Od svih mostova na Drini, najpo- znatiji je stari most u Višegradu, zadužbina Mehmed-paše Soko- lovića, izgrađen 1571. U tursko vreme, za vreme Au- strougarske i u periodu između dva svetska rata, za transport robe rekom Drinom, sve do ušća u Savu, koristile su se drvene la- đe teške i po 13 tona Drina je poznata kao stanište plemenitih vrsta ribe – mladice, lipljena, mrene, pastrmke... Of all the Drina’s bridges, the most famous is the old bridge in Višegrad, the endowment of Me- hmed paša Sokolović (Sokollu Mehmed Pasha), built in 1571. During the periods of Ottoman rule, Austro-Hungarian rule and between the two world wars, heavy wooden ships weighing up to 13 tonnes were used to trans- port goods along the Drina The Drina is known as the habitat of noble species of fish – bream, grayling, barbell, trout etc.
I t formed the border between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. It has a thousand faces and every sin- gle one is real. It is wild and complete- ly peaceful. Fast and slow. Tumultuous, cold and timid. It takes and gives. They called it Zelenika (Green one), but it isn’t only green. Its colours change from dark green via emerald to completely trans- parent and azure blue. She changes di- rection as she feels, in some places twist- ing, then becoming completely straight. Those who know her well say that, re- gardless of the love they feel for her, they never fully trust her. Her name is Drina. In the folk tradition, her meander- ing flow is noted with the words “Who will straighten the curves of the Drina”. Anyone who has experienced the Dri- na just once never forgets it, and many – both known and unknown – have tried to describe its fatal beauty… Ivo Andrić wrote about it in his nov- el The Bridge on the Drina as follows: “For the greatest part of its course the river Drina flows through narrow gorg- es between steep mountains or through deep ravines with precipitous banks. The rivers banks only spread out in a few plac- es to form valleys with level or rolling
stretches of fertile land suitable for cul- tivation and settlement on both sides.” And writer Isak Samokovlija wrote in his story “The Sun over the Drina”: “She seduced me like a living, divine being. Her clear magical green colour, full of sunshine, which I regularly embraced in my soul every summer, filled me for my entire life with some serene, pure and wondrous power”. This wild beauty also captivated ac- tor Robert De Niro when he hitchhiked across Serbia in 1967 and spent a night sleeping in a meadow beside the Drina in Gornja Koviljača. He was so impressed by this river that he gave his daughter the name Drina a few years later. As a symbol of gratitude for having presented the Drina to the world in the most beautiful light, Zoran Mirković, a lov- er of this river and owner of the ‘Sunča- na reka’ ethno-village in Banja Koviljača, named one of this complex’s settlements after the famous actor. Guests now vie to get a place “at De Niro’s place”. - Thanks to Robert De Niro, the whole world knows about the Drina, and this was our way of thanking him - says Mirk- ović. An agreement has never been
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