84 | Dunav » Danube IF YOU HAVE A FEW FREE DAYSTOSPARE, hopaboardaboat inBelgrade and embark on a voyage down the Danube all the way to the end of Serbia, where you are awaited by one of the cradles of modern civilisation, traces of Roman architectural achievements, the country’s largest national park, one of the most beautiful fortresses and much more. Following the course of the river along the route, you’ll come across all of its sites of powerful beauty, of which there are too many tocount anddescribe themall. But if you have only one day, as I did, catch a bus instead. After just a two-hour drive, you’ll arrive inoneof Serbia’smost beautiful and famous destinations, where you can almost reach out and touch Romania. Well, if you have a miraculous arm that’s around six kilometres long, which is how wide the Danube is at this point, which is actually the widest point along its entire course from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. If you snoozed a little on the bus, you’ll get the impression that you haven’t even woken up. Or at least that you’re having a waking dream. Because right thereat theentrance to the Đerdap Gorge, where the Iron Gates have preserved the history of these lands for centuries, you’ll get the impression that you’ve arrived at the seaside. As I stand in amazement at the scene of an expanse of gently rippling water that callsme to swimon awarmday, my gaze turns slowly towards the entrance to the gorge... Along the entire, almost-3,000kilometre-long, course of the Danube, it’s unlikely that there’s amore dramatic contrast in its character than right here at the entrance to this gorge, where the gentle river begins forcing its way through the rock of the Carpathians, narrowing abruptly to barely a few hundred metres. No surprise, then, that it was right here that one of themost impressive medieval fortifications along the entire Danube – Golubac Fortress – arose. It might sound totally cliché, but the view of the renovated fortress really is breath-taking. It resembles a scene froma fairy tale, and thethought immediatelycrossedmy mind that theremust be a princess imprisoned inoneof itshighest towers, busilyplaiting a longbraidof her own hair in an attempt to escape. GOLUBAC, ĐERDAP, THE H I STORY OF C I V I L I SAT I ON Stone guardian of the IronGates The history of mankind, natural extremes, whirlpools and sheer cliffs, indelible traces of history, dragons and princesses imprisoned in towers... The Đerdap ‘Iron Gates’ Gorge has it all That fairy tale impressioncontinued to occupy my mind even when we weremet in front of the fortress by theknightsof theOrder of theDragon, four of themdressed in knightly garb. What they would recount to us about the fortress was partly praise for incredible human courage – the battles that were fought here and the fortified town that remained unconquered – and partly the story of the legends linkedwith this place, startingwith those related to the name... It would thus turn out that my imaginings about an imprisoned princess weren’t far from the truth – okay, that’s according to one of the legends that has it that a Byzantine princess calledHelena was imprisoned in the highest tower and passed the time feeding pigeons. Our knight guides say that this story isn’t even close to the truth about the origins of the name Golubac, as it is much more likely that the pigeon became a symbol of thisplace simplybecause thesebirds never leave the fortress. Nonetheless, even if it is true that the credit for the name belongs to resident pigeons, there is a much more appealing story that has been recounted in this area since bygone times about a beautiful girl called Golubana, who refused to join the harem of the Ottoman agha. To punish her and force her to repent, the cruel Ottoman officer had her tied to a rock in the middle of theDanube.The unfortunate girl was shackled to the rock and died there, while her captor’s words “Baba, kaj se” [Baba, repent] echoed across the Danube, which is why that rock is still called Babakaj to this day, and the fortress is called Golubac in honour of that courageous girl. It isn’t entirely clear why hewouldhave referred to this beauty as baba [grandmother], while it is interesting that ‘baba kaya’ can also be translated from Turkish as ‘father’s rock’, which again has no connection to the recounted tale... Legendsaside,whoactuallyconstructedGolubac Fortress really remains a mystery to this day, with
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzExMjc5