JakuševecA former village with a wooden church, the Hrelić fair and storks

Jakuševec at a glance

• To the main square by ZET48 min
• To the centre as the crow flies6.6 km
• Residents (2021)¹4,324
• Growth since 2011^45,1+89%

Where Jakuševec is

Officially Jakuševec belongs to the city district of Novi Zagreb – istok (New Zagreb – East) and is covered by the Jakuševec local committee (mjesni odbor), one of the district's eleven, based at Gata 1.^1,2 The committee area covers 455.21 hectares.¹ Neighbourhoods have no official boundaries, so this guide describes Jakuševec through that committee.

Until 1991 Jakuševec was a settlement in its own right. That year it was merged into the settlement of Zagreb, and its uninhabited parts went to Veliko Polje.^44,26 In the register of cultural goods the cadastral municipality is called Jakuševac, as was the old village school.^15,16,4 The Hrelić fair takes its name from the neighbouring village but stands in Jakuševec, at Sajmišna cesta 8.^38,9

For and against: life in Jakuševec

What life is like in Jakuševec

Jakuševec has an old village part and newer blocks of flats. According to the news site H-Alter, developers built the blocks on former farmland, creating three new streets: Kamenarka, Svetog Roka and Ede Peročevića. People started moving in around the turn of 2008.¹⁰ In 2023 Jutarnji list described evenly spaced buildings along both sides of Kamenarka, home to young families who had moved in about fifteen years earlier.¹¹

The local committee area grew fast. At the 2011 census it had 2,293 residents and in 2021 it had 4,324, on the same area of about 4.55 km².^45,1

The older layer is the wooden church of St Mark (1832), a cemetery from the first half of the 19th century and the village school building of 1909 at Jakuševečka 82.^3,13,15,16 The Jakuševec football ground, home of NK Sava, is at Tišinska ulica 20.³²

The city landfill lies beside Jakuševec. Čistoća, which runs it, calls it Prudinec in Jakuševec, a landfill for non-hazardous waste.²⁰ Waste has been dumped here since 1965, at first without control, into Sava backwaters and gravel pits; its conversion into a regulated sanitary landfill was finished at the end of 2003.^19,8 According to a 2018 decision of the European Court of Human Rights, the works reduced about 80 hectares of illegally used land to a regulated landfill of 54 hectares.⁴⁸ According to Zagrebački holding, in October 2026 the landfill had 180 gas wells, with 72 more under construction to improve drainage and degassing.²¹

Since 2014 the City has paid a cash allowance to people living near the landfill for their reduced quality of life, to continue until the landfill closes. In December 2019 it signed 2,069 such contracts with residents of Jakuševec, Mičevec and Hrelić.^48,49

Where the name Jakuševec comes from

The linguist Pavao Krmpotić explains the name as formed with the suffix -evec from the Hungarian personal name Jakus, that is Jakov (James); in 1510 it was written Iakwsowcz.⁵ The art historian Danko Dujmović also links it to the name Jakov, and according to him the name first appears in 1456 as locus Iakwseuec and in 1482 as pagus Jakwsewcz.^7,6

Historically Jakuševec was part of Turopolje. Krmpotić notes that Turopolje once took in the southern parts of today's Zagreb, among them Zapruđe, Jakuševec and Buzin.⁵

A short history of Jakuševec

A parish of St Mark the Evangelist "in campo" appears in the 1334 list of parishes of the Zagreb diocese, and the City treats it as the forerunner of the Jakuševec parish.^2,3 Because the Sava kept changing course, the parish moved its seat and changed its name several times over the centuries.^2,3 In 1501 it was recorded as St Mark "in the thorns" (u trnju), and it still bore that name in the 1741 visitation.²

After a great flood in 1796, the wooden church and the parish house were moved in 1811 to the site of the old chapel of St Roch, where the church still stands.^3,17 Today's church dates from 1832 and is the third church on the third site.^3,13,2 At the urging of the parish priest Josip Vitković, an embankment was built on the Sava in 1863 and 1864 to protect the church from floods.^2,17

In 1907 the county board decided to found a school in Jakuševec. The builder Majer paid for the building, and classes began in September 1909 with 80 pupils.⁴ The school moved ceremonially into a new building on 1 July 1961, and from 1964 it was gradually reduced to a branch of other schools: OŠ Trnsko, then OŠ Zapruđe and, from 1980/81, OŠ Dugave.⁴

Most mladosti (1973) and the tram line to Sopot (1979) drove the growth of the wider district, but the tram did not reach Jakuševec then.² The decision to open the dump was taken in 1964, when an embankment protected the Sava's right bank.¹⁹ A car fair has been held on today's site since 1970, and in 1979 the second-hand and livestock fair moved here from the village of Hrelić; it dropped the livestock but kept the name Hrelić.⁹

In August 2012 residents blocked the access roads to the landfill for about two days; the blockade ended on 24 August after talks with the mayor.⁴⁷ The 2020 earthquakes damaged the church roof and the parish house, and the church was restored in 2022.³ In November and December 2023 there were two slope failures at the landfill. Two workers were injured in the December one, and the inspectorate barred use of the northern part and part of plot 6-3.^25,24 In October 2024 the Croatian parliament's Environment and Nature Protection Committee noted that closing the landfill was the main goal, but that there was no alternative until a waste-management centre was built.²⁴

The location permit for that centre, at Resnik, was issued on 15 September 2026. The City presents it as the precondition for closing Jakuševec; the centre is planned to take about 350,000 tonnes of waste a year and to take 24 months to build.^22,23 According to 24sata (24 October 2026), the mayor announced trial operation of the centre in autumn 2028 and a possible closure of Jakuševec in early 2029, while a new four-year landfill contract provides for waste deliveries until the end of 2030.²³ In May 2021 the City's magazine, going by the waste volumes of the time, had expected closure in 2025.¹⁹

1. 1334A parish of St Mark "in campo" appears in the list of parishes of the Zagreb diocese.^2,3
2. 1456According to Dujmović, the first mention of the name, as locus Iakwseuec.⁷
3. 1811After the flood of 1796, the church moves to the site of the St Roch chapel.^3,17
4. 1832Today's wooden church of St Mark dates from this year.^3,13
5. 1909Classes begin in the new village school in September, with 80 pupils.⁴
6. 1948NK Sava plays its first competitive match.^31,32
7. 1965Dumping of waste into Sava backwaters and gravel pits begins.^19,8
8. 1979The second-hand fair moves from Hrelić to Jakuševec and keeps the name Hrelić.⁹
9. 1991Jakuševec stops being a separate settlement and becomes part of the settlement of Zagreb.^44,26
10. 2003The landfill's conversion into a sanitary landfill is finished at the end of the year.^8,19
11. 2007–2008People start moving into the new blocks on Kamenarka, Svetog Roka and Ede Peročevića streets.¹⁰
12. 2014A City decision of 5 June introduces a cash allowance for residents near the landfill.⁴⁸
13. 2025The new OŠ Frana Galovića building opens.^35,36
14. 2026The location permit for the Resnik waste-management centre is issued, and the rebuilt Sarajevska cesta opens to traffic.^22,30

What to see in Jakuševec

• Church of St Mark the Evangelist

  A wooden parish church of 1832, on the register of cultural goods as Z-709.^3,14 The Zagreb County tourist board describes it as a typical Turopolje wooden church: the foundations and floor are brick, and the tower and walls are clad in vertical boards.⁴⁶ Inside are three 17th-century altars. The main one, the altar of St Mark from 1691, was originally made for Zagreb Cathedral and is attributed to Ivan Komersteiner and his workshop. The Holy Trinity altar, taken apart and stored away in 1991, was fully restored in 2023 and put back on the north wall.¹²

• Rokišće

  According to the Catholic news agency IKA, the church site is called Rokišće after the old chapel of St Roch, whose stone foundations lie by the apse.^17,3 The parish's biggest feast day, St Roch's, is held in August.¹⁷

• Jakuševec cemetery

  The cemetery around the church dates from the first half of the 19th century, covers 0.60 hectares and holds about 1,000 graves. Its operator, Gradska groblja, singles out its simple grassed entrance.¹³

• The old village school

  The former village school building of 1909 is a protected cultural good, Z-4003. An earlier preventive-protection listing gives its address as Jakuševečka 82.^15,16,4

• Hrelić fair

  The goods and antiques fair at Sajmišna cesta 8. According to the Zagreb Tourist Board, it opens on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 7:00 to 15:00, and the car fair at the same address on Saturdays and Sundays.³⁸ Večernji list lists old clothes and shoes, jewellery, household appliances and car parts, and notes that a Guardian journalist named it among ten things to see in Zagreb.⁹

Did you know?

• 1The art historian Danko Dujmović places the lost Sava island with the Cistercian abbey of St James in today's Jakuševec.^6,7
• 2In 2025 HRT called Jakuševec the Zagreb neighbourhood with the most white storks. A City nature expert counted about 30 nests in Jakuševec and about 15 more at the Čistoća site, and linked the storks to food at the landfill.¹⁸
• 3In spring 2019 a pair of storks built a nest on the high-temperature flare of the landfill gas plant. Staff moved the whole nest, with two eggs, onto a concrete pole; the pair accepted it and two chicks hatched. A "street of storks" with four nest poles followed.¹⁹
• 4In a paper published in 2024, botanists recorded 239 vascular plant taxa and eight mosses in Jakuševec, including the strictly protected orchids Anacamptis pyramidalis and Cephalanthera damasonium, as well as 17 invasive species.²⁷

Everyday life in Jakuševec

Renting in Jakuševec

Nearby neighbourhoods

• DugaveNeighbourhood guide
• TravnoNeighbourhood guide
• UtrineNeighbourhood guide
• SloboštinaNeighbourhood guide
• Veliko PoljeNeighbourhood guide
• ZapruđeNeighbourhood guide

• Compare districts: New Zagreb – East and New Zagreb – West
• Compare districts: New Zagreb – East and Peščenica – Žitnjak
• Compare districts: New Zagreb – East and Trnje
• All Zagreb neighbourhood guides

Questions about life in Jakuševec