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Sestre Pierina i Antonia s crtežima iz labinskog
avviamenti |
Hrvatski
SHORT
SKETCHES FOR 101 FACES
Tender Remembrances by
Antonia and Pierina Radovic
The oldest
inhabitants of Krapan know very well the past of their
birthplace which, before the establishment of Rasa
(Arsia) in 1937, was the center of coal mining in the
Labin area
Along
with Nino Detoni, the two sisters Antonia and
Pierina Radovic are the oldest inhabitants of
Krapan, today a desolate and rundown ghost town
between Labin and Rasa and which had once been the
coal mining center in the Labin area. They live in
the upper section of Krapan in a small house where
their parents had also lived. It has a 115-year-old
mulberry tree and a dog named Fido who was barking
as I was approached the house. The coal miner's
train with locomotives steaming toward Strmac used
to pass very close by. For that reason, the house
was reinforced with a steel beam, which is a
dominant part of the cracked front wall. Their
father Anton, born in Sumber, was also known under
the nickname Martinacic, he and his parents came via
Presika to Krapan where he spent his entire working
life working in the coal mine as a blacksmith
shoeing the horses that used to pull the coal
wagons.
Antonia passed her 86th
birthday and Pierina was born seven years later. The
younger sister is more talkative while the older is more
mobile since Pierina had a hip operation several years
ago and now must walk with a cane. Because of that she
very seldom leaves her house. When they have to go for
her pension check, instead of going to Rasa with her
sister, who never worked at a regular job and lives on
600 kuna a month ($100) of social assistence (Pierina
was a known seamstress)
[unfinished sentence]. This also provides to
Antonia an opportunity to go grocery shopping, since in
Krapan there has not been a grocery store for several
years now so that two times weekly their neighbor buys
bread for them.
At one time it was very
nice to live in Krapan, reminisce sisters. The place
started losing its importance in 1937 when the town of
Arsia was completed. Until then, in Krapan existed a
headquarters, post office, police station station, two
grocery stores, three bars, a kindergarten and the house
named "Solomon" which was where the fifth grade
elementary school taught in German. During Italian rule
there was the cooperative or store was in this same
building. Talkative Pierina remembers clearly those days
and especially about her schooling. She and her sister
mentioned that in Krapan at that time there were many
Slovenians with names like Knaus, Paitler, Bajt, Hodej
and others, who also spoke Italian, the same as they
spoke in their home so that the two sisters Radovic even
today communicate with each other in that language even
thought they also can easily speak "po nase" the way her
mother spoke who was from the family of Tencic.
Pierina shows with pride
her father's work from the time of Austria, written in
Italian, then she showed her certificates and the
diploma of "aviamento" from Labin, mentioning her
teachers, such as Giovanni Macillis, Maria Valdini,
Rodolfo Caputto, who was her teacher in technical
design. She jealously guards her drawings to this day
and some of them are quite good and could be of interest
to the general public. Through their documents one can
see the curious changes of their last name. During
Austria their father was Anton Radovich, during Italy he
became Antonio Radovi, and her school certificate shows
he name to be Pierina Radioni.
As an employee she worked
in the headquarters of the coal mine in Rasa and was a
witness to the fall of Italy in September of 1943 when
the directorship of the mine changed hands and she
worked with the secretary of the new director of the
coal mine.
After World War II she was
the first secretary of the new coal mine administration
and later she joined the archive in Prvomajska Company
in Krapan until her retirement in 1978.
Pierina remembers the
summer movie theatre in Rasa and Mussolinićs visit to
this new coal miner's town in the summer of 1937, when
"il duce" went down into the coal mine. She knows who
destroyed the monument to the coal miners in 1947.
However, she asked me not to write about it.
Unfortunately the sisters did not have photographs of
Krapan in its hey days. They did, however, have old
photographs from Carbonia on Sardinia a Labin sister
city and where lives their sister Lina.
Marijan Milevoj
(Translated by Pino Golja)
Source:
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https://www.glasistre.hr/?c4906ba8346007ca0285412899f422eb,TS,689,,4261,5201,57036,
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