Novodvorska Street – The Shortest Street in Zagreb
Being the capital city of Croatia, Zagreb is always expanding and getting bigger and bigger, as a lot of people from other parts of Croatia come to live here. Due to its expansion, you’ll see a lot of strange buildings, streets, parking places and houses that look as if they were built in a great hurry. And yes, it’s true. A lot of it was built in a hurry in order to provide enough living space for the people coming to live here.
During this accelerated expansion of Zagreb, long streets became important and well-known. They were named after great Croatian historic figures, while the short ones fell into oblivion. But, let me introduce you to the shortest street in Zagreb, the most charming little street - Novodvorska Street!
So, first of all, Novodvorska Street is approximately 20 meters long. Yeah, you've read it correctly, just about 20 meters long! It took me 19 steps to walk down the whole street. Isn’t that weird? How often can you walk the entire length of the street in 15 seconds?
Image Credit: Tajana Pran
You’ll find this street near famous Tresnjevka market where you can find a lot of people selling, bargaining and buying stuff. Surprisingly, Novodvorska Street is calm and quiet. You can’t hear a thing. It’s because it’s well hidden between Taborska and Cesargradska Street. Oh, did I forget to mention that the street is only 1,5 meters wide? You and another person could not stand next to each other. Actually, you can, but it’s not pleasant in a situation when you don’t know the person, right? Luckily, if you lived in Novodvorska Street, you wouldn’t have such a problem because this street has only 3 house numbers. There are only 2 houses and 1 building. Residents of this street often say that it is fun to live there because, at the end of the day, nobody knows where the street is.
Image Credit: Tajana Pran
Another interesting fact is that it can’t be found on GPS. It’s like it doesn’t even exist. So, if you lived and wanted to order a pizza or call a taxi, you would have to give a detailed explanation as to street exact location. And when your taxi arrives, it can’t park in your street, but somewhere near it!
Even though it’s the shortest street in Zagreb, it has not one, but two road signs! One sign is on the only building I've mentioned earlier, and the other one is on the opposite side, on one of the two houses in the street. It’s kind of silly to have two signs for one street in general, but this is hilarious! It’s like the street itself is saying: ‘Hello, I’m here, can you see me?’ Technically, Novodvorska Street is a dead-end street. But, at the end of it, there is a narrow passing with stairs leading to the parking lot of a building in Taborska Street.
What do people say about this street?
Why am I writing about this street now? Because I discovered it a few months ago. Even older residents of Zagreb don’t know about it. It even made it to the news, as Croatian national television made a report about it. Shortly after that, the news about this street was all over the Facebook and other social media. I've been living in Zagreb for two years now, and I've found out about this street even before the people who have been living here their whole lives! I followed the news on Facebook, and it was really funny to read a discussion where people wondered how they didn’t know about the street at all. An absolute winner was a person living right next to it, in Taborska Street, who wrote a comment about not knowing Novodvorska Street at all. This made me wonder, you’re passing right by it every single day, how can you not know it?
Image Credit: Tajana Pran
And that’s the charm of this street – people don’t know about it, but I found an information that the street is actually over 100 years old! As I mentioned earlier, long streets in Zagreb are named after well-known historical figures and everybody knows them. But Novodvorska Street is named after Ban Jelacic’s castle in Zapresic, near Zagreb. Ban Jelacic is the best known Croatian historical figure in general, and his statute is located in Zagreb’s main city square.
If you ever find yourself in Tresnjevka district, you have to go and visit it. I promise you won’t regret it. Maybe you’ll meet some of the street’s residents and have a chat with them. Or, you can even tease your friends – just tell them to meet you in Novodvorska Street and watch them struggle to find it. But be nice, tell them where it is after some time!
Header Image Credit: Marko Vrdoljak, Zagreb Tourist Board
Author: Tajana Pran