Tales from the Swamp: Central Europe’s best alternative club reopens its doors

A traveller’s life is filled with over-spiced tales of strange nights spent in strange clubs in strange cities. But occasionally you chance upon a venue so intriguing and unpredictable that you’re scared to leave town for fear of missing whatever’s on next.

For the past ten years Močvara (“The Swamp”) has been at the forefront of Zagreb’s regeneration as a centre of non-mainstream culture, promoting gigs, club nights, theatre performances and art happenings as part of its month-on-month programme of the bizarre and the unusual.
 
Having spent the first 6 months of its existence in a former warehouse beside Zagreb’s botanical gardens, Močvara moved to its current location – a disused factory on the banks of the River Sava - in early 2000. However the city authorities always regarded this as a temporary arrangement and failed to provide Močvara with a long-term contract for the building they were using. Things came to a head in May 2008, when Močvara faced the decision of either operating illegally or closing down altogether. They chose to close down, winning the high moral ground when negotiations with the city re-started in 2009. With the ink now dry on a five-year contract, Močvara’s medium-term future looks secure.

Formed by concert promoter Marko Matošić and indie-label impresario Kornel Šeper, Močvara was conceived as an answer to the catastrophic dearth of gig-life that characterized Zagreb in the 1990s. Throughout the decade, a combination of war and conservative politics virtually killed off an alternative scene that had been among the most vibrant in Central Europe.

Močvara was by no means the only organization to drag Zagreb out of its post-war lethargy. It was dance club Aquarius that made the city’s DJ culture respectable again, while maverick concert-booker Mate Škugor (first at KSET then at Studentski Centar) turned the Croatian capital into a centre of on-the-edge rock and experimental jazz by bringing in the best acts from abroad.

However Močvara has always represented Zagreb clubland’s most serious attempt at providing a full cultural service. Many of the city’s most creative minds have presided over the club’s music workshops, literary readings, gallery events and theatre nights at one time or another. Močvara’s flyers, programme booklets and concert posters (designed for the most part by warped comic-strip genius Igor Hofbauer), have become an instantly recognizable part of the city’s visual identity.

Every great venue provides its public with some uniquely cherishable moments. For us at In Your Pocket, the grandiose, chaotic and utterly ridiculous war of the robots - staged in Močvara’s yard as part of the Device Art festival in summer 2006 - was simply something that could have never happened at any other club.