Little Market at Kidričeva Street*

“A digital weighing scale has no place in the marketplace!” Those were the words of one lady who has spent four decades keeping Mala tržnica (Little Market) vital by selling home-grown produce. In other words, the marketplace is about adjustment and approximation, not exact measurements. She only trusts in her antique looking companion, the Roberval weighing balance, which rounds the weight up and down to half a kilo. Some impatient customers rolled their eyes but rarely complained, openly, when faced with such a nonchalant manner. Others, the trusting ones, often left the marketplace with their goods under weighed, benefiting from the scale’s inaccuracy and a generous merchant.

By the time the majority of merchants had abandoned the market, the lady continued to appear at the exact same stall that her grandparents had rented forty years ago. She surely knows best that a marketplace is constructed on proximities that can’t be measured: hand-to-hand, face-to-face, goods for goods. And should this togetherness diminish, the deconstruction will take over. The lost interest in personal exchanges at Mala tržnica reflects the extinction of Maribor’s industry and the epidemic of sprawling malls/supermarkets that spread all over the city in the 1990s.

As a result, the 1960s propeller of urbanisation of Maribor’s western outskirts, Mala tržnica, gradually became estranged. It is not that the Mala tržnica ever grew old; rather, the cult of community was itself outgrown by the promise of individualism. We can speculate that the impersonal/infinite/indulgent shopping experience under neon lights was just more seductive than the chaotic, rudimentary trade conditions of the marketplace. The Mala tržnica certainly suffered in globalisation’s aftermath, which has nothing with the evolution of commerce activities. The focus of the entire mega-scale shopping enterprise is the creation of detached individuals by appealing only to their needs, which turn out to be profitable for large brands. And as we learned from the lady merchant, the archetypal marketplace does not run on detachment; it runs on inclusion, communication and community.

The territory of what would later become Mala tržnica was occupied by a community long before it was roofed over by Vlado Emeršič, building in 1958. At first, there was an open market, operating from a field under parasols and trees at the foot of the slopes of Kalvarija, Maribor’s vineyard hill. Then the market area was covered by an arched roof, extending the outdoor exchange area. The brand new building, which was impatiently awaited by neighbourhood’s children, also hosted a fish shop, butchery, bakery and a bar. The building of a primary school (1960) accompanied the marketplace shortly after it was built. The colony of socialistic blocks erected at about the same time finally enclosed the marketplace from all sides. While the central area of the marketplace was still open, pigeons took the leading role in interrupting trade. Finally, the area was closed off by simple plastic windows somewhat at odds with the original windows that rotate elegantly around the horizontal axis.

Overseen by the Municipality of Maribor for many years, Mala tržnica is now (Spring of 2018) filled with the pleasant hubbub of touching-smelling-grabbing-persuading and the exchange of goods and narratives. And this is all due to the power of individual initiative; Pavlina Japelj, an activist and a communicologist, rejuvenated the area out of sheer enthusiasm shaped by a belief that common spaces are built upon people. For a few “Spring Saturdays”, it was a place where one is never alone; one is in a constant interaction. It is a nonument to resurrected dense urban activity that went beyond its basic function and has since become a direct contributor to the city’s social and urban fabric.

* Altough this is the official name, it is not correct, since the market actually stands on the corner of Dominkuševa and Kersnikova streets.

Text by Danica Sretenović