The alternative Balkan postal system

It’s still dark while I go down to Petrarkija Street, toward the Music Academy, disoriented and confused with the reality of the early Sarajevo morning. From the bell tower of the cathedral, right there around the corner, six o’clock rings out.

With the last toll of the church bell, the irritating sound of a Viber call pierces my sleepy mind. What is it now? I pick up the phone.

“Hey, where are you?”

She sounds angry.

I glance at my phone: 6:02. Damn cathedral. Is it possible God slept in this morning too?

“What’s the problem? I’m only two minutes late!” I say, getting angry myself. “We aren’t in Switzerland!”

At that moment I see her below — right at the corner of Štadler and Pehlivanuša, where we’d agreed, as she squats in front of her car. She spots me too. We both put our phones down. “Hajde, hurry up!”, she calls to me.

Rada doesn’t like when passengers are late. And not because she can’t be patient. When her job requires patience, she will wait, even for hours if she has to. But not today. Rada has a very tight schedule. At 6:05, just above Parkuša, we pick up a package. Dobrinja, 6:25, a young guy is waiting for us, he’s going to work in a hotel on the Albanian coast. Then at 6:30, in the Mojmilo neighborhood, across from the King Fahd Mosque — the biggest in Sarajevo, a gift from Saudi Arabia — we pick up a doctor. An upstanding woman, she often takes this ride. And then towards Pale, from where Ivana, a programmer, is heading to Belgrade for a work meeting and a family visit.

Rada knows that if I’m two, three or five minutes late, everyone else will need to wait at least that long, or perhaps longer, if we get caught at a traffic light. And Rada hates for her passengers to wait. Those awaiting her passengers and those who aren’t awaiting passengers but rather the packages Rada carries with her, which are usually not any less important, also hate to wait. Above all, Rada wants us to reach the Drina River and cross the border before traffic gets bad, which starts around 8:30. If we fail, all these people will wait a lot longer.

“You get it now, what the problem is?” she asks brusquely, after giving me an in-depth rundown of the situation as we blast down the empty Tito Street toward Marin Dvor at the speed of light.

I’m a bit ashamed.

“But what are you gonna do? We’ll get there,” she says. “How are you? What’s new with you? How’s your mother?”

***

Since she started taking passengers between Sarajevo and Belgrade 20 years ago, Rada has been performing an additional, but no less important, transport function, working as part of an informal postal network. She transports anything anyone wants to send, as long as it’s legal and can fit in a car. In most cases it can.

“One time a woman came up to me in Belgrade, she’d bought everything you can imagine, just walked into shops and started filling her bags. Gimme this, gimme that. She brings two huge sacks and asks, will there be enough room in the trunk? I take a look and on top of one of the sacks sits a giant bag of popcorn. Well, alright ma’am, I think to myself, do you really need to send the popcorn too? There’s popcorn in Sarajevo! But what can you do, she is sending it to her mother. We’ll find the room!”

This time around, it’s not just Rada on the job. My bag is also full of packages. I’m bringing a carton of Sarajevo’s Drina-brand cigarettes for a friend and the night before I was given an envelope with documents — what they are or who they’re for I don’t know, but it’s important that they arrive in Belgrade as soon as possible — as well as a pouch full of some strange powder with big chunks and a coarse texture. The man who handed me the pouch said the name of the substance but I didn’t understand what he was saying. Then he repeated it. I still didn’t understand but I decided to pretend I had. Now I’m wondering if it’s legal. I hope it is. He looked like a fine guy. The person who put us into contact to hand the package off also seemed fine. At any rate, better not to mention this to Rada. If there is room for the popcorn, there must be room for my weird powder.

***

A leap of 300 kilometers in distance and a few months in time, into a bustling spring afternoon at the Belgrade bus station.

With broad strides I head toward the hall of ticket counters. My steps grow tighter; the narrow hallway between the counters and the departure platforms is packed with passengers, suitcases, shouts, rushing, confused looks, hugs and kisses.

Amid the commotion, my eyes are drawn to an old analog station clock. The long white hands show a calming sight: it’s 15:49. I love it when I arrive early, even if it’s just one minute.

At that moment, my phone rings. “Where are you?” He doesn’t sound angry but it does sound like he arrived before me, and on time. I start saying that I was the one who came early, but then I glance at my phone. It’s 15:52. Oh God.

We meet at the entrance to the platform. We don’t know each other but recognize each other easily. He is holding a large box with a synthesizer inside, a package I need to deliver to a mutual friend.

I take the box. “Okay, that’s that,” and we part ways. I’m a mailman on an important mission and I don’t have the time to waste on courtesies. I run to a counter and buy a ticket.

Outside, at platform number four, the bus for Prishtina is filling up.

***

I started my “job” as a mailman in autumn 2020, when I first began traveling between Belgrade and Prishtina so often that people started noticing, and for people to notice it’s enough that you’re traveling more often than, well, never.

And so one day I got a call from a friend I hadn’t spoken with for a while but who somehow knew about my recent travels. A family from Prishtina was on vacation in Belgrade and their daughter had left her doll behind when they returned home. While the weather map on Radio Television Serbia shows Prishtina as part of Serbia, as far as the Serbian postal service is concerned, this city doesn’t exist, just like other places in Kosovo where Serbs aren’t the majority. Private delivery services are way too expensive. The only way the doll could reach Prishtina was for somebody to take it with them.

Would you mind doing that? It’s not urgent. But, actually it is. It’s her favorite doll.

The next time, a request came from the other side: Hey, do they still have that Skenderbeg drink? Please pack two for me, I really miss it! Then, in Prishtina: It’s not easy to find film for analog cameras, and there’s that one shop in Belgrade where it’s not expensive. Can you bring me some? A few months later, on the list of my successfully completed tasks were vinyl records of Belgrade’s New Wave, a kilogram of dried sausage, the keys to someone’s apartment, and the books by Petrit Imami about the common history of Serbs and Albanians (happily, but ironically, they had immediately sold out in Belgrade).

And that’s when I started noticing that almost all the personal exchange that exists between Kosovo and Serbia — between close family members, cousins and friends, between those who left, those who fled, those who stayed and those who were caught somewhere in-between — all this exchange depends on three buses that run day and night between Belgrade, Prishtina and Prizren, and on the small group of people who travel on these buses.

***

While the drivers in neat white shirts are hurriedly loading luggage, my attention is drawn to an old lady in black who is standing next to a giant plaid bag. It’s not clear to me how she got it here. She’s patiently waiting in line. She smiles at me. I think she likes me. We start talking.

“Where to in Kosovo?”

“I’m not traveling, son. I’m sending things to my family.”

I start to ask her what she’s sending them, but one glance at the enormous Chinese-made bag answers my question. It’s full of homemade food packed carefully into plastic ice cream boxes and large glass jars. Is that sarma? I also see an old plastic box of a brand of cheese from Sombor, wrapped in thick rubber bands so that whatever mystery it holds, perhaps a salad, doesn’t spill out during travel.

Her sister lives with her family in Gračanica, near Prishtina. She hasn’t stayed with them since corona broke out. She hopes to visit soon, perhaps next month, when she is done with some medical check-ups.

“Are you often sending things?”

“Not that often. They have food there, it’s not that they don’t. But they love it when I cook for them. Recently, my granddaughter celebrated her birthday. So, there is cake! It’s convenient this way, I just put it on the bus. Otherwise, it would be impossible.”

I stop and think how it would look at the counter in the post office to send homemade food. The serious face of the clerk looks you over through the glass. What’s in the box? A strawberry cake and sarma with dried ribs! How fast do you want it delivered? Immediately, so that it doesn’t go bad, you see how hot it’s been these days! Declared value? Priceless!

***

As I will find out through several trips and dozens of conversations with people who send and receive things across the Balkans, it’s not all just an issue of food and its perishability.

Uncle Pera is returning to Lipjan; that’s where his home has been for over 60 years. He had been on a visit to Belgrade. We are sitting together on a bus. Somewhere around the toll ramp at Bubanj Potok, I offered him some Plazma cookies. In return, when we stopped for a pause at a gas station somewhere around Pojate, he gave me a cigarette. I ask him whether he sends or receives anything from Serbia by mail. He decidedly says “no.”

“You never know with them! Two months ago, my son was looking for some car documents from a friend in Kraljevo. They still haven’t arrived.”

Uncle Pera clearly doesn’t trust institutions. And judging by the number of things that travel by bus everyday, he isn’t alone.

Sitting with the drivers in the semi-dark of a roadside cafe with the longing name of “Evropa,” I’m trying to figure out what everyone is sending. Most of the travelers sit outside waiting for the sign for departure.

“Are you trying to see if we’re carrying any drugs?” one guy asks me gruffly, as he offers me a piece of chicken he just pulled out of some aluminum foil.

He offered me chicken out of common courtesy. He asked the question out of open distrust. A journalist who writes about people who are sending stuff by bus? Why would anyone do something like that? And what does that exactly mean — are they sending some interesting things? What could be interesting there?

“Don’t worry, I’m not a police officer,” I tell him. I take out my journalist’s credentials. Afrim wipes his fingers and takes a look with genuine curiosity. A thought comes to me that people in this cafe have probably taken many things out of their pockets, but it is certain that this was the first time that somebody had taken out a card from the International Federation of Journalists. It seems to have some effect on him.

“What are people sending? Well, everything. Documents mostly,” Afrim says. “Paperwork for pensions up there, in Belgrade, for those who worked in firms before the war, for real estate, if somebody is selling something in Kosovo. Medicine. People also send money. Mobile phones, clothes. All types of stuff.”

“Do you sometimes experience any trouble?” I ask. Afrim gives me a sharp look. He again thinks that I’m a cop.

His colleague Edin enters the conversation: “It happens sometimes that people don’t show up to pick up their things. Or they ask us to wait for them someplace else… How the hell am I supposed to wait?”

“What happens with those things?”

“We return them to the agency and the sender goes to pick it up there.”

“Does it sometimes happen that no one picks it up?” I ask, imagining a magical antique shop, with various objects scattered around because people forgot about them over the years, each with its own history, ordinary and unusual story… Now, that would be something!

Afrim rudely interrupts my fantasy. “No, never. They always come. Come on, let’s go.”

***

Sending packages by bus or taxi, by driver, friend or acquaintance, is one of the most functional social inventions in the Balkans. It’s as fast as the speed of a car or bus. And in a place where railway and airline connections have been destroyed or simply canceled, it’s the fastest way to send or receive things.

One specific person — driver, friend or acquaintance — takes care of the delivery. It is a person you either know or at least met, someone you’ve shaken hands with at some point and exchanged a few words. It seems in those 30 or 60 seconds a level of trust is built that is so much greater than it’s possible to establish with any postal service worker, hidden behind the counter with their promotional stock photos of yellow vans that always arrive on time.

Who would you trust more, a company with a slogan that guarantees your shipment will be delivered in the next 48 hours, and which offers you the possibility to follow your shipment through a special code, or a driver who, when asked “when will it arrive, approximately?” — asked bashfully so as not to appear as if you are, God forbid, rushing him because he has every right to get there whenever he wishes — first looks into the distance, inhales a smoke, and exhales: “it depends on the rush hour, but not before nine”? And they always give you a time that’s too early. Better for you to wait, than for the whole bus.

Somehow, for an astonishingly high number of people in the Balkans, the right answer is B.

***

Finally, there is the issue of pricing.

When you send by mail, there are a number of relevant criteria. The weight of the object, its value and the distance and speed of the delivery. Postal websites and applications are filled with detailed tables and calculations enabling you to estimate the price down to the cent. With a calculator or without one, it’s often quite high. For example, to send a half-kilogram package from Serbia to Bosnia, without a return receipt, separate handling or air transportation, it will cost you around 18 euros. If you want to send that package to Kosovo via DHL, the price is around 50 euros.

But when you send it informally, that’s when you enter the field of a magical Balkan ritual, bounded by clear rules within which absolutely nothing is clear. When a friend or acquaintance takes a package, offering money for the service is like cursing their mother. An unwritten rule calls for inviting the helper to a glass of juice or coffee, but discreetly, to make it look like you aren’t inviting them only because they helped you out, but because you really want to get a drink with them.

At the same time, it is almost expected that they will reject the refreshment because neither of you has time nor desire for drinks. If the two of you wanted a drink, you would drink, without any packages. Though without that drink, you become indebted to the helper. Rest assured, if you ever do anything to displease this person, they will go around and say how they foolishly helped you when you needed it and this is how you repay them!

When it comes to bus drivers, things are a bit different. Every day, sometimes twice a day, they carry packages across borders, taking a risk (although, they often check what is inside; if it appears illegal, dangerous, or that it could break easily, they will refuse no matter how much money they are offered). They carefully keep track of what they are carrying and for whom and where people will await them. They write down names and phone numbers, call senders from dimly lit stops by the side of highways, arguing with people who are late or have simply forgotten to show up to pick up their packages.

To put it shortly, they expect you to pay them, and for good reason. But transporting things by bus isn’t quite standard, nor do the bus companies officially permit it, so there usually isn’t any official price list. It depends on what you’re sending and sometimes on the mood of the driver, but some charge the equivalent of a full bus ticket, others a half. Others allow you to independently set the price for the service.

And so we arrive at the precious social rule known as “However much you can give” (“Kol’ko daš”). As with everything else in this region, the rule isn’t what it claims to be. On the surface, you are free to independently assess the value of the service. However, what you are actually assessing is the assessment of the other side of the transaction, that is, how much money will it take so the other person is not offended. That’s why more often than not you pay more than the service is really worth.

All the same, it’s still cheaper than the postal service, and incomparably more fun.

***

We’re on a tight schedule but Rada allows for a quick break at the gas station because someone needs to go to the toilet. I use the opportunity to grab a cigarette, or rather, that’s what I wanted to do when I realized that I have none left. Luckily, I have a carton of Drina cigarettes that I brought to deliver to my Belgrade friend Bojan. He won’t mind.

The terms Drina and Sarajevo play a significant role in his life, and not just because of cigarettes. Bojan belongs to a small group of journalists in Serbia who have been bravely and consistently writing about Serbian war crimes in Bosnia of the 1990s. Every week, links to articles arrive in my inbox that, I fear, almost no one reads.

But Bojan isn’t giving up. He is currently working on a documentary about The Belgrade Circle, a not-so-small group of liberal intellectuals and peace activists that stood up against Milošević’s regime, wars and crimes in the early 1990s. Thirty years later not even a distant echo of their voices remains in Serbia’s political scene. It’s now just a memory in the heads of a small circle of devotees.

While we drive through Romanija, I feel like we are traveling through one of his stories. We pass through the beautiful nature of eastern Bosnia and see road signs with some of the most horrible toponyms from the war, places that many in Serbia have only heard about from Hague testimonies, as symbols of massacres, rapes, and ethnic cleansing. Here, just before Sokolac, that’s where we find the turn to Rogatica. You travel upward to reach Han Pijesak, then you go to Vlasenica, then Milići and Zvornik, and if you were to travel south from Zvornik, you’d reach Srebrenica.

Rada, a Serb refugee from Sarajevo, who fled the city at the start of the war, now lives in Pale, with a distinctly clear attitude about this topic: “We were lucky. Neither my family nor I were hurt by anyone, nor have we inflicted harm upon anyone.” If it were any different, I suspect that it would be impossible to do her job: “I went to Sarajevo immediately after the war. I have nothing to hide.”

Finally we reach the Drina River.

“I used to smoke Yorks from Rovinj,” Bojan tells me, “until all ties were severed with Croatia in 1991, so I switched to Drinas.”

Bad call, Bojan, because the ties with Bosnia didn’t last long either. He started smoking them again in the early 2000s in Sarajevo. Bojan loves Sarajevo; sometimes he just disappears there and comes back more alive than ever.

And why the heck am I bringing him Drinas, aren’t there any in Belgrade? Somehow, in March 2022 the 140-year-old Sarajevo Tobacco Factory, located in a country where almost a third of the adult population are passionate smokers, shut down. Old Drinas are still in stock though, and Bojan wants to smoke them as long as they last.

I wonder if we could claim the same thing for The Belgrade Circle. The anti-war idea in Serbia has broken down, and we have been smoking stocked goods for years. But they’re dwindling.

***

Gone are the days when the Merdare border crossing was a place where you expected problems, either as a Serb at the Kosovo checkpoint or an Albanian at the Serbian checkpoint. Nevertheless, as we approach from Kuršumlija, the bus somehow always settles down and the atmosphere becomes darker and tenser. There’s a feeling of sinister anticipation. Perhaps the scenes of desolation all around us contribute to that. Empty fields, empty streets, empty houses. And a completely empty road, which seems to lead to the end of the world.

Here and there, on signs along the road you see Albanian toponyms: Kastrat, Ljuša. The village Arbanaška is also nearby. But there have been no Albanians here for a long time. On a hill near Degrmen, two kilometers from Merdare, arise the dark ruins of Beć’s church, which was built starting in 1912 with money from Serb immigrants arriving from the Sandžak, Montenegro and Zubin Potok, who came for the lands of Albanians and Turks who fled to Kosovo after the 1876 Serbian-Ottoman War. Due to the poverty after World War I, work on the church was postponed for better times, which never came. There are not many Serbs left here either; the crumbling road to mythical Kosovo takes you through one of the poorest municipalities in Serbia.

The call echoes through the bus in Serbian and Albanian: “Prepare your IDs!” In honor of the mutual non-recognition of Serbia and Kosovo, for Kosovar and Serbian citizens, passports are invalid here. First, the Serbian policeman enters. In dead silence, he collects our IDs and carefully sorts them in his palm, and then goes out. After the check, the driver brings us our IDs back, but we get to keep them only for a minute, as it is now the Kosovar policeman that enters. The entire procedure is repeated.

All of a sudden, there’s a problem. The customs officer is lingering around the back trunk. He argues with the driver and shows him something. Passengers on the right side of the bus stare at him intently, and the left-side passengers stare intently at those on the right side because they can’t see the customs officer. What did he find? Will they let us through? Deeply buried fears rise to the surface. Suddenly, we know that anything is possible.

The driver shakes his head. The customs officer also shakes his head. It’s as if he doesn’t want to have to deal with this stuff. He slams the trunk door closed. I had the feeling that we all could breathe again.

We enter Kosovo. Now we begin seeing signs with Serbian toponyms, but no Serbs.

***

Belgrade, late May.

Lula greets me in the inner courtyard of an old villa in the center of the city. The street is packed with a hellish noon crowd. In the yard, full of delicate red and yellow flowers, there is complete silence.

Lula is just like that villa in many ways: elegant, sad and turned inwards. “I haven’t been out at all in a long time,” she tells me. “This is no longer my city.”

The letter and the bag were delivered to her neatly and on time. I decide not to inquire about the contents of theenvelope. I assume there was a reason that it was sealed. But I can’t bear to not ask about the bag of mysterious powder.

“Tarhana,” Lula smiles. “A soup mixture. My aunt Ešrefa from Travnik prepares this for me, and sends it through my nephew. They prepare it differently in Serbia. It’s good too, but I like hers. In Serbia, they usually say ‘tarana,’ as they don’t like that ‘h’ here because it was adopted from Turkish. Just like in Bosnia they started to insert it in places where it doesn’t belong.”

Lula has plenty to say about the packages that are sent between Belgrade and Sarajevo. Born in Sarajevo, she has been living in Belgrade since the end of the 1960s. She’s a person who, immediately after the beginning of the Sarajevo siege, collected and shipped humanitarian aid to the besieged city. She struggled for every shipment to reach who it was intended for. And she fought for thousands of them, shipments and people. “When I see cardboard boxes today, I feel nauseous.”

I leave her on the terrace of the old villa, carefully observing the flowers, while she slowly chews over the memory of a time when some resistance existed.

***

We are sitting in the restaurant Kraljevo, not far away from a big parking lot on Sarajevska Street in Belgrade, where Rada traditionally picks up and drops off passengers. Where else?

She spent the whole day in the car and is very tired but she finds the time to talk. She tells me how she has been fainting lately. The other day, she barely got in the car, but she didn’t give up. She transported her passengers and packages. She is receiving regular therapy now, and things will get better.

It’s a hot day. We order a light lunch, soups and cabbage salad. The tavern is empty and the waiter is bored, so he makes inappropriate jokes. Rada charmingly ignores them.

“Anyway, I have a story for you,” she tells me:

“In Sarajevo, there is this woman, Mirsada. She had a husband and a son. And the son had a friend, Marko, who didn’t have parents. She liked him a lot. So, anyway, Marko… Until then no one cared about what names people had. Normal people didn’t care about names. But that’s when the war started. She wondered what to do with him. Mirsada hid Marko in her house, so he wouldn’t get killed. She told me, ‘Rada, I kept him in the freezer. My child went off to the battlefield, and Marko was in the freezer.’

“She hid him until she found a person, somebody she could trust, so that she could get him into the territory of Republika Srpska, and then to Belgrade.

“And so, time goes by, and Marko becomes a very successful man. He starts a family, starts a business and everything goes flawlessly for him. And Mirsada, her husband dies, she stays with her son. And I don’t know the details, but somehow they got in touch with Marko. Imagine, after all these years…”

“And then,” Rada pauses, “then her son dies too. And Mirsada is left alone, and Marko becomes the only light in her life.

“Since then, since I’ve been working, he keeps sending her stuff. A bag of beans, peppers, walnuts, kajmak, a jar of honey. And he makes sure to send some money, 50 or 100 euros, but always with some food.

“So, I asked him once — Marko, my boy, you buy this food, and she has to go out and collect it and carry it back up to her apartment — wouldn’t it be easier for you to send her the money so she can buy it herself?

“He tells me, ‘Rada, I tried doing that but she is happy when she gets that box of kajmak and she can say — look at what my dear Marko sent me!”

And that’s when I finally got it. It’s not things that travel, it’s people. And only when people can’t, do they send things. But even then, in actuality, it’s not things that travel — but people’s feelings.

Editor’s Note: By request of the interviewees, some of the names in the text have been changed.

Barrio Salamanca

A preview of the interactive story published by El Confidencial

It is the ‘prime’ area par excellence of the residential market of Madrid luxury. We are talking about the Salamanca neighborhood, whose origin dates back to the second half of the 19th century and whose history is inextricably linked to two figures. Carlos María de Castro, one of the great Madrid urban planners and architect of the Madrid expansion, and José María de Salamanca y Mayol, Marqués de Salamanca, one of the great landowners of the eastern expansion, where the Salamanca neighborhood was located. The latter was one of the main promoters of a neighborhood (in fact, its name is due to him).

The neighborhood was initially called upon to accommodate the Madrid middle class, but it ended up receiving the nobility and high bourgeoisie of the 19th century and becoming the true heart of the Eixample East due to its rapid organization and provision of services compared to the rest of the areas of Madrid.

In fact, as Borja Carballo Barral explains in ‘The origins of Modern Madrid: El Ensanche Este (1860-1878)’, “the new infrastructures and public services became a reality at the same rate that the buildings flourished”.

From that moment on, interest in living in the Salamanca neighborhood of the wealthier classes has only grown to this day, especially among the rich Latin Americans, and among them, among Venezuelan buyers. A huge appetite that is concentrated in just a handful of streets, which undoubtedly makes it difficult to find not only buildings, but homes that meet the high demands of these buyers, since, although since 2014 there are several rehabilitation projects that have been carried out in the neighborhood, in general they are very old houses and buildings, some of them with almost two centuries of history.

“Salamanca is the favorite neighborhood for Latin Americans who want to have a ‘pied-à-terre’ in Madrid as a bridge to Europe. This type of client values ​​restored classic buildings, if possible with ‘amenities’ and parking spaces, and is willing to pay more to have a premium location close to fashionable places. In addition, the Salamanca neighborhood encompasses the entire most cosmopolitan area of ​​Madrid, where luxury shops and trendy restaurants are located. It is the luxury neighborhood par excellence”, highlights Elena Jori, director of Real Estate at Home Select. “Salamanca and Jerónimos continue to be that ‘object of desire’ for every Latin American investor and a house in Alfonso XII is like being on 5th Avenue contemplating Central Park.”

“The consolidation of the Salamanca neighborhood in recent years as the preferred place for Latin Americans both to live or to spend time has been a natural evolution, since, in a sufficiently large space, at the same time central and very comfortable, they have it everything close and with a lot of variety in every way. Starting with a wide range of restaurants, luxury ’boutiques’, clubs, neighborhood shops and even El Corte Inglés together with very good communication with the rest of the city, airport or train, and with the ease of being able to walk, while in their countries of origin or in cities like Miami they always depend on the car. And let’s not forget the Parque del Retiro, the jewel of the neighborhood and its proximity to it, which is always a plus to keep in mind”, says Luis Valdés, ‘managing director’ of Residential Sales Advisory in Colliers.

In the Architecture Guide of the College of Architects of Madrid (COAM), a database that collects the history of the most representative buildings in the city, there are cataloged about 120 buildings for residential use in the neighborhood, whose construction date dates, in some cases, to the recently released second half of the 19th century, that is, at the height of the construction maelstrom of the Marquis of Salamanca.

Why the Salamanca neighborhood

Why the rise of the Salamanca neighborhood? Why did the bourgeoisie concentrate there and not in other areas? Part of the explanation has to do with the neighborhood’s infrastructures and services. And, in the case of Salamanca, this was a really differentiating aspect compared to other areas of Madrid. Why?

The status conferred by living in the Salamanca neighborhood has remained in force to this day. Although this was not always the case, since, in its origins, bankers, large merchants, rentiers or large owners preferred to live in the old part of the city. Little by little, and especially after the arrival of the tram to the streets of the Salamanca district, a good part of that high bourgeoisie began to abandon the old town in favor of the luxurious houses of the new district.

In fact, the Marquis of Salamanca was key in the arrival of the tram. In 1871, with the help of British capital, he launched “the first tramway in Madrid that linked the Salamanca neighborhood with that of Pozas through the Puerta del Sol”, Borja Carballo Barral recounts.

In 19th century Madrid, the greater the number of buildings built in a neighborhood, the greater the share of income from land tax. Some income that, as Borja Carballo relates, was invested in the new public infrastructure that the neighborhood needed. Which, as he explains in his academic work, “in the long run became the main mechanism of segregation and social compartmentalization in the development of the Ensanche de Madrid”.

And it is that, as the author explains, “the ruling lay in the fact that the land tax paid for the new buildings was recorded based on the quality of the buildings and not the number of rooms or the number of tenants that could In this way, those neighborhoods that had more luxurious and ornate buildings, but that housed a smaller population, as in the case of the Salamanca neighborhood, had a larger income account with which to deal with the payments of the infrastructure works and public services. On the other hand, those spaces of the expansion in which most of the popular classes resided, always maintained a reduced capacity to carry out the necessary public investments”.

Vertical segregation

Unlike what happens today, at the end of the 19th century, the different social classes could come to live not only in the same neighborhood, but in the same building, although the nobility used to live in their own palaces. There was what experts have called vertical segregation.

“All the large industrial landowning families moved to the Salamanca neighborhood, the luxury neighborhood par excellence. The wealthy families built large palaces (Linares, Zabálburu or Arenzana), but buildings were also built where the middle class could live and even the lower middle class. Not surprisingly, until the elevator was invented, different social classes coexisted in the same building. As you went up the floor, the classes were less affluent”, explains the architect Carlos Lamela.

The Palace of the Marqués Linares (1863) is a characteristic example of 19th century Madrid palatial architecture. It was abandoned for a long period of time, and was even threatened with demolition, according to the COAM Architecture Guide. In 1976, however, it was declared a historical-artistic monument and was acquired by the Madrid City Council. Currently, it is the headquarters of Casa de América.

It was very common for the owner of the building to establish the main residence on the first floor —on many occasions with its own entrance— and allocate the rest of the homes for rent. Obviously, as you went up in height, the rents varied. A century and a half ago, the higher the altitude, the lower the rent paid. Example of a rental in a building in the Salamanca neighborhood. Salustiano Olózga, 6. 1878. Page 237.

“The upper floors, the basements and the attics were the exclusive predominance of the day laborer families, mostly of immigrant origin who could only afford to face the cheapest rents. The floods of immigrants As they flowed towards the capital, they settled in those areas that were most affordable for their meager coffers, whether in roof tiles, inns or in the attics or basements of the new buildings erected”, Borja Carballo relates.

“It is very curious that, back in the 19th century, the service lived on the highest floors of the buildings and the families on the ground floor. In the oldest and most exclusive estates owned by Claudio Coello, for example, you can see how the houses Located on the ground floor, they have four-meter-high ceilings and wider walls.Comfort prevailed, due to the lack of elevators and the temperature, as the rooms are cooler in summer and warmer in winter due to the walls and the protection of the high floors”, highlights Óscar Larrea, John Taylor’s ‘executive director’.

Within the Salamanca neighborhood, there are several examples that we can find of the interest of the high bourgeoisie in those first floors of the buildings. Velázquez 21 is a clear example. The building was commissioned by Francisco Sánchez-Pleites, Marquis of Frómista, to the architect José Espelius Anduaga in order to use the main floor for his own residence and the rest, including the penthouses, for rent, according to the Madrid Architecture Guide. of the COAM. This building was also pioneering because “for the first time the storage rooms for the tenants were located in the semi-basement, instead of in the usual attics, thus reducing the consequences of a fortuitous fire”.

But, in addition, as one advanced in height, not only did social status decrease, but the floors were smaller and there were more units than on the lower floors.

“There was a very strong socioeconomic segregation in height. From those residents who could afford to pay almost 600 pesetas a month in rent for a house at their complete disposal to those poor wretches who lived poorly without seeing the light in basements through which who paid an average of 13.44 pesetas a month”, says Borja Carballo in ‘The origins of Modern Madrid: El Ensanche Este (1860-1878)’. “Attics, entrance halls, basements, mezzanines, garages and ground floors housed a large population that did not belong to New Madrid. A legion of domestic service workers who lived in their employers’ houses.”

The elevator revolution

The situation turned around with the arrival of elevators at the end of the 19th century as their installation began to spread among the large buildings in the center of the capital. Those who previously wanted to live on those first floors began to move to the upper floors, especially the last one. The attics and basements became the attics as we know them today, an asset whose revaluation in recent years has been spectacular due to the enormous shortage of product for sale on the market. The first floors, on the contrary, began to be used as offices already in the 20th century.

Elisa Pérez Honrubia, in her book ‘Madrid of the 19th century (Ensanche del barrio del Marqués de Salamanca)’, also gives an account of this vertical segregation and its end with the arrival of the elevator.

“The first two floors were occupied by the upper bourgeoisie and the third by the lower bourgeoisie. The attic was left for the servants. Sometimes, inside each building there is an unlandscaped patio that favors the ventilation and lighting of the interior rooms of the building “, he explains in reference to the housing block limited by Serrano, Claudio Coello, Goya and Jorge Juan streets (Serrano 32), one of the first two buildings built and which followed the Castro Plan that included interior gardens in the block patios . “These buildings were built without an elevator, which gave rise to a vertical segregation that disappeared at the end of the 19th century (1893) when these were installed,” Pérez Honrubia points out.

Large number of gates

Another of the striking points of the Ensanche Este was the large number of gates built in the wealthier areas of the Salamanca district, which prompted the rise of this type of profession that had a very low economic remuneration. In fact, “the lower floors, but especially the entrance halls, represented the real opportunity for those workers with little or no qualification to share a residence with social classes of greater economic power, being able to benefit from this fact,” writes Carballo.

“A vital example of this reality is found in the porter’s office at number 7 Calle Lista —currently Calle de José Ortega y Gasset— inhabited by the couple formed by Sebastián and Brígida, who came from the Asturian town of Yepes, and their 9-year-old niece. Baldomera years old. While Sebastián declared, as the head of the family, to be a bricklayer’s laborer and earn 1.75 pesetas a day, it was Brígida who acted as the caretaker of a building used as garages and belonging to the Singer Company. As is logical, It did not mean the same to occupy the goal of a property located in the Salamanca neighborhood —where the doorman occupied one of the lowest echelons of the property— than to do it in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Madrid or Arganzuela —where the doorman could be, to a certain extent, a privileged person for having insured accommodation—”, says Borja Carballo.

Horizontal segregation

If vertical segregation was a reality in the Salamanca district, so was horizontal segregation. That is to say, it was not the same to live in a certain street in the Salamanca neighborhood than in another. Something that continues to happen today.

The nobility lived in their palaces

The nobility that decided to settle in the Salamanca district built their own palaces as a symbol of social status. Three of the most famous were the work of the architect Cristóbal Lecumberri, another of the great figures of 19th century Madrid. As Elena Jori recalls, “Lecumberri built 3 small hotels on Villanueva street, number 16, 18 and 20 (between Serrano and Claudio Coello streets). Currently only 18 is in use. Number 16 became a residential building in 1950. Until 1970, number 20 was a school that was demolished and transformed into another residential building.”

At number 18, the Casa-Palacio de los Marqueses de Bolaños still stands and is owned by a rich Mexican who has spent several years trying to sell it. He bought it in 2014 for more than 10 million euros and expects to obtain more than 20 with its sale, that is, more than double. According to the COAM Guide, it is the “only survivor of the group of isolated hotels that the Marquis built from Salamanca in the Ensanche and which were complemented by the apartment houses in a closed block”.

Why were few mansions built in the neighborhood? The Ensanche de Castro plan was too ambitious and met with little interest from the owners of the land and areas to be built. Without forgetting that the potential buyers of the houses, which were too expensive for the middle class, were also very few, which meant that only the areas around the Paseo de la Castellana were filled with palaces or houses of a certain category.

Villanueva 18 was one of the small palaces built by the Marquis of Salamanca and one of the first to be built in the Ensanche, next to the old bullring in Madrid. After its construction, it was acquired by Luis María Pérez de Guzmán Nieulant, senator of the kingdom and deputy of the Cortes, as well as the first Marquis of Bolaños, a title created by the Queen Regent María Cristina de Habsburgo in 1886.

About the Marquis and his wife an intense cultural life developed. The musical evenings at the mansion were famous at the time and were regularly attended by personalities such as Isaac Albéniz, Joaquín Sorolla and Cecilia Pla, among others. While prominent members of the aristocracy such as the Duchess of Medinaceli, Rosa Bauer or the Marquise of Acapulco also met.

Figure of the Marquis of Salamanca

The name of the Salamanca neighborhood comes from José de Salamanca y Mayol, Marquis of Salamanca, one of the most influential and wealthy men in Spain. His goal was to build 350 buildings spread over blocks of eight or 12 buildings, but he went bankrupt trying. Borja Carballo says that, since 1862, he invested more than 60 million reais in land.

*** From those years, from the time of the Marquis of Salamanca, are also the aforementioned Villanueva 18 (1865); the Palace of Zabálburu, in Marqués del Duero 7 (1872); the Palace of the Marqués de Linares, in Alcalá 55 (1872); the houses of the Compañía de Seguros La Peninsular (1863) at Calle Cid 3 and 5; the houses for Eusebio and Isidoro Matas (1872) in Alcalá 61; the houses for Sebastián Martínez (1876) at Salustiano Olózaga 7, or the houses and palace house of the Marquise de la Laguna (1863) on Calle Recoletos 4 to 12, 5.7, 15 and 17/Villalar 3 to 13. Also Jorge Juan 12, a set of commercial and hotel establishments (1870). Some old stables, garages and dairy farms in the Salamanca district. A homogeneous complex originally intended for auxiliary functions and equipment for the first bourgeois homes in the Eixample of Salamanca, now converted into premises.

Its financial problems began to be reflected in the quality of its constructions, although the buildings would continue to make a difference compared to other areas of Madrid. More homes began to be included in each building to increase rental income and to make better use of space, the interior gardens disappeared. In fact, only two blocks, the first two, included a garden in the courtyard of the block, as Castro had projected.

“One of the main innovations of the Castro Plan in the development of the Ensanche was, precisely, the approach of the block patios as indoor places for recreation and common life, which would improve the living conditions of the population, until then tending to buildings fully consolidated”, explain Paloma Relinque, director of CBRE’s Madrid office and Samuel Población, national director of residential and land at CBRE.

“Unfortunately, with the passage of time, this model would be abandoned, as improper uses were allowed and abusive land speculation was imposed, increasing heights, occupying interior green spaces, etc., since only the first two blocks, between the streets de Villanueva, Jorge Juan and Goya, today preserve this primitive arrangement”, according to the COAM Guide.

For Carlos Lamela, “the Salamanca neighborhood is the great urban operation of one of the most important men that Spain had. A great businessman of the first level, with contacts throughout Europe. He promoted the railway, worked on the stock market and in large corporations like almost all businessmen and he was also very tempted by the real estate issue and by creating a new neighborhood in Madrid in what were then the outskirts”.

“It was a bet and a very important investment to the point that it ruined him,” recalls Lamela. “It started with a series of blocks on Villanueva and Serrano, just as they were initially planned. We are talking about 1860-1870, when the entire bourgeoisie began to consider living there in larger, sunnier homes, with airy spaces and more open streets — the car had not yet arrived. Apples that were made taking the model of Baron Haussman —Napoleon III— for Paris, with gardens inside. However, later those spaces destined for gardens were filled with workshops, garages, factories …”.

The marquis had his own palace. At number 10 Paseo de Recoletos, a building that has remained standing to this day and stands on the former country house of the Count of Oñate. In the mid-19th century, it was considered “the richest and most modern palace in Madrid”, as stated in the COAM Guide. It was acquired by Banco Hipotecario to install its headquarters there, which led to successive extensions, the most important being after the Civil War.

The most representative buildings

Within the Salamanca district, there are several examples that we can find of the interest of the upper bourgeoisie in those first floors of the buildings.

Velázquez 21 (1904) is a clear example. The building was commissioned by Francisco Sánchez-Pleites, Marquis of Frómista, to the architect José Espelius Anduaga, in order to use the main floor for his own residence and the rest, including the attics, for rent, according to the Architecture Guide of Madrid prepared by the College of Architects of Madrid (COAM). This building was also pioneering because “for the first time the storage rooms for the tenants were located in the semi-basement, instead of in the usual attics, thus reducing the consequences of a fortuitous fire”.

During the 1960s, part of the building was adapted as a commercial premises and the first floors were occupied for years by the famous Gancedo tapestries, until the building was sold in 2019 to the owners of the Grifols pharmaceutical company, which is renovating it to make floors. deluxe.

Less than 400 meters from Velázquez 21, at Serrano 9 (1908), is the former palace of the Marquis de Portago, current headquarters of the Illustrious Bar Association. The building was built in 1908 for the Count of Mejorada, brother of the Marquis of Portago. The main floor, as in Velázquez 21, was dedicated to the owner’s palace and the upper floors to large private homes. It was converted into offices in 1975.

Another example is the Palacio de Castanedo, at Velázquez 63 (1905), whose main floor and part of the ground floor —specifically the garage, garage and garden— were for the exclusive use of the promoter, Julio Castanedo , while the remaining floors were used for three rental homes, one per level, for the high bourgeoisie. It is the typical bourgeois residence from the beginning of the century in the Ensanche.

Count Aranda 7 (1888). Two residential buildings for rent for the Madrid bourgeoisie. Attics for storage rooms. The attics, which did not exist as we know them today, but were attics or basements, were reserved for servants or were even used as storage rooms that, unlike what happens today, occupied the highest floors of the apartments. buildings.

Alcalá 93 (1901). Former palace house of Federico Ortiz who established his residence on the main floor and the rest was used for rental housing.

Villanueva 13 (1896). Dwellings for the Count of Valmaseda for rent. And Lagasca 23 (1895). Homes for the Marquis of Cubas also intended for rent. In both cases, the first project was scrapped due to its lack of profitability.

Claudio Coello 14 to 28 (1863). These blocks, predominantly residential, are the first urban complex built within the Madrid Ensanche projected by Castro, with the direct promotion of the Marquis of Salamanca. Absolute respect for the large block patio, conceived as an interior garden.

Others, although they have been maintained, have changed their use. Serrano 46, for example, is one of the original buildings in the Salamanca district. It was expanded in three heights between 1954 and 1957. Currently, it houses the ICON Embassy hotel.

Many of the buildings from that second half of the 19th century, not only in the Salamanca district, but in the rest of Madrid, have disappeared. “20% or 30% disappeared due to urban pressure. They were not considered an asset of cultural interest that had to be protected, so many of these historic buildings were sold and demolished to build another one,” laments Carlos Lamela.

***An example, where the PP headquarters currently stands, at Génova 13 —Almagro neighborhood—, used to be the palace of the Marquises of Bermad. It was demolished in 1977 because until 1978 there was no plan for the protection of historic buildings.

The disappearance of those buildings gave rise to modern architecture, explains Lamela. “The lack of protection of the buildings, together with the appearance of modern architecture and the general plans of the 70s and 80s that contemplated very high buildable areas, favored the disappearance of historic buildings. An example was the disappearance of the fire station on the street O’Donell 4, next to El Retiro Park, which was auctioned by the City Council. The Torres de Valencia were built on the ground”.

According to the COAM Guide, the Madrid City Council, in order to achieve a better yield for the land, gave it maximum buildability, “which caused a strong controversy during its construction.”

“Architectural fashion is changing. An example of this is the Garrigues headquarters at Hemosilla 3, the Edificio Girasol at José Ortega y Gasset 23 (1964), built on the corner site occupied by Francisco Silvela’s mansion, a work of Pioneer in the Lista neighborhood, built in 1898. Another clear example of modern architecture is the Fundación Juan March building (1971), at Castelló 77. However, despite everything, the general character of the neighborhood is maintained, it is quite homogeneous”, concludes Lamela.

Today

In the 21st century, the Salamanca neighborhood is one of the richest and most exclusive neighborhoods in the city. According to data from the Tax Agency, in 2018 it ranked fourth in all of Spain with an average gross income of 95,492 euros, only behind La Moraleja (Alcobendas, Madrid), Vallvidrera-Tibidabo i Les Planes (Barcelona) and Somosaguas-Húmera. (Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid).

In addition, its privileged location in the center of the city, as well as the presence of all the large luxury and fashion stores worldwide, place it in the spotlight, especially for Venezuelan buyers, who have given a strong boost to the luxury residential, with the rehabilitation of several buildings and with the purchase of some of the most expensive homes in the capital.

In its barely 5,000 square meters of surface, records have been broken in the luxury residential market, but also in offices, hotels and ‘retail’.

“We will have to get used to buying a ‘singular’ product to reform at €8,000 and €9,000/m2 and in new construction at prices above €14,000/m2,” says Elena Jori.

And it is that the enormous shortage of product for sale plays in their favor. “Salamanca will continue to be the most demanded neighborhood and it will also be the one that monopolizes the highest increases due to the lack of product,” according to Óscar Larrea, whose opinion Luis Valdés shares. “Due to a shortage of new-build homes, and the high existing demand, prices are reaching averages around €16,000/m2, but here it is very important to specify that it is necessary for the product to meet certain essential conditions in terms of its location within the neighborhood, level of finishes and qualities, ‘parking’, ‘amenities’ and services. If you do not meet all the conditions, the price suffers a discount, and the current customer knows this, not everything is valid. Likewise, the penthouses follow another line, and here the price range is very heterogeneous”.

“Another characteristic of the district is the high degree of protection of the existing buildings, especially in the Salamanca and Castellana area, which makes possible renovations extremely difficult,” added Paloma Relinque and Samuel Población from CBRE.

All these factors have contributed to ‘feeding’ the price of housing and rentals in the Salamanca neighborhood and have made its price per residential square meter the highest in the entire municipality, exceeding 5,700 euros at the end of 2020. square meter. In addition, it is the second highest residential rental price, only behind Chamberí, close to 17.5 euros per square meter per month, according to CBRE data.

In their latest study on the neighbourhood, Living Loving Madrid-Salamanca highlights how the district is with the lowest rate of primary residence, only 75%, and highlighting the rate of empty homes, around 16% of the available stock, which On the one hand, the value of the homes in this district is explained as an investment product, and not due to intensive use by the buyer of the same; and on the other, due to the existence of very old houses, without reform, which do not present ideal habitability conditions.

Salamanca has been, and is, the quintessential wealthy neighborhood in Madrid where many would like to live —and where some have managed to do so in the past. However, a century and a half after his birth, only a privileged few can afford it. Today more than ever, living in the Salamanca neighborhood is a luxury.

* The information regarding the most representative buildings in the Salamanca neighborhood has been extracted from the Architecture Guide of the College of Architects of Madrid (COAM).

** The data regarding rental prices in the sections referring to vertical and horizontal segregation have been extracted from ‘The origins of Modern Madrid: El Ensanche Este (1860-1878)’ by Borja Carballo Barral.

*** Data have been obtained from the Continuous Register Statistics and from the INE.