” in Igalo.
During the last two decades they were replaced by the rich businessman, politicians, Russian yuppies, film stars…Last week after the news that the Formula 1 star Ralph Schumacher intends to buy a real estate and a palace in Montenegro, most likely in Herceg Novi, has been published, the word spread that the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has the same intention!
A real euphoria was made by the arrival of the Hollywood stars Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones in Kotor, when it was speculated that the famous couple is interested in purchasing the real estate in Perast, and that, allegedly, they have asked the professional help from the Prince Nikola Petrovic, but it is still unknown whether they have bought anything.
Soon after the Douglas’s Russian yuppie and the Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic arrived in Kotor, who said for “Vijesti” that he is here on holiday. The arrival of the Russian billionaire is understood however, as a search for the real estate in Boka. Several years ago a famous musician Goran Bregovic bought a house in Perast.
On Savina, nearby the Military hospital Meljine, the owner of the Delta Company, Miroslav Miskovic, several years ago has built a house on about 300 m2, and with the recent purchase he has widened the space around the house. Miskovic last year started buying the real estates on Rose, on the peninsula Lustica, where he plans to build on 30.000m2 an ethno village of a closed type for the extra rich clients. His representative says that there will be built three or four stone objects in the spirit of old architecture with 6 suites, a mill, facilities for production of wine and olive oil, and all in the spirit and in harmony with the existing architectonic – urban entities, without “devastation the natural and ecological harmony”.
Miskovic already owns on Rose about 1.500 m2 of land and a house of about 60 m2, which was bough several years ago. Next to the very coast in the lodgment Savina next to the former exclusive hotel “Plaza”, Milan Beko, the Minister in the Government of Slobodan Milosevic, who was in charge for the privatization, a former director of the Kragujevac “Zastava”, now the co – owner of “Knjaz Milos” and “Vecernje novosti”, has a house. The sympathetic house which was 4 5 years ago built by his father, he renewed and widened it and surrounded the villa by a wall. In his neighborhood is the villa of Petar Matic who was the agent of the “Reebok” firm for the Balkans and in Milosevic’s time had duty free shops in Serbia and was Marko Milosevis’s right hand in numerous businesses.
In their vicinity is Vuk Hamovic, the co – owner of the London firm EFT, which, according to the revisers’ reports, controlled 80 % of the regional market of electricity. He bought a house from the painter Milena Sotra. Five years ago he financed the renewal of the church Vavedenje Presvete Bogorodice on Zanjice Island, in the amount of several hundreds of euros. His wife and her mother spend a great deal of summer in Herceg Novi. In that period they have a rented boat which is at their disposal all the time. Hamovic’s colleague from the former Belgrade “Genex”, the controversial businessman Boris Pesko who lives on the relation London – Belgrade – Herceg Novi – Trebinje, also has a villa near hotel “Plaza”. Recently he bought the land which borders with his land on which until now there used to me a Meteorological station. Unofficially it is said that the land, which at one point Municipality gave for the construction of the Meteorological station, was overpaid several times.
Another former “Genex” worker, Zoran Obradovic, the owner of the firm “Petrol Bar” with the pump stations “Avia”, had the real estate in the zone of Savinska dubrava of about 15.000m2. Beside the villa and the pool he has vine planted and tennis courts built.
The co- owner of “Petrol Bar”, Ratko Zatezalo, also has a house in Herceg Novi – in Topla. That old building with a gorgeous garden belonged to the family Anteljevic who earned their money prior to the WW II as the mine owners in South Africa. Their descendants have sold the house 5 6 years ago for 800.000 euros. The team of the ex “Genex” workers who bought the houses (villas) for the rest in Herceh Novi ends Milos Mirkovic, a former director of Jugobanka in London, now officially a pensioner, who settled himself downtown in the vicinity of the building of the tourist organization of Herceg Novi.
On Savina, 200 meters from the sea, above the local traffic artery a house with a pool has the lawyer and a businessman, Toplica Spasojevic, who in Belgrade has a firm ATM, which among other represents the famous world brands: Fila, Tommy Hilfiger, ect. Obradovic, Zatezalo, and Spasojevic have rented “Sport café”, which is the ownership over the water polo club “Jadran”, the favorite joining place on Herceg Novi square, for 15 years.
When they are in Herceg Novi, Miskovic, Zatezalo, Obradovic, Spasojevic, Beko, and some new businessman can often be seen in “Sport café”, but also in the City café and café Jadran downtown. For the “ordinary” world with their behavior they do not attract attention to themselves.
A floor in the house below the Old town and near the fortress Forte Mare has Vladimir Beba Popovic, at one time the chief of the Information Bureau in the Government of Zoran Djindjic. Next to the city harbor and the square the football player of the “Athletico Madrid”, Mateja Kezman bought a complex better known as the Old trading from HTE Boka. It is said that now he is selling the land, because he cannot build suites as he had intended. With the plan of the Promenade, which is being made for over 10 years, a hotel facility is foreseen to be built. Kezman has renewed the old house in Igalo and opened a café in its ground floor, and on the floor he has built suites. In the meantime he got divorced and he left that property to his wife.
On the square the property has also the director Emir Kusturica, who has bough the building of the former Railway station. Despite the promises, like the opening of the film school, seminars and meetings with the famous world creators, because of which at that time Municipality has sold him that facility, in that facility only the café works, and since recently a multiplex cinema.
On Savina, near the house of Spasojevic, the representatives of the Karic companies have bought the land of about 6.500 m2 and they have announced the construction of the hotel on that attractive part next to the very sea. They have also started the initiative for the construction of the urbanity project for that part of the town. Since then two years have passed, and the land on Savina is still overgrown with shrubbery and grass. The similar thing happened with the land of 2.500 m2 on Topla, below the building of the Homeland museum, also “on the fume of the sea” where they have planned the construction of a great residential edifice with four floors and the construction of 6 family suites.
In Njivice for more than a decade and a half the project of RT Mimoza is being boiled but it doesn’t start and the project foresaw the investment of 160 millions of euros in tourist and other purposes on the space of 300.000 m2. The new owner is the firm Civas.
Slavica Kosic – Ivana Komnenic – Vuk Lajovic