Former gardens along the Koren stream

"It was Yugoslavia in miniature."

Nova Gorica began to develop on former marshland along the Koren stream (locally called Korn). The marsh was first drained by deepening the stream—“before, it was just a small creek,” recalled the first residents. “Then they started building the first apartment blocks” (TZ, November 2022).

Due to the slow pace of construction and development, in the 1950s and 1960s Nova Gorica was little more than a large village, and there were few differences between urban and rural life—apart from living in apartments. The first inhabitants came from the surrounding countryside and were used to working the land, so they deeply missed contact with the soil and growing their own food. Over time, the authorities arranged garden plots along the Koren stream, where residents cultivated radicchio, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and other crops. Some transported their produce home in small carts (borele) or by moped. In the early years, people also bathed in the stream, as the water was still clean.

The gardens became an important social space for many residents of Nova Gorica, including those who had moved there from more distant regions. One interviewee, who moved to Nova Gorica in 1972 and had a garden by the stream, recalled:

“I had a garden there by the Korn, but now they’ve destroyed them and we had to leave. It was Yugoslavia in miniature. We exchanged recipes there. There was an enthusiastic young man who loved cooking and gardening. Twice we all gathered—everyone had to bring something from their garden, something they had prepared. And we had a picnic. It was beautiful. Macedonians, Bosnians, Serbs, even an Italian. Three people came from old Gorizia and brought tomato seeds. We exchanged them and gave them ours. Someone still keeps that connection alive. Back then, self-sufficiency was becoming popular. I don’t know if people would respond today if something like that were organised again. And it wasn’t that long ago—maybe eight or nine years. It happened every summer. It wasn’t self-sufficiency in the strict sense—most of us were retirees, though there were also young people. For us, it was a way of life, a way of socialising… There are playgrounds for children, sports fields for athletes—for us, these shared gardens were our playground. Then the land was given to the housing fund and we had to clear everything. There was water and animals along the Korn… Urbanisation destroys and undermines grassroots initiatives… We don’t realise what a seed really means…”
(Interview with a participant born in 1952, recorded October 2022)

The first gardens began to disappear as early as 1974, when the present-day student dormitory was built along the Koren. The remaining plots were removed during the later revitalisation of the stream and its surroundings, which began around 2015. Today, the area where most of the gardens once stood is occupied by a football training field.

Avtor: Jasna Fakin Bajec

Vir:

• Ethnographic workshop with members of the Goričanke Association, October 2022
• Ethnographic workshop with elderly residents of the Nova Gorica Retirement Home, November 2022

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