JarunFrom a village by a Sava backwater to a neighbourhood by the lake

Jarun at a glance

• To the main square by ZET42 min
• To the centre as the crow flies5.1 km
• Residents of MO Jarun (2021)²12,072
• Blocks of flats^5,6from 1979

Where Jarun is

Jarun is a residential neighbourhood in the south-west of Zagreb, north of Lake Jarun. Officially it belongs to the city district of Trešnjevka – jug and to Mjesni odbor Jarun, one of the district's six local committees (mjesni odbori).^5,1,2,3 The committee area is larger than the neighbourhood: it also takes in Staglišće and the whole recreation centre with the lake down to the Sava, while neighbouring Gajevo has a committee of its own.^3,47 Neighbourhoods have no official boundaries, so a listing labelled Jarun may also be in Staglišće or Gajevo.

According to the local-history project Mapiranje Trešnjevke, Jarun proper is bounded by Ulica Hrvatskog sokola to the west, Horvaćanska cesta to the north, the Črnomerec stream to the east and the Sava and the lake to the south, with Gajevo and Staglišće north of Horvaćanska. In everyday speech, though, Jarun means the whole area south of Zagrebačka avenija and west of Srednjaci, as far as Vrbani.⁵ Vrbani begins west of Ulica Hrvatskog sokola, and the recreation centre is surrounded by Staglišće, Jarun, Vrbani and Prečko.^3,27

For and against: life in Jarun

What life is like in Jarun

Jarun mixes blocks of flats with family houses; the planners set out to fit the new buildings in with the existing houses.^7,6 Work on the blocks began in 1979, and the construction firm Vladimir Gortan built parts of the estate.^5,6,11 According to the architect Borka Bobovec, Borislav Doklestić's detailed plan of 1976 kept the old village inside the new estate and left the Vrapčak stream open, although the village was meant to make way for high-rise blocks and the stream for a covered channel.⁶ The Vrapčak still runs from Hrgovići to Jarunska ulica, with the estate's linear park beside it.^7,6

According to Mapiranje Trešnjevke, Ulica Jarun still follows the first village road, and its family houses are mostly lived in by old Jarun families or their descendants. The old main road, Peščanska ulica, disappeared in the 1980s; only a short stretch towards the junction of Štritofova and Horvaćanska survives. The new streets are named after Croatian athletes, sports teachers and founders of sports clubs.⁵

The Croatian technical encyclopedia and Borka Bobovec single out Tomislav Odak's row houses on Prikrilova ulica from the early 1980s, where every flat has its own front door on the street.^10,6 According to Bobovec, the main building of the Jarun nursery at Bartolići 39a, by the lake, was designed by Vinko Penezić and Krešimir Rogina in 2002 and finished in 2006.^6,4 At the start of the 21st century the estate spread south-east towards Petrine, Borovci and Županići, and, according to Mapiranje Trešnjevke, only then did Jarun get mains gas.⁵

Mapiranje Trešnjevke writes that closeness to the recreation centre, good tram and bus links and relatively well-built housing have made Jarun popular in recent decades, and that it is considered an "elite" neighbourhood; in 2024 tportal called it one of Zagreb's more desirable neighbourhoods.^5,7 Bobovec counts it among the last parts of Zagreb that were truly planned and built the way the planners intended.⁶

Jarun, Gajevo and Staglišće share their public services: both primary schools, the nursery, the library, the market, the churches, NK Jarun and the health centre.^5,4 Almost everyone in the Trešnjevka – jug district lives north of the recreation centre and the protected water-supply zone along the Sava.⁴

Old Jarun

According to Mapiranje Trešnjevke, until the mid-20th century the village was really three hamlets: Gornji Jarun south of the Vrapčak, the oldest and largest, Donji Jarun east of the Vrapčak as far as the Črnomerec, and Petrine. Ulica Jarun still follows the first village road.⁵

Staglišće

North of Horvaćanska cesta, within the Jarun local committee. Knjižnica Staglišće library carries its name but officially stands across the Kustošak, in the Gajevo committee area.^3,5,23,47

Gajevo

The neighbouring committee area of 68 hectares, with 7,891 residents at the 2021 census. In everyday speech it is often called Jarun too.^47,5

Petrine

The south-eastern part, where new building spread at the start of the 21st century. Ulica Petrine keeps the old name.⁵

Where the name Jarun comes from

None of the sources we checked explains where the name Jarun comes from. The village appears in documents from at least the 18th century, long before the gravel pits turned into a lake.^1,6,44

The street names are better documented. According to Mapiranje Trešnjevke, Ulica Hrgovići is named after several Hrgović families who lived in that part of Jarun; with the new building it was extended south almost to the regatta course and north to Zagrebačka avenija.⁵

A short history of Jarun

Stone axes found at Jarun show that people lived here in prehistoric times, and documents from the mid-18th century name the villages of Prečko, Horvati and Jarun.¹ According to Borka Bobovec, on 18th-century maps the village had barely two streets, beside a Sava backwater surrounded by maize fields.⁶ When Zagreb became one city in 1850, Jarun stayed outside its limits, in the municipality of Vrapče.^1,18 From 1945 it had its own local people's committee, and it joined the city around 1950.^45,1

In the summer of 1921 ten young apprentices and pupils met in Ivan Bartolić's yard at Jarun 21 and agreed to buy an old ball, which was the start of the football club Jarun.^18,19 The small chapel of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was built in 1932 and was the village's only church building for decades.^15,5 The great Sava flood of 25 and 26 October 1964 hit almost half of Trešnjevka's population, damaging 8,254 households, and destroyed the club's entire archive.^1,18

After the flood a new embankment cut the backwater off from the Sava. Digging gravel for the embankment and other building deepened it into a lake; the pits were dug by the firm Tempo, and the gravel went out on a concrete road that is now Ulica Hrvatskog sokola.^6,44,8 Fedor Wenzler had sketched the idea of a recreation centre here back in 1952, in his diploma work supervised by Josip Seissel.^9,6 According to the journal Građevinar, the regatta course was formally opened in May 1987 with crews from Oxford and Cambridge and about 70,000 spectators.¹² The same year, ahead of the Universiade, the tram reached Jarun along a new section of Horvaćanska cesta.^39,40 The Universiade ran from 8 to 19 July 1987, and the recreation centre opened for it.^6,14,13

The first school came before the blocks of flats and the second while they were going up: the "Jarun – Gajevo" school, now OŠ Ivana Meštrovića, in 1969, and OŠ Jarun, now OŠ Bartola Kašića, in 1985.^5,21,22 According to the club's history, the founding assembly of the HDZ party was held on 17 June 1989 in the rooms of the NK Borac football club in Jarun, after the police banned a meeting at Hotel Panorama at the last moment.^18,20 In 1990 the club, called Borac since 1945, took back the name Jarun.^18,19 The church of Sveta Mati Slobode was consecrated on 12 November 2000, and on 20 November 2000 tram 17 first ran on the new section from Jarun to Prečko.^15,17,40

1. 18th c.Documents from the middle of the century name the villages of Prečko, Horvati and Jarun.¹
2. 1921The football club Jarun is founded in the yard of the house at Jarun 21.^18,19
3. 1932The chapel of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is built.^15,5
4. c. 1950Jarun joins the city of Zagreb.^1,45
5. 1952Fedor Wenzler draws the first idea for a recreation centre in his diploma work.^9,6
6. 1964The great Sava flood; the embankment built after it cuts the backwater off from the river.^1,6
7. 1969Pupils of the "Jarun – Gajevo" school, now OŠ Ivana Meštrovića, move into their new building.²¹
8. 1979Work on the blocks of flats begins.^5,6
9. 1985OŠ Jarun, now OŠ Bartola Kašića, opens.^22,5
10. 1987The tram reaches Jarun, and the recreation centre opens for the Universiade.^39,40,13
11. 1988Jarun is declared a bathing place, and Knjižnica Staglišće library opens.^27,24
12. 1989The HDZ party is founded in the rooms of NK Borac.^18,20
13. 2000The church of Sveta Mati Slobode is consecrated, and tram 17 is extended to Prečko.^15,40
14. 2024Cars without a permit are banned from the recreation centre.^35,34

What to see in Jarun

• Jarun recreation and sports centre

  About 240 hectares, roughly 30% of it water: a 2,250 m regatta course, two lakes (Veliko and Malo jezero) and six islands, four of them linked to the shore by bridges.^27,28 It was designed by Fedor Wenzler and the landscape architect Mira Halambek-Wenzler.^8,9

• Aleja hrvatskih sportaša

  A lakeside walk lined with plaques to Croatian athletes, which is why the tourist board calls Jarun an open-air sports museum.²⁸

• Solar Plexus of Europe

  A stone land-art work on Otok hrvatske mladeži by the Slovenian artist Marko Pogačnik and co-artists: seven large blocks form a "spine of Europe" and 24 granite blocks two circles, each carved with a cosmogram. It is the surviving part of his 2004 Zagreb lithopuncture cycle, most of which was removed four years later.^6,29,30

• Sveta Mati Slobode church

  At the junction of Horvaćanska and Hrgovići, a votive church for those killed in the Homeland War, run by the Salesians. Cardinal Kuharić chose its name, from an invocation in the 16th-century Trsat litanies.^15,17,6 The cenotaph behind the altar carries the carved names of 15,840 fallen defenders.^16,17

• Chapel of the Holy Cross

  The old village's chapel, built in 1932 and still kept today.^15,5

• Multi-sensory park

  According to the Mali dom association, this lakeside park was built in 2005 on about 8,000 m² for blind, deafblind and mobility-impaired visitors, with interactive sculptures and a barbecue adapted for wheelchairs. It was restored between 2024 and 2026.³¹

• NK Jarun ground

  At Ogulinska 23. According to the club's history, the ground was built in 1950 with 3,628 hours of volunteer work, 1,092 of them with horse-drawn carts.¹⁸

Did you know?

• 1According to the club's history, NK Jarun played from 1921 to 1939 as an unregistered club outside the league, because the authorities in Vrapče refused to confirm its rules.¹⁸
• 2The club's first pitch, laid out in 1925, was at the end of the village by the Sava, where the recreation centre's rowing buildings stand today.¹⁸
• 3More than 130 bird species and 29 fish species live at Jarun.^27,28
• 4The lakes are fed by groundwater filtering through the gravel, and their mean depth is about 4 m.²⁷
• 5In 2011 MO Jarun was the least densely populated committee area in the district, with 3,053 people per km², because the lake lies inside it; neighbouring Gajevo had 12,388.⁴

Everyday life in Jarun

Renting in Jarun

Nearby neighbourhoods

• StaglišćeNeighbourhood guide
• VrbaniNeighbourhood guide
• GrediceNeighbourhood guide
• SrednjaciNeighbourhood guide
• LjubljanicaNeighbourhood guide
• RudešNeighbourhood guide

• Compare districts: Trešnjevka – South and New Zagreb – West
• Compare districts: Trešnjevka – South and Stenjevec
• Compare districts: Trešnjevka – South and Trešnjevka – North
• All Zagreb neighbourhood guides

Questions about life in Jarun