PLACE DE LA KRAJINA

Named after the historical region of Bosnian Krajina, this square (Trg Krajine/Трг Крајине) is the center of the city. It was also the epicenter of the earthquake that destroyed 80% of Banja Luka in 1969. So much so that all the surroundings of the square are of recent construction, like the Boska department store (Robna Kuća Boska). Opened in 1978, this modernist building was one of the largest shopping malls in Yugoslavia (11,500 m²). There are 48 stores as well as a bowling alley, and an underground part houses a cinema. Further on, on the same sidewalk, stands since 2009 the Twisted Clock (Krivi Sat), a small work of art that does not tell the time, but indicates the moment of the tragedy: the hands of its three dials are blocked at 9:11 am, when the main tremor took place, on July 27, 1969. Right next to it, at the corner of the "Jewish street" (Jevrejska), a bas-relief from 1999 represents six buildings from the Ottoman period destroyed during the earthquake. Across the street from it, crossing Pierre-Ier-de-Serbie Street (Kralja Petra I Karađorđevića), the small park is named after Petar Kočić (1877-1916), a Serbian nationalist writer born in Stričići, whose work has not been translated into French. It houses a statue of the writer dating from 1932. It is a youthful work of the great Croatian sculptor Antun Augustinčić (1900-1979), to whom we owe in the vicinity the Monument to the dead of the Krajina. Finally, in the direction of the Ferhadija Mosque, the Zepter Palas Hotel (1933) is one of the few slightly old buildings in the center.