Zovite me Bond, Duško Bond / Call me Bond, Duško Bond

We have all passed this building a thousand times, and just a few people know who made it and who lived there.

A rich Belgrade merchant, aware of the importance of the location, built a house in Pozorišna street, now known as Francuska street, because it looked at the main square in the city, the center of all the events, both then and today. Merchant Milorad was looking for a modern building, full of light, with long terraces. Of course, for a rich man like Milorad, only the best was an option. And the best architect in Belgrade at that time was Dragiša Brašovan. The building was completed in less than a year, and the wealthy merchant moved into the “Popov building” with his wife and three sons in 1933.

Those three sons, successful doctors of law and medicine, were known to the Belgrade public as playboys, but history will remember them as spies. The most famous among them was the middle son, Dušan Popov, a double spy and the inspiration for the famous agent in the books and movies.

Dušan, like every rich father’s son, studied abroad. He studied law in Freiburg, where he befriended Johann Jebsen, who later recruited him to work for Abwehr, the German intelligence service, codenamed ‘Ivan’. He later recommended himself to the consul of the British embassy in Serbia to become a double spy for MI-6, not knowing that his older brother was already working for them. Of course, Duško did not fail to report some information to his friends in the Serbian government along the way.

Dušan Popov lived a turbulent life. On the route Lisbon (the center of European espionage of that time) - London (where he delivered information to the British and took over false information that he leaked to the Germans), Dušan often indulged in the charms of playboy life. Being a rich bon vivant, the doors were open to him everywhere, he was passionate about gambling, drinking and lovemaking. As a matter of fact, his inclinations in bed, sex with two girls at the same time were the source for Dušan’s code name at MI6 - ‘Tricycle’. After the war, Duško talked about his adventures with a friend from MI-6, Jan Fleming, who used his adventures to create the character of the famous agent 007, James Bond.