SloboštinaAn estate shaped like the letter S, with a pedestrian street and a Chuck Norris statue

Sloboština at a glance

• To the main square by ZET36 min
• To the centre as the crow flies5.4 km
• Residents (2021)²⁰5,100
• Estate built¹1979–1984

Where Sloboština is

Sloboština is a housing estate in the south-east of Novi Zagreb, in the city district (gradska četvrt) of Novi Zagreb – istok.^1,20 Officially it is one local committee (mjesni odbor), Sloboština, which covers part of the settlement of Zagreb.²¹ Under the committee's 2017 rules the boundary runs from the junction of Avenija Većeslava Holjevca and Islandska ulica along Islandska to Ulica Savezne Republike Njemačke, along that street to Avenija Većeslava Holjevca, along the avenue to Oreškovićeva ulica and the boundary with the Novi Zagreb – zapad district, and along that boundary back to the start.^21,22 Neighbourhoods have no official boundaries, so this guide describes Sloboština through that committee.

On the committee's official map its neighbours are Sopot and Utrine to the north, Travno and Dugave to the east, Hrelić to the south, and Siget and Sveta Klara to the west.²² Wikipedia gives Buzin as the southern neighbour.³

For and against: life in Sloboština

What life is like in Sloboština

Sloboština is one of the estates Zagreb built in the 1970s and 1980s under socially directed housing construction, alongside Dugave, Gajnice, Špansko, Jarun and others.¹⁹ The plan provided for about 2,000 flats for 6,000 people in 11 new blocks, while the other residents lived in family houses.^1,3 At the 2021 census the committee area had 5,100 residents, about 590 fewer than in 2011.^20,23

According to the art historian Irena Šimić, who grew up here, the blocks are turned 45° off the north–south line and together trace the letter S. Their broken plans form semi-enclosed green courtyards. They are lower next to the family-house zone and rise to ten storeys towards the north. Šimić also says this was the first planned estate south of the Sava with a pedestrian street.¹

According to Šimić, much of the plan was never built, from a 2,500 m² community hall to a university complex in the west. In the south is an older zone of family houses on streets that grew without a plan, and there, she says, houses have lately been giving way to multi-storey blocks built outside the plan. Residents, she adds, relied for decades on Travno and Siget for services and on the city centre for anything bigger.¹

The streets are named after mathematicians and natural scientists, such as Vladimir Varićak and Karel Zahradnik; the two newest, in the west, are named after Vilim Feller and Milutin Milanković.^1,22 In 2020 Šimić noted that no street was yet named after a woman.¹ Sloboština and Dugave were planned as one unit, but according to Šimić a rivalry grew up between them, and in the late 1980s you could hear the slogans "Dugave su šugave" ("Dugave is mangy") and "Sloba je zloba" ("Sloba is malice").¹

Where the name Sloboština comes from

Like the other planned estates of Novi Zagreb, Sloboština took its name from a place name on old cadastral maps of the land south of the Sava.^1,2 Irena Šimić reports two readings from the architect Ivan Čižmek, who led the estate's design: one takes the name to mean the right or privilege of freedom (sloboda), the other land exempt from Church ownership.¹

The parish history puts the word "free" in quotation marks when it describes the meadow where Otok villagers grazed their cattle and where part of the estate rose.¹⁰ Residents call the neighbourhood Sloba, and so does the footballer Ćorluka in posts quoted by Index.hr in 2018 ("Sloba i ja", "Sloba and me").^36,1

A short history of Sloboština

According to the parish history, the estate rose on a leftover strip between Dugave, Sopot and the marshalling-yard railway, partly on the site of demolished family houses of the village of Otok.¹⁰ A 2015 City programme calls Sloboština the youngest of the eastern Novi Zagreb estates.²

The implementation plan was drawn up in 1975, and the Novi Zagreb municipal assembly adopted it in December 1976. There was no competition: for the sake of rationalisation, the same design and building teams as in Dugave were used.¹ More than a hundred experts took part. The architect and planner Ivan Čižmek led the work, and Dragutin Kiš and Hrvoje Devidé did the landscape and urban design.^1,4,5,6 The estate was built in stages from 1979 to 1984.¹

The parish of the Ascension of the Lord was founded on 8 May 1980.^9,10 According to the parish history, from 1984 to 1990 all parish life took place in a three-and-a-half-room flat, where people at Sunday Mass stood in the kitchen and the bathroom too; Cardinal Franjo Kuharić compared it to the catacombs.¹⁰ According to the school, Sunday Mass was said in its hall until 1997.¹² The church was built from 1997 to 2001.⁹

The school and the library opened on the same day, 6 September 1984, and by 1987 the school had 1,128 pupils in three shifts.^12,15 According to Vizkultura, in 1985 the Centar za kulturu Novi Zagreb put on the exhibition Dućani kulture (Culture Shops) in the estate's empty shop units, and the Slovenian group Irwin had its first Zagreb show in a basement here.¹ In 1991 the school took its current name, OŠ Otok.¹² During the war of the early 1990s the parish Caritas looked after many displaced people.¹⁰

1. 1975The estate's implementation plan is drawn up.¹
2. 1979–1984The estate is built in stages.¹
3. 1980The parish of the Ascension of the Lord is founded.^9,10
4. 1984The first Mass is said in the parish flat, and on 6 September the school and the library open.^10,12,15
5. 1985The Dućani kulture exhibition fills empty shop units.¹
6. 1991The school is named OŠ Otok.¹²
7. 1996The church's foundation stone is blessed.¹¹
8. 1997–2001The church of the Ascension of the Lord is built.⁹
9. 2007The library moves to Ulica Karela Zahradnika 8.¹⁵
10. 2016Kaufland Sloboština opens.³²
11. 2018The Chuck Norris statue is unveiled, and the church is consecrated.^33,9
12. 2024The school's sports halls are renovated, and a competition for a new nursery is launched.^14,29
13. 2026The City gets a building permit for the OŠ Otok extension.¹³

What to see in Sloboština

• Tomislav Odak's block

  At the entrance to the estate, on Ulica Vladimira Varićaka. Šimić considers it Sloboština's architectural highlight: the access galleries show on the façade, the flats are on two levels, and the ground-floor ones have gardens.¹ Hrvatska enciklopedija dates it to 1983, Oris to 1984. Oris 58 (2009) sets the architect's admiration against the memories of someone who lived there: noise from the nearby fast road and long, dark galleries.^7,8

• Church of the Ascension of the Lord

  At Ulica Mije Šiloboda Bolšića 15, to a design by Jagoda Bodić, where the central pedestrian zones cross.^9,11 The foundation stone was blessed on 16 May 1996, and Cardinal Josip Bozanić consecrated the church on 4 November 2018.^11,9

• Rehabilitation centre, Sloboština branch

  At Ulica Nikole Andrića 3. Radovan Tajder's building was completed in 1984 and won the republic's Borba architecture award in 1985.^17,18,22

• Dragutin Kiš's grassy hill

  At the estate's main entrance from the north-east, part of Dragutin Kiš's landscape scheme. According to Šimić, it is used for sledging in winter and for play the rest of the year.¹

• The main square

  The plan called it Trg Slobode (Freedom Square), but the name never caught on with residents. A sculpture by Ivan Kožarić, proposed for the middle of the square in the early 1980s, was never placed there.¹

• Chuck Norris statue

  Outside the Norris café. It was unveiled at midnight on 10 March 2018, Norris's 78th birthday.^33,34,35 The statue keeps natural proportions but is smaller than life-size, and the sculptor stayed anonymous.^33,34

Did you know?

• 1According to the parish, the church's foundation stone was taken from the tower of Zagreb Cathedral.¹¹
• 2When Mass moved into the school hall, the parish history says, a crucifix was hung on a nail above a bust of Tito, and a school desk on slightly longer legs served as the altar.¹⁰
• 3After the 2018 World Cup a joke plaque appeared on the main square "naming" it after the footballer Ćorluka, although squares aren't named after living people.^36,37
• 4Maša Kolanović's novel Sloboština Barbie (V.B.Z., 2008) follows children on the estate during the war of the 1990s; in English it came out as Underground Barbie.^39,40
• 5Sloboština is the seat of the post office 10010 Zagreb-Sloboština, whose postcode covers eastern Novi Zagreb.^3,9

Everyday life in Sloboština

Renting in Sloboština

Nearby neighbourhoods

• DugaveNeighbourhood guide
• SopotNeighbourhood guide
• TravnoNeighbourhood guide
• UtrineNeighbourhood guide
• New ZagrebNeighbourhood guide
• SigetNeighbourhood 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 Sloboština