PE “Belgrade Fortress” in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Serbia initiated the project “The Magic Touch of the Danube – Virtual Museum” in 2011. The goal of this project is to, on a comprehensive internet presentation, connect representative examples of natural and cultural heritage of the whole Danube region – from the source in Germany to its mouth in the Black Sea, to emphasize its importance as well as to point out the need for preserving the heritage and to open the possibility for future international cooperation between state institutions of the Danubian countries – Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine.

The internet presentation “The Magic Touch of the Danube – Virtual Museum” is seen as a development platform with a possibility of constant input of new data and content, the mapping of new sites and expansion of the database. The website is designed so that each country through which the Danube flows, by accreditation of adequate institutions, takes responsibility and obligation to include content that will present the cultural and natural heritage of its territory.

In the initial phase of the implementation of a part of the website “The Magic Touch of the Danube – Virtual Museum”, referring to the flow of the Danube through Serbia, partners of PE “Belgrade Fortress” have been the National Museum in Belgrade, the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade, the Historical Museum of Serbia, the Natural History Museum in Belgrade, Belgrade City Museum, Military Museum in Belgrade, Institute for Nature Conservation of Vojvodina Province, Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia. In order to best present cultural and natural heritage of the Danube flow through Serbia, museum professionals, in the field of competence of their institutions, have selected the material from archives and museums funds. This material has also been included in this website.

The internet presentation “The Magic Touch of the Danube – Virtual Museum (Danube Virtual Museum)” is available at www.virtuelnimuzejdunava.rs, www.virtuelnimuzejdunava.com, www.muzejdunava.com. Public presentation of the project was held on September 10th, 2012 as part of the “Dunavfest 2012” at the area of the Public shelter at the Belgrade Fortress.

The future steps of this project are to include a greater number of museums and other institutions in Serbia in order to substantially enrich the existing database, and to call on the cooperation and involvement of the official institutions of other Danube countries, so that the internet presentation “The Magic Touch of the Danube – Virtual Museum” would become internationally recognized.

More about Danube Virtual Museum you can see at www.virtuelnimuzejdunava.rs