Valjevo Walker: LJUBICA AND PETRIJA

-by Ljiljana Ljiljak, Valjevo Walker, Kolubara, Oct 1994

Translated by Katarina Vicentijevic

Not a single one of these new lamps, benches, jardinieres (wooden or brick), not even the floor mosaic, the fountain and the clock in Knez Miloseva (Prince Miloš’) Street can reach the inventiveness and authenticity of two small details that are used to name the most valuable and unusual parts of this famous shopping street: plates with the inscriptions “Princess Ljubica’s Square” and “Petria’s Wreath”.

Those two inscriptions are also rare for their artistic solution. One of them is placed vertically, with a longer side up on Despotovic’s house, and the other is across the street on “Janko Veselinovic” bookstore, both bent, which almost gives them the third dimension.

Their author, Dusan Arsenic, remembers, perplexed even today, the entire sequence of events which proved how the traditionally long and complicated procedure for this kind of works can be avoided. He wonders at the same time that those signs stand there even today. Nothing, however, would have become of it if that magician of so many possible and impossible things in the town, Branko Lukic, hadn’t asked himself four years ago, when the reconstruction of the street began: „What can suit Prince Milos better than Princess Ljubica!“ This is how that little square got its name! And to do justice to history and other things, the other Prince’s love, Petrija, also got its place in that genuine story - an alley with a beautiful garden was named “Petria’s Wreath”!

Those are the details that make Knez Miloseva or Prince Miloš’ Street memorable, everything else, though remarkably decorative, has already been seen.

Valjevo Walker: MOSAIC

-by Ljiljana Ljiljak, Valjevo Walker, Kolubara March 1995

Translated by Stefan Radovanović

It’s been eight years since the mosaic, which shows the Execution of Serbian Headmen, was removed from the bevelled corner wall of the Grand Hotel. The large facade slab with the mosaic was taken into the basement of the Jablanica company headquarters. It was said those days: only temporarily. It was mentioned then, in the days and years of great town renovation and rediscovery, that the mosaic should be placed on the First Uprising Quay, at the imaginary exit from „the wooden bridge“, because there it would most naturally testify to that significant event and place.

Then there came different times and different ideas how the town should mark the execution of Serbian Headmen.

The mosaic was placed on the bevelled corner wall of the Grand Hotel during the first major reconstruction in 1960. The town was preparing to salute the unveiling of the Monument to Revolution Fighters on Vidrak hill, so it was considered proper to refurbish the lodging for the guests, high-ranking and respected persons. Someone came up then with a good idea that the town must also pay respect to that first, historically fateful act.

The author of that mosaic, removed and hidden from the public eye for a long time, is Ljubodrag Jankovic Jale, the artist who has made another permanent piece of art for this town – the painting of Valjevo through its six centuries of existence.

Valjevo Walker: The Factory

by Ljiljana Ljiljak, Valjevo Walker, Kolubara, Nov 2006

Translated by Milos Savic

Radojka Rada Jeftic, spends her retirement days in the Kolubara housing estate, facing the new “Gorenje” factory. She followed up its construction completely, from the very start until the last days before the opening, when they digged, levelled, and planted the area from the street to the factory with grass. ‘Finally,’ says she, ‘somebody has remembered to tidy up a large area, which used to be turned into a jungle and dump for all sorts of things on a piece of town land.’ On a town plot with protruding remains of started-but-abandoned contruction site of Valjevo Sports Centre with an indoor pool. ‘If only this would stir the town to at least fill the holes on the other side of the road there would be less mud, maybe even the grass would grow. They do not need too much for that, they just need to “remember”,’ states Rada.

And this event with the new factory, which shines at night flooded by light like a spacecraft, only gives her ground to conclude that something is finally going to be offered to young people. To work! She says that we have forgotten how to build factory halls, that the “rip-off” of her former company called “Stefil” will also be forgotten. First of all, it has been forgotten how those “abandoned and overgrown” factories were built. Yes, she was a worker in that factory, but she helped together with her colleagues to asphalt the area around the factory as well as a road through that area. That used to be done, too. Not that there was justice for everybody in those days. However, we built and worked. Everything after that, including the legalized robbery, need not and must not have happened.

Valjevo Walker: CROCUSES

by Ljiljana Ljiljak, Valjevo Walker, Kolubara Nov 2007

Translated by Kristina Mijatovic

„It’s been my second time in Serbia, and it’s nice that they’ve made it possible for me to see your beautiful landscapes. I really enjoyed myself while visiting the area surrounding the Rovni dam. What surprised me were crocuses in meadows, especially at this time of the year. They were everywhere. This is an unusual sight for us coming from England since we have completely destroyed our meadow flowers, by using chemicals to kill weed in the grass. In your country, they grow in meadows, even in autumn. You are not aware how precious that is!“

This is how Desmond Volling, an Englishman, the world expert for erosions and torrents, talks admiringly about a scene, which he will always remember, when, for a short time, on a rainy September day, he was in the mountainous area from which the waters pour down into the river Jablanica. Are we aware of that treasure, those crocuses, the bluish flowers on our pastures?

Valjevo Walker: WITHOUT A CONCEPT

by Ljiljana Ljiljak, Valjevo Walker, Dec 2007

Translated by Predrag Milicevic

All interventions along Valjevo's most important and main street, Karadjordjeva street, have confirmed for a long time that hastily done work, whenever and whoever thought it might be needed, ruins the naturaly formed whole and degrades each value it offers.

It is good that Archpriest Mateja Nenadovic’s monument and development of piazzetta between Ilkic’s court buildings have permanently expelled parking from the narrow sidewalk. Unfortunately, the replication of what was achieved on the other side, from Valjevo Library up to the Central Restaurant, the so-called ’’Green Stream’’ has failed, despite good intentions. There is too much stone in a small space, so neither the greenery nor passers-by can breathe. It has taken a long time before architecht Branko Ristic and his colleagues have shown that the sidewalk need not be asphalted, that it can even be colored, that there is place for pedestrians and lines of trees, even for benches and small gardens. All of this on the left side of Karadjordjeva Street, opposite the Town Square, which still hasn’t been completely paved.

Nor were there thoughtful intentions when at the expense of the precious park full of tall trees with lush green tops, the only public green surface all along the street, the piece of land was taken away to widen the sidewalk. Now the depressing mass of asphalt stands gaping even when the cars are parked on it, without a clue why it was done and why it should have been done. Now even if there is a reason, the way it is done looks as though it emerged from some times gone by when the asphalt really mattered and made us feel to be a step forward.

The town has long needed a team for seemingly unimportant things, like sidewalks, lawns, curbs, litter bins, benches...To care about the look of the whole which is given its overall verification through its parts.