Between 1878 and 1879, Nikola Tesla lived in Maribor for about six months, working as a technical draughtsman and spending his free time playing billiards and cards. His family searched for him because he had not told them where he had gone. When his father found him, he refused to return home. In March 1879, the authorities expelled him to Gospić because his residency was not in order. Today, this episode is one of the city’s most unusual stories.
Nikola Tesla in Maribor
Before Nikola Tesla became one of the world’s greatest inventors, he was a 22-year-old who had abandoned his studies, hidden from his family, played billiards and cards and tried to earn a living.
Between September 1878 and March 1879, he lived in Maribor for about six months. Here he held his first known regular technical job, but eventually the city authorities arrested and expelled him because he did not have a valid residence permit.
His family thought he was dead
When he left Graz in 1878, he told no one where he was going. His family searched for him, and a rumour even spread among his acquaintances that he had drowned in the Mura.
Then his former roommate Kosta Kulišić unexpectedly encountered him in Maribor. Tesla was sitting in an inn playing cards. His friend was astonished, but Tesla calmly explained that he had a job and earned good money.
He earned 60 forints a month in Maribor
This was a relatively good wage for a young technical draughtsman. He is believed to have worked at the Druško workshop, although the details of his employment are not fully documented.
It is particularly interesting that he mentioned additional earnings alongside his regular salary. These were probably linked to his exceptional skill at cards and billiards.
He was so good at cards that he gave his opponents their money back
Tesla was enthusiastic about the card game piquet and a version of billiards called carom. According to biographical accounts, he was so skilled that he often won, but is said to have sometimes returned the losers’ money.
His favourite establishment was the Pri južni železnici inn, later known as Veseli kmet or Pri Vlahoviču, near today’s bus station.
His father came to Maribor to collect him, but Tesla refused to return
When his parents learned where he was, his father Milutin, an Orthodox priest, came to visit. He wanted his son to return home and resume his education.
Tesla refused. In April 1879, shortly after Tesla’s forced return from Maribor, his father died. Tesla later rarely spoke about his time in Maribor.
We still do not know who reported him to the police
On 8 March 1879, Tesla was arrested and subsequently expelled to Gospić. But who had reported him?
There are several theories: it could have been a creditor from Graz, a dissatisfied fellow player or even someone close to him who wanted to bring him home. There is no reliable evidence for any of these theories.
The inn where he spent his evenings no longer exists
The Veseli kmet inn stood roughly in the northern part of today’s bus station, at the junction of Meljska and Mlinska ulica. The building was demolished in the early 1970s.
Historians have also been unable to establish with certainty the exact house on today’s Partizanska cesta where Tesla lived.
Tesla left, and just four years later Maribor had the first electric light bulb in Slovenia
In 1883, entrepreneur Karl Scherbaum installed a Siemens dynamo and 36 Edison light bulbs in Maribor.
This was the first documented technical use of electricity in what is now Slovenia. It was not directly connected to Tesla’s work in Maribor, but remains an interesting historical coincidence.
Milan Vidmar on Nikola Tesla: a meeting of two remarkable minds
In 1936, Slovenian electrical engineer and chess player Milan Vidmar visited Tesla at the New Yorker Hotel.
In his book Med Evropo in Ameriko (Between Europe and America), he described Tesla as an exceptionally modest man, almost an artist and poet, who lived primarily for his ideas.