A lot of people will already have heard about Freestaden Christiania, an “independent enclave” in the Copenhagen capital. But do you know that Ljubljana has a similar area ? It started the same as its famous counterpart; an old army base which was abandoned when Yugoslavian troops were withdrawn from Slovenia in 1991. The site is located a bit outside of Ljubljana center, close to the railway station. Metelkova, as it is called, started in 1993 when a group of artists , students and intellectuals occupied the territory in order to prevent its demolition.
The buildings are quite colourful and as you might expect, the place promotes a lifestyle of “free thinking”. Every week numerous activities take place, such as vegetarian cooking, party nights, workshops, debates… in short, everything which has to do with “artistic, political action and independent cultural production in the fields of music, theatre, painting video, comic, sculpture and other art…” as you can read on their website.
Unlike the Christiana Freestate, Metelkova stays far away from anything which is related to criminal behavior; it is liberal and anarchistic but not lawless. That is probably the reason that the community is tolerated and supported by the city. Ljubljana’s mayor, Mr Jankovic, even called it “cultural inheritance” in 2016.
You can visit Metelkova during the day to take some pictures of visit one of the exhibitions. But if you want to experience it in its full vibrant action you must pay a visit at night to one of the premises such as Channel Zero, Club Tiffany or Jala Jala. They will all be heavily occupied with students, underground music fans… but also regular visitors and tourist attracted by its reputation.
So what about its Belgian roots ?
Public domain picture – Wikimedia
As said, the barracks were originally build in 1895 to fulfill the military needs of the then Austro-Hungarian army. They were named after its honorary military commander… the Belgian King Albert 1 and the location was formerly known as the “Belgijska Vojasnica”. The northern part later became Metelkova city; the southern part is to date home to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum.
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