Gradska opstina Palilula

“Now we have got another open-air city stage, which will be available to all generations who nurture culture, tradition and spirituality,” said the president of the Palilula Municipality, Aleksandar Zdrale, at the opening ceremony of the Amphitheater on July 2. The reason why we supported this civic initiative was to get a new place on the territory of our municipality where we will organize some smaller cultural events.

A large number of people responded to our appeal. Someone donated construction materials, some workers and machines. We have united and created a small, but a valuable open stage that is for the benefit of the entire community, “the president of the Municipality of Aleksandar Ždrale emphasized. The construction of the Amphitheater is just one of the steps in arranging the complex of the church of St. Petka. The plan is to install behaton slabs in the next period in cooperation with the city, since this is the city’s construction land. We will also install spotlights of various colors, where certain theater performances will be able to be realized in the summer months. There are still many plans, “said the president of Palilula.

The architectural solution of the Amphitheater was made by the architect Miroljub Stanković, MA. “Several thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks and Romans had a cult of staying in the open air and spent their lives mostly in open places in amphitheaters, squares and forums. Our Amphitheater is a modest dimension of all that, but very important, because this part is missing in every part of the city. It is something that is available to everyone, without tickets with free programs. The amphitheater has room for a hundred people, and with the addition of chairs and standing places, cultural facilities can be watched by several hundred people, which is not a small number. I was given the task to design and organize the construction, and I am overjoyed that the result is like this, “said architect Stanković.

This park is a very lively core and through the newly designed infrastructure, it gained another dimension. Thank God, there are still wishes for cultural events in the citizens, and there are many creative people in Nis “, says Ivan Cvetković, the elder of the church of St. Petka. This is one of the oldest settlements in Palilula and the City of Nis, as evidenced by a large number of historical facts. Today, families living in this area are the fourth, maybe the fifth generation of old Nis. This is our neighborhood. In the past, this was excise-south. There were a ramp and people who came from the Moravian villages paid for the entrance to the city in kind, both here and at the “Old Mill” on Bubanj hill. There is also a railway station here, which may or may not be relocated, but it is certainly a trace of the history of Nis that is not negligible. We have all that in this area and now, with our presence, as a church, we are ennobling it “, points out the priest Cvetković.”

The fight for this space has been going on since 2015,” says Prof. Dr. Mirjana Markovic from the Center for Improving the Quality of Life “Transfiguration” in Nis. We collected the signatures of citizens, on as many as three occasions, we begged the municipal authorities and finally today we can celebrate. The “Transfiguration” Center announces that, according to the epidemiological situation, during the summer, they will organize various music and stage programs here, such as the one held at the opening ceremony, and invite city cultural institutions, associations and organizations to join them.