Virtual Exhibition / Queen Natalie’s Drinking Fountain
Thursday-Thursday / AUGUST 24 – SEPTEMBER 7, 2023 / Cultural Center of Nish / Officers’ Club
“The busiest day in Nish is Saturday, the market day! The markets are held in accordance with the four seasons. The autumnal markets are the most bountiful, as at that time – when the harvest is abundant – there is much to bring and take to the marketplace. And if there is a specific location for the traders to show their wares, all the streets will be clogged with carts, goods, stacked merchandise, horses, and donkeys (of which there are many in hilly regions, especially surrounding Prokuplje) – in short, it is impossible for a person to pass through any main street without hindrance. At the main junction (Arnaut-bazaar), women sit in large numbers. One sells raw wool, another one socks, the third may show off her handwoven fabrics, a fourth sells wide belts, a fifth twists thin thread between her fingers as she spins silk before your very eyes, a sixth sells coarse woollen cloth… Almost every matron passing by carries a child on her back. There are people from afar as well…”
Serbian Independence, November 23, 1882, page 2
If we were to go back in time to the mid-18th century, or at least the first half of the 20th century, we would come across a lively marketplace called Arnaut bazaar in place of today’s Square of Pavle Stojkovic. This market naturally emerged as the sturdy walls of the Nish fortress were rising (1719-1723). The imposing fortress attracted the local folk and they increasingly gravitated towards the left bank of the Nishava River. It is worth noting how the Nish defterdar Abdurahman-efendi sold plots beyond the city limits and around the Prokupac Gate to young janissaries who built shops and inns there. Around these shops and Ibrahim Pasha’s inn, a new urban core formed with Arnaut bazaar. Zhivan Zhivanovic, a respected Nish historian and member of parliament, wrote about this after the liberation from the Turks in 1882 in his work “Nish and Its Landmarks.”
