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ITALIAN CITIZENSHIP APPLICANTS
INITIATIVES BY CITY
KRAGUJEVAC
Kragujevac, Serbia’s capital between 1818 and 1839, lies in the central part of the country, roughly 130 km southeast of Belgrade. Built on the banks of the Lepenica river, it’s the fourth Serbian city in size and has a population of approximately 185,000 inhabitants, distributed over an area of 835 km² subdivided into 57 different localities.
The population is for 97% Serbian, with some small Muslim, Hungarian and Albanian minorities. The great majority of the inhabitants are orthodox Christians, with some Muslim and Catholic minorities.
Kragujevac is most likely to have been established in the course of the fifteenth century: indeed Turkish documents of that time describe the «Kragujevdza Village» (the name could derive from the Arab word for griffin: kraguj).
Centre of the military industry since the nineteenth century, Kragujevac still today maintains its industrial vocation. Administrative centre of the Šumadija district, it’s also the principal economic, medical and educational nucleus. Until 1997 53% of the working population was employed in either the mechanical, the textile, the arms or the agricultural machinery sector. The most important industry, Zastava (associated with FIAT), given its considerable car and heavy vehicle production – that during the 80s reached the peak of even 220,000 vehicles a year - constituted the city’s principal industrial centre. The conflicts which exploded in the course of the following decade forced the company to drastically reduce production and, subsequently, the 1999 NATO bombings seriously damaged some of the plant. The actual number of unemployed workers is currently estimated around 60,000 (those registered at the job centres are 22,000). Another problem is the environmental issue: following the bombings Kragujevac is one of the four areas identified by UNEP (United National Environment Protection Programme) as having a high environmental risk.
As Serbia’s capital Kragujevac was one of the major cultural and educational institutions of the country; still at present its University, which specializes in engineering and economics, together with its lyceums and secondary schools, make it one of the most important education centres. Additionally, Serbia’s first newspaper, the Novine Srbske, was published in Kragujevac.
UNESCO has declared Kragujevac « Martyr City of Resistance » to Nazi-fascism and placed it on the list of World Heritage, declaring the Sopocani monastery cultural World Heritage in 1979 and the Studenica monastery in 1986.
USEFUL LINKS
http://www.kragujevac.org.yu
REASONS FOR THE PARTNERSHIP
The reasons behind the City of Turin’s decision to establish significant institutional relations with the City of Kragujevac, subsequently formalised in the 2005 Cooperation Agreement, may be summarised in the following elements:
- Turin community’s solidarity towards the populations of the former Yugoslavia, and particularly those of Serbia, who’ve experienced the tragic war of the 90s;
- Original industrial vocation of the two cities and shared ongoing industrial transformation and reconversion process;
- Turin workers’ solidarity with Serbian workers in “Zastava”, the mechanical factory having a prominent car and heavy vehicle production that faced a severe crisis due to the wars in Yugoslavia and the bombings following the Kosovo conflict;
- Standing collaboration (formalized by the 2007 agreement) between Kragujevac University, that specialises in engineering and economics, and Turin’s Polytechnic.
The above listed elements have lead the City of Turin to build up the presence of Turin’s civil society in the Serbian town over recent years and to establish significant institutional relations by supporting and promoting projects concerning: humanitarian aid, job reconversion for the unemployed, youths and women, youth exchanges and technical staff exchanges. Ultimately, the cooperation protocol with the city of Kragujevac should be read in relation to the agreements renewed in 2005 with the City of Breza (Bosnia-Herzegovina) concerning actions geared to promote pacific talks between cities of the former Yugoslavia once in conflict. Indeed this is the perspective behind the many tri-lateral exchanges (among students, administrators, economics professionals…) promoted by the City of Turin with the Cities of Breza and Kragujevac.