Bara Venecija () is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Savski Venac, along the right bank of the Sava river. Location Bara Venecija is located on the right bank of the Sava river, roughly between the Old Sava bridge and Branko's Bridge some west of Terazije, downtown Belgrade. It is basically a small sub-neighborhood of the Savamala, which used to cover much larger area. History The area was originally a bog called Ciganska Bara (, "Gypsy pond"). The bog was charted for the first time in an Austrian map from 1789. It was a marsh which covered a wide area from modern Karađorđeva Street (at Kovač's Khan, at modern Hercegovačka Street) to the mouth of the Topčiderska reka into the Sava, across the northern tip of Ada Ciganlija. Marshy area covered modern location of the Belgrade Main railway station and parts of the Sarajevska and Hajduk-Veljkov Venac streets. Ciganska Bara drained two other bogs. One was located on Slavija, which drained through the creek of Vračarski Potok which flew down the area of the modern Nemanjina street. Other pond whose water drained into the Ciganska bara was Zeleni Venac. During the high water levels in the Sava, the bog would also rise, forming a proper lake which reached the Bosanska (modern Gavrila Principa) and Sarajevska streets. Romanies who lived in the area, used the mud from the bog to make roof tiles. They lived in small huts or caravans (called čerge), between the high grass and rush, with their horses and water buffaloes grazing freely in the area. As most of the huts were actually stilt houses, built on piles due to the marshy land, the area was gradually named Bara Venecija ("Venice pond"). The concession for the construction of the first railway in Serbia included the laying of the Belgrade–Niš railway, the train bridge over the Sava river and a railway that would connect Belgrade to Zemun, a border town of Austria-Hungary at the time. The location of the future station building in Bara Venecija was chosen in 1881. The station itself was not part of the concession, As a marshland, the selected location was completely inappropriate for construction works of any kind, so the swamp first had to be filled. The remains of the demolished Stambol Gate were already dumped into the bog in 1866. Parts of the