A group of 4-storey buildings of novogradnja, in my wider neighborhood. Built in the early sixties, housed mostly the military and police families. I was a regular there between 1969 and 1971, it being only a ten minute walk from home.
The comrade whose name it carries got killed by the Germans in july of 1941. She's pretty much ungooglable, as 99,9% of mentions of her name nowadays mean the address, not the person. It's a coincidence that she was shot together with The Gram (the actual guy, who was her boyfriend) and three others, but in 2019 when they renewed the monument and mentioned only her in all the articles and on the new notice board (which is nothing about the event, but about the sculptor). Such was, allegedly, the initiative of the folks who live there... which I seriously doubt. Someone just had enough time and influence to raise funds (and it mentions companies and city institutions which provided them).
As for military families - Zvojko's father was an officer, and fathers of Baja, Mire, Savka and Milica were cops, far as I know.
Next to it there was a bunch of railroad apartments, actually small houses, later often remodeled and added to. The two twin brothers lived there, also Gradivoj, Vasa and Vlasta. The place was called lower colony. Actually, Ruža itself was called the colony, no idea why. But if you said, well into seventies, it was quite normal to ask "was there anyone on colony yesterday?", and everyone would know exactly where you meant.
Lots of known folks lived there - in the buildings up front, facing 25. maj, Miljka, Milica, Milica, Rencika, Dragana, Eči; on the left Zvojko; in the middle Đica; to the right Baja and Mire; all the way back, in the corner to the river, Dženk, Brata, Oli Boj and Aranka with Ilona. This lower row of buildings had entrances just too wide for a regular door and too narrow for two-pane, so they made one and a half, with the narrower part being part of the frame, not movable, but still in glass, because those entrances and stairs were quite dark. The glass, of course, didn't last long, so everyone got into habit of going through that rather than fight the spring which closes the door. Once the tenants put together some money to replace the glass, and it lasted about two days until, next evening, there was a crash, shards tingling on the floor. They found a guy with flowers in one bleeding hand, umbrella in the other. Because it was almost dark, light was on inside but almost none outside, no reflection to hint of the presence of the glass. And the guy was en route to his mistress.
The streets were washed regularly, in the early afternoon mostly, except when frost. A truck with nozzles, in front and on the sides of the front bumper, would drive slowly, and the operator would only close the right one when passing parked cars. They had their spots around town, where they'd fill their tanks.
To wash the streets in novogradnja, which were narrower with lots of parked cars, they dragged hoses. The driver would drive ahead, until the washers would whistle a sign to stop, then they'd drag the hoses and washed behind and around the truck, until they came abreast truck's front wheels, then they'd whistle the go sign. Of course, sometimes some wise guys on Ruža would hide somewhere along the way and whistle their own sign, just to confuse the rhythm.
This washing stopped only in the eighties.
28-III-2016 - 13-VII-2026