WELTSTADT

Nebojsa Vasic © Goethe-Institut

When the Goethe-Guerilla first met with residents in Savamala, Miroslav Marinkovic very quickly became their “local hero” – born and raised in Savamala, he knew all the history and the stories of the place.
Milena Beric talked to him in front of his former family shop – at the corner of Kraljevica Marka, where today, in No. 8, three of the Urban Incubator projects renovated a space for their artistic activities re-vitalizing the once beautiful, or at least colourful, Savamala. And the local hero gives a sweeping account of how life was with sailors and horses and Turkish ice skates and the smell of freshly baked bread not that long ago in Savamala . . .

English translation of Marinkovic Miroslav´s narration

I am Marinkovic Miroslav - I live here in Kraljevica Marka st where I was born and where my father had a shop, actually that was a famous shop named “Public kitchen at Cheapness”. All coastal workers who built (ships?) from 1936 onwards ate here and employees who were already working here in Savamala were fed here and they were always very much satisfied.

Over there was our tavern entrance. Inside there were four tables, five maybe, if necessary we added some more. However, it is only 15 square meters, and over there, above, there was the kitchen on the second floor. These are the two rooms of 15 square meters, and then meals were prepared there and then served down here. Sour milk was the most popular here. At that time it was in fat layers so you could cut it with a knife and people were coming to eat this sour milk here every evening and morning, too.

In Belgrade, this here was a hit at the time, a pastry shop named “Pelikan”. We're talking about the fifties. Kraljevica Marka st. was cobblestoned so shippers and horse wagons were the only transport available - no other means of transportation existed. There is a lumberyard nearby, and saddled horses with wood and coal were heavily loaded so they couldn’t get up the street. Then the traders were taking whips, so we shouted not to hit the horses hard, and me and my friends we were pushing the carts and helping them also by pushing them into a street curve up there. When snow fell - at that time there was snow up to my knees - I was cleaning and helping them to negotiate the road. They were climbing up and turning into Jug Bogdanova st. in order to get to the “Zeleni venac” green market.

Olympic circles I have always liked and I always had the desire to draw these circles because I was an eager sportsman myself. I drew them manually - I took a nail, a piece of wood, and a rope. I had no real divider. That's the beauty of it. Everyone wondered how I managed to do it. Belgrade was nominated for the Olympic Games that year 1982, and I have inscribed that just below the drawing for eternity.

Back in the 50s, I was the only one in the neighbourhood who had Turkish ice skates as they were called then. Their edge was twisted like this. So when we had big snowfall and when the horse wagons were passing by, twenty to thirty of us would cling to or hang on to them all the way to the Saborna church from where we were skating all the way down to the train station, a tour well 15 minutes long: Of course, Brankova st. hasn’t been that busy like today.

We hung out together in the neighbourhood all the time. On the river bank, we used to organize a so-called Kermes also at the park where today there is the Mikser house, and there we used to socialize often.
I was born in Kraljevica Marka st. and there I live until today. Over there across the street, there is the first and one of the oldest Belgrade pharmacies. Above it there is a famous balcony made of wrought iron in a Parisian style and there is another one still existing down in Branka Krsmanovica st.

Across the street from the balcony there is the oldest building in Belgrade, the famous Manako’s house. Today there is an Ethno museum inside. Manako was a trader who owned a famous bakery here, also a tavern right down the street. In that time he had the best 2-2,5kg bread in Belgrade. When he used to remove these from the oven the entire neighborhood smelled wonderful. Something like that doesn´t exist anymore today.