Belgrade Design District: A Walk From Kralja Petra to Čumićevo Sokače

The Belgrade Design District is Čumićevo sokače, a small covered passage of designer shops and studios just behind Republic Square. This walk starts at Cookie Beacon Brunch Kralja Petra, our brunch spot in the Old Town, and gets you there along Knez Mihailova in five short legs. You pass Roman finds at the Rajićeva centre, the prince the street is named after, the National Museum and the National Theatre. The legs come to about 1.8 km in straight lines with the walk back, and the Google Maps route gives the walking time. Two times shape the day: most design shops open around noon and are shut on Sundays, and the National Museum is closed on Mondays. So go on a weekday, eat first, and arrive in the passage in the afternoon.

A word on the name. You will see it written as Belgrade Design District, “Choomich” or just Čumić. All three mean the same passage. Sokače is Serbian for a little lane.

Belgrade Design District walk: route at a glance

Distances are straight lines between OpenStreetMap points, about 1,780 m in total, so the walk itself is longer. For stop 5 we measured to the point the Makart bookshop’s own website maps inside the passage (makart.rs). For minutes, use the Google Maps link above.

Base camp: breakfast before the shops open

Our doors open at 09:00 and most design shops open about three hours later, so the order of the day sets itself. The Avocado Cheddar-Scones (990 RSD) or the Carrot-Cake Pancakes (1,050 RSD) will carry you through a museum and a passage of shops. A Flat White is 395 RSD. Every dish is on the Kralja Petra menu.

1. The Rajićeva centre: Roman Belgrade, under glass

Turn onto Knez Mihailova. At No. 54 stands the Rajićeva shopping centre, which opened in 2017. Before it was built, archaeologists dug up part of an ancient street and the paved square in front of the Roman fort of Singidunum. Be precise about what you see: this is not the street where it lay. A 2018 study describes the finds in glass basins at the Knez Mihailova entrance, with only a partial reconstruction of the street, and notes that some of the carved fragments come from other Roman sites in the city (Turističko poslovanje, 2018).

Look for: the glass basins by the entrance. The same study found no sign explaining them, so you are reading Roman Belgrade on your own. The street outside has a Roman line too. Knez Mihailova follows the grid of Roman Singidunum, and its course served as the main north–south route of the Roman city (Wikipedia).

2. Down Knez Mihailova to the prince himself

Follow the street south-east, away from the fortress. Knez Mihailova is about 1 km long and has been a pedestrian zone since 20 October 1987. In 1964 the city made it Belgrade’s first protected “spatial cultural-historical unit” (Wikipedia). The city adopted the name in 1870, two years after Prince Mihailo Obrenović was assassinated.

At the far end you meet him. The Prince Mihailo Monument on Republic Square was unveiled on 18 December 1882, the feast of St Nicholas. The Italian sculptor Enrico Pazzi made the rider. The reliefs follow drawings by the architect Konstantin Jovanović, the man who designed the National Bank building at Kralja Petra 12, a few doors from where you started. Locals called the statue kod konja, “at the horse”, and it became the city’s meeting point: “see you at the horse” (Wikipedia).

Look for: the names on the three bronze garlands: Belgrade, Kladovo, Soko, Smederevo, Šabac and Užice. Those are the towns whose Ottoman garrisons left during Mihailo’s reign. Then find the gusle player on the back relief, telling the dynasty’s story.

3. The National Museum of Serbia

The large building on the square at Trg Republike 1a is the National Museum. It is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday 10:00–18:00, and Thursday and Saturday 12:00–20:00. It is closed on Mondays. The permanent exhibition costs 300 RSD, and entry is free on Sundays (narodnimuzej.rs, checked on 10 November 2026). In August 2025 N1 reported the Miroslav Gospel, the 12th-century illuminated manuscript, on display here to mark 20 years on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register (N1). Ask at the desk whether it is on show the day you go.

If you have the morning, this is where it goes. The design shops will still be shut when you come out.

For every other museum in the city, with closed days and ticket prices, see our museums in Belgrade guide.

4. The National Theatre

Across the square, at Francuska 3, stands the National Theatre. Its building opened on 12 November 1869, to a design by Aleksandar Bugarski. It went up on the site of the Stambol Gate, one of the outer gates of the Belgrade Fortress (Wikipedia). The square you just crossed was once a gate in the town’s outer defences.

Look for: the main façade, then turn your back to it. The passage is a few minutes away, on the far side of the square from Knez Mihailova.

5. Čumićevo sokače, the Belgrade Design District

The passage takes its name from Aćim Čumić, and it was earlier called Kuzmanović’s passage. It links Terazije with the Dom omladine youth centre and Dečanska street. In the early 1990s it was described as Belgrade’s first shopping centre, full from early morning. The decline began in the late 1990s and grew worse after 2000, when the big malls opened. At the end of 2010 the fashion duo Punkuffer, Bojan Milisavljević and Marko Nenadić, brought in more than twenty Belgrade designers on two-year leases. That is the start of the design district. Vreme’s 2012 report on that revival also noted that 90% of the units were privately owned, so no single landlord runs the place (Vreme, 21 March 2012).

Today it is a mix. Lonely Planet counts more than 30 boutiques of local fashion designers, jewellers and artists (Lonely Planet), and in February 2025 Spotted by Locals described it as a space where established artists and designers show their work (Spotted by Locals). Not every unit is a studio. Expect ordinary shops and services between them, and some shutters down.

Two things are confirmed for 2026:

• Makart Store, a bookshop. In June 2026 the 12th Čumić Book Fest ran from 3 to 6 June on the square in front of it, with 22 publishers (makart.rs).
• The street art. Murals and stencils cover walls in the passage, with pieces signed by KALDEA, Dušan Rajić (“DO IT OK”), Marija Djuričić and TKV in a set photographed around January 2025 (Vagabundler). Walls get repainted, so treat that list as a starting point.

Opening hours. The district publishes no common hours. The PlanPlus directory lists Pokret Concept Store at Monday to Friday 13:00–20:00 and Saturday 12:00–17:00, the Galiana Gotham boutique at Monday to Friday 12:00–19:00 and Saturday 12:00–17:00, both closed on Sunday, and the Makart bookshop at Monday to Friday 10:00–20:00 and Saturday 10:00–16:00 (PlanPlus, PlanPlus, PlanPlus, checked on 10 November 2026). Read these as a pattern: the passage opens up around noon on weekdays and is mostly shut on Sundays. If you want one particular designer, contact them before you go.

Look for: a piece you could not buy anywhere else. Many designers here make to order, so ask.

Side quest: the Cvijeta Zuzorić pavilion (the other direction)

People sometimes mix the two up. The Cvijeta Zuzorić Art Pavilion is a separate building, in Mali Kalemegdan at the edge of the fortress park, 356 m from our door in a straight line, the opposite way from Republic Square. Branislav Kojić designed it in Art Deco style, and it opened on 23 December 1928. Today the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia uses it for exhibitions (Wikipedia). We did not find published visiting hours, so check what is on before you go.

If it’s a Monday, a Sunday or raining

• Monday: the National Museum is closed. The design shops open as usual. Swap the museum for the free National Bank exhibition on our own street, Kralja Petra, open on working days 10:00–16:00.
• Sunday: the museum is free, but most design shops are closed. Do the museum and the monument, and leave the passage for another day.
• Raining: the passage is covered, and the museum is indoors. The longest open-air leg is Knez Mihailova itself.

Return to base

From the passage it is 718 m back in a straight line. Retrace Knez Mihailova, or walk through the Old Town streets parallel to it. Back at Kralja Petra 20a, a Pistachio Cream & Crumbs or a Lotus & Dulce de Leche cookie (550 RSD each) closes the loop.

Practical box

Hours change, especially on public holidays, so check again on the day.

More walks from the same door

Our Kralja Petra walk, house by house stays on our own street, and the Dorćol walk runs downhill to the Danube. If this is your first visit, start with our first day in Belgrade plan.