23-VIII-1963.
My eighth birthday. When I thought I got a record player but no, that was two years later. So I actually don't know how it was this time.
The works on the house were about finished by now. Granma had her own room now, the former stable, and I had one too. The floorboards weren't painted, because the wood still needed to dry. My couch was under the window, and I had a merry moment when they found out that the pressed clay in the wall there was rather dank, so they decided to replace that part with brick, first removing the clay. I woke up facing the majstor outside, through the nothing below the window frame...
The portura (which I heard later was elsewhere called bordura, but this is how it's called here) was of the same fine smoothed out gravel, just like Jamačeks had. Theirs was polished too, and the maam would coat it with something twice a year to make it almost marmalade like in appearance. Our majstor said he could do it too but it would take two weeks. Instead, they smoothed it out moderately, then divided the surface into squares, with borders of about 5cm on top and the sides, with rounded corners, and then chipped the insides of them to make it rough. Turned out not bad at all, and required absolutely no maintenance ever.
I picked this photo from the net, it was probably published as a postcard. It was not shot in color, those were still very rare, the first really color postcards will be printed some three-four years later. For now, this was hand dyed for print, and to differ from most, someone did this one with lots of patience and care to bring the real colors in.
The main square stayed like this next year too, there's a few shots with me and one of the uncles from Vršac, with the vodotoranj under construction behind us and this growth around us. I enlarged this photo, looking for details... and lo, in front of the right wing there were chairs and tables, people sat there! And the paths leading to Žarko's monument go diagonally, as the people walk - nobody ever took a path parallel to the square's edges. Even the railroad, while it went through downtown, went diagonally. And someone drove a folksvagen turtle (it'll take another tensome years until that silly Disney's movie comes and renames it here into a beetle). The city hall's roof still has the pattern done in tiles, that didn't change (and won't, it's still like that), but the dark green is spotty and it shouldn't be. The tower doesn't sport the word ТИТО, oops, TITO (cyrillic was equal but only legally, politically it was somewhat not recommended), not yet, they'll add it about five years later, when the news came that he'd be visiting. The windows are still adorned with classic wooden slat shades, since who knows when - beginning of the century or maybe just before the war. They've been taken down long ago.
Žarko will be moved in front of komitet when that building and vodotoranj get finished. That's when a major reconstruction of the square will be done. The yellow brick, which made the pavement on the street to the left of the city hall (and thus a safety hazard, because it gets slippery when wet and that street has a bit of a slope) until about the Kapetanija (captaincy, i.e. port authority), would be removed from there and used to pave most of the square, which became a big parking lot, and they'll put a big octangular fountain. The fountain was done in tiny azure tiles, looked really well, when it worked, which would occur sometimes, for a major holiday. Then it would be turned off, and what water was in it would contract its own flora, algae and whatnot, and would get the tang of a swamp. Then they'd remember to clean it up, scrub the tiles and leave it to wait the next holiday, or one of holidays after that.
That stayed so until, I'd say, nineties, when they remembered to return the monument to king Peter. I remember someone told me, during The Walk, how only five people knew where was the head of the old monument preserved. They included that original head into the new monument, which stands like that even today, and removed the fountain because it would be too close to the monument and wouldn't fit. The rest of the square remained as before.
The next reconstruction was in 2015. The square was completely shaved, the roads were removed except in the corner by the museum (left of city hall, where it connects to the Little bridge), and a pedestrian crossing there is in the curve, and its stripes follow the arc, so it got nicknamed 'wifi crossing'. The trees were removed and new ones planted (okay, we lived to see it grow, I'm writing this in january of 2026). Some green surface stayed in front of the theatre, more or less where it was before, but still barely a quarter of what it was on the first picture. Two fountains were made, along the line between the hotel and the library, all that is not actually so bad, but the square is dead because the traffic is gone. Only those who must pass there.
At the time of the first shot, until end of eighties, you'd ride a bus, disembark on the main street in front of some single digit house number, and within a 200m radius you'd find where to buy what you came for, you'd meet someone, hear the news, browse shop windows. Now the nearest bus stops are 300-500m away, the parking is either behind gimnazija or on Žitni, everything's far.
(I snitched the shot from the volimzrenjanin.com portal, it shows how it looked in 2015)
Mentions: David Jamaček (Kale), gimnazija, komitet, majstor, vodotoranj, Žitni, in serbian
5-VII-2014 - 15-I-2026