Trebinje is a small tourist city with a population of 30,000 located in the Srpska Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Srpska means Serbia, which is roughly equivalent to what Goryeo and Yamato mean to South Korea and Japan.
The small town is located in the mountainous area where Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia meet. When you drive more than 20 minutes from the city, to the southern forest, or go to the northern lakeside, you may receive something like “Welcome to Montenegro” on your mobile phone, or from a major country reminding citizens to “travel civilized and practice hygiene,” don’t make loud noises, don’t scribble “and so on,” and other reminder messages—don’t embarrass yourself! The Ministry of Culture and Tourism must now pick up the unfinished business of the education system.
There is a river called Trebišnjica that passes quietly through the city in an S-shape. The river doesn’t look very wide in many places, so you might be wondering whether to call it a river or simply a creek. In large sections of the river, where it is wide or narrow, the water surface is relatively calm and no rapids can be seen. A first-time visitor would never imagine that this river has the surprises we will talk about later. The river water is very pure and clear, and the fish, shrimp and aquatic plants on the bottom of the river are clearly visible. There are several wooden waterwheels by the river, which are not usually used. They already give people a very poetic feeling. Local friends occasionally grab a handful of water from the river to drink. Of course, drinking the tap water directly is not a problem – the tap water comes from the same source as the river water, and it must have been filtered. Even in the middle of summer, you can quickly wait until the refreshing temperature is reached when you turn on the faucet, and then you can drink it from a cup. People will throw away the leftover water directly and no longer drink warm water that returns to room temperature. Whenever I think about flushing the toilet with such high-quality mineral water, I feel a bit extravagant.
The mountains here are low-key, somewhat plain and barren in appearance, and generally not steep. I will write about some surprising things later. The town is completely surrounded by mountains. The main peak in the north is called Leotar Mountain (elevation 1244m), which is more than 900 meters above the valley river. The name of the mountain comes from the Greek word leios, which means bright. Leotar means tights (English leotard) in Serbian. The current name is most likely derived from Guangming Mountain and has nothing to do with tights.
Monte Leotar appears to be made up of layers. Looking at the mountain from a distance, a layer of exposed rocks, a layer of green bushes, and horizontal stripes have become the biggest features of the mountain. The closer you get to the top of the mountain, the larger the proportion of rocks will be, and the more desolate it will appear. The soil layer up and down the mountain is not thick. There is a section behind the flat land dug out to build a house on the hillside. Only less than half a meter of soil can be seen. Below is a complete limestone layer, which is yellowed in the depths. The soil on the mountain looked like it could only grow some shrubs. In summer, there are often clouds lingering on the top of the mountain, motionless. At this time, the mountain adds a lot of majestic and solemn feeling, which makes people think of the time of Moses and feel awe.
This mountain is almost like a stone mountain. On August 25 this year, a mountain fire broke out. From a distance, I saw that the fire was not small. It formed a line of fire from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, scanning from east to west. The hillsides it passed through Everything changes. At that time, the city was filled with the smell of smoke, and ashes fell from time to time around us. According to media reports, the fire was caused by lightning. It is true that there are many thunderstorms in that season. But how could such a barren mountain cause such a huge fire? Unimaginable. The fire burned throughout the night, and it was finally put out the next morning by requesting Serbian helicopters to support the team and carrying water back and forth several times. Later, I went up the mountain to the place where the fire had occurred. Although the trees were burned to death, they were still standing and not burned out. The shorter shrubs even survived occasionally. The fire seemed to be passing over the surface of the mountain, it was really too much. This is not the first time such a wildfire has occurred. It also happened at least two years ago and six years ago.
There are many mountains in the stunning Balkans with similar cascading features to Mount Leotar. This feature is called Karst topography. This landform is named after the Karst region of the Balkans not far away. So this is the well-deserved hometown of karst landforms. This place called Karst is located in Slovenia, just across from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the north. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia were originally part of the same country, Yugoslavia.
During the day, you stare at the mountain and listen quietly to its silent story; at night, under the bright moonlight, the white rock layer hangs high in the air like a curtain, still telling its story quietly. (Limestone is gray-white. I don’t understand why the Republic of Montenegro calls such a gray-white mountain black mountain, and also named their country. In English, it is Negro Mountain. This is a bit confusing, right?) From head to toe, layer by layer The mountain is layered, why is it like this? Slowly, maybe we will find the answer from the river in the valley. The river responds to the sound of the mountains. Isn’t this kind of cascading evidence that the flood has receded? Because if it is another possibility of rain erosion, what is left cannot be horizontal stripes. The more people are exposed to the work of creation, the less arrogant they will be.
In our eyes, the karst landforms of barren and arid rocky mountains are first associated with water in the eyes of geologists. Using professional speculation, it is very likely that there are underground rivers nearby, and there are probably caves… After a little research in Trebinje, you will know that this is really completely related.
Yes, this is the place with the richest water resources in the Balkans. Who would have thought that this special lake is formed by the convergence of two streams originating from the Lebršnik and Čemerno mountains dozens of kilometers away. Rybishnitsa River. On the river course that can be called a creek, the water power is so abundant that people have built a total of 7 hydropower stations! Why can’t we see the raging water on the river passing by the city? The answer is: all that water is bypassed from the underground river.
From the outside, the river passes through the fertile plains of Popovo Polje and then flows into a lake before disappearing. The most reasonable theory is that the main stream of the river flows into the Adriatic Sea at Dubrovnik through an underground river. Dubrovnik belongs to Croatia, and there is the nearest international airport to Trebinje, which is less than 30 minutes away by car. However, if you hold a Chinese passport and want to come to Trebinje without a visa, you cannot pass through Croatia without a visa. Croatian and Serbian languages are not that different.
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is made up of two parts: Bosnia (Bosnia) and Herzegovina (Herzegovina). Bosnia occupies the vast majority of the country; Herzegovina only occupies a small triangular part of the entire southern part of the country, including the city of Mostar. There is no big problem in calling the entire country of Bosnia and Herzegovina approximately Bosnia. The title of “The Cambridge Concise History of Bosnia” by female historian Cathie Carmichael does not include the word “Herzegovina”. But the text of this book still uses the combination of “B” and “H”.
Trebinje belongs to the Herzegovina part of this southern corner. The Trebishnica River area mentioned above is almost all over the small part of the country referred to as “H”.
Trebinje is actually a city on the water, a water city where you can’t see much water. To understand this river, we have to change our way of thinking, because this river is not like the common river with a single channel, and calling it a “bar” is quite inaccurate. It is more like a network. If you draw the underground river part and the surface river together, it will be a water flow network diagram of the “H” part between B and H. An official long-term development plan states that this is the longest underground river in the world, with a total length of 326 kilometers. Being the best in the world is not necessarily an interesting topic, but the uniqueness of the river here is really amazing. The design of the Trebinje river, and even the underground water flow on the earth, is so complex that no one, probably including those who are familiar with Kirchhoff’s laws, can fully understand it. Who knows whether there are any hidden objects in the mysterious underground world? Which parts of the fluid network do not respect this law under certain conditions? No wonder the psalmist said: “The depths of the earth are in his hand, and the high peaks of the mountains are his.” (Psalm 95:4 KJV)
Speaking of which, I have to mention the characteristics of Lake Bileca. Lake Bilica is located upstream of Trebinje, with an altitude of less than 500m. When you climb to the top of Leotar Mountain, you can have a panoramic view of the lake in the opposite direction towards Trebinje. The blue and tranquil lake surface , like a tear drop on the surface of the earth. Lake Bilica belongs to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the other side of the lake is already the territory of the Republic of Montenegro.
Lake Bilica is shaped like a rabbit with two long ears. From the surface, no upstream water can be seen flowing into the lake, but the regional hydrodynamic map of the area shows that several flows of water flow into the lake from the direction of these two ears. The reason why there is no water flowing in now is that the original wonders of caves and springs were submerged by the lake after the construction of the hydropower dam in 1967. It is a pity. If it is during the dry season, you can go down to the lake along the steps and rocky beaches and mire exposed after the water recedes. There are a large number of shell fragments along the way, and there is a faint fishy smell of seafood in the air. The rocks on the road were originally exposed to the air.
Bileca, with the same name on the lakeside, is a manufacturing town located just north of the lake with a population of less than 10,000 people. There is a central park in the city center with one large and one small adjacent to each other. The large park is called National Heroes Park (Narodnih Heroja Park), which commemorates the Yugoslav heroes of World War II. The smaller park is a sculpture park called Ravnogorski Park. There are some sculptures of World War II heroes from Bilica erected here. On the head of the soldier sculpture at the door is a rose as big as a head, probably to express the greatest respect.
There is a monument in the middle, which is the tallest sculpture here. At the top is a Greek-style flower bud cross set on a crown. This kind of flower bud cross is the most popular among the locals. Most of the cars here will be decorated with a small cross, and many people will choose the flower bud type. The base of the monument has reliefs of the crucified Jesus and angels. Of course, there is some suspicion of not scrupulously carving idols. The base of the monument is flat on the ground, but when viewed from the air, it looks like an Iron Cross, which is some kind of recognition of multiculturalism. The grass in the park is suitable for resting and playing. There are maples with dense samaras on one side, and oak trees with broad postures on the other side. The branches are not dense, and they are not like the canopy imagined by the oak trees next to Abraham’s residence. Its acorns are large and bright, and the pulp is difficult to bite with teeth.
The river section of more than 20km from Blicica to Trebinje forms an arc heading southeast. Outside the bow, there is an arrow ready to go, which is the 12-kilometer-long tributary River Sušica and her valley. The river leads to Nudo (Nikšić) in the southeast, within the borders of Montenegro, with charming steep gorges on both sides. These lakes, rivers and valleys are the basis on which Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro draw their national borders in this area.
Compared with the slightly barren mountains, Trebinje’s rain is quite abundant. The rainfall is roughly the same as that in the Huguang area and twice that of Beijing. In the summer, there may be a rumbling thunderstorm at any time, especially at night, the thunder can be particularly shocking. But the rain that comes and goes in a hurry will stop at any time. When the rain stops and the sun rises, a beautiful rainbow will often appear in the sky.
Friends who are familiar with California will be very familiar with the climate here – because they both have a typical Mediterranean climate. What they have in common is hot and dry summers and mild and rainy winters. The author of the Bible’s Song of Songs seems to be from a similar climate, hence the famous saying “winter is over and the rain has stopped”. As for summer, as long as you are not in the sun but under the shade of trees, it does not feel too hot. Of course, air conditioning is still necessary and is standard for local residents. Although it has the same climate type, California palm trees are rare here, and the landscape is naturally very different from California.
Some people call the Mediterranean climate only for the rich, because this climate zone is usually a place where resorts and the rich gather. Is Trebinje considered a value depression with a Mediterranean climate? The price level here is not as high as in neighboring Croatia or other tourist areas, and it is difficult to find luxury elements in the entire city. People are still living a prosperous life. After all, 50 years ago in Yugoslavia, 36% of the people in the country owned cars! In addition, the universal free medical system is also a factor that reduces people’s impatience. This kind of atmosphere is really an excellent environment for a student to focus on his studies. He will not be distracted from studying due to too many temptations like a big city, nor will he suffer from shortages and losses like a place far away from civilization. Don’t underestimate the wonderful effects of any starry night or morning with the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers in cultivating people’s character such as humility and gentleness.
The housewives in Trebinje are all good at gardening, and there are all kinds of flowers and plants in their yards. Rosemary, lavender and many other spice plants are common here. When stewing fish or meat, you can go to the yard and grab a handful of precious and fragrant fresh seasonings. People’s emotions towards their hometown are based on love for every plant and tree. Loving an abstract concept (such as nature), or loving the name of a country or group does not mean much.
Laurel is a typical Mediterranean plant here. The leaves feel a bit like leather, and the leaves are small and thick. The Chinese condiment bay leaf is a kind of bay leaf. Of course, the more famous word Laureate refers to laurel. The laurel wreath is a symbol of honor and victory in Greek culture and is also widely accepted in the English speaking worlds. The Serbs are deeply influenced by Greece and Turkey. The traditional music of the Serbs sounds similar to Turkish music, but it is more straightforward and lacks the twists and turns of Turkish songs.
Another common local Mediterranean plant is the fig tree, which can be seen everywhere even beside fields in the countryside. The fig tree is not too tall and produces richly sweet fruits that can be found everywhere. Many fruits that people have no time to pick will fall to the ground and rot. With such a scene, it is difficult to imagine any famine happening in such a place. Why is the fig tree that Adam and Eve used to make aprons the first plant to appear in the Bible? The answer most likely involves the redemption or favor from God that followed the sin of the first ancestors.
The local men are very hardworking. They are often seen busy in the courtyard on weekends. Those who go to church on Sundays are definitely in the minority. After all, judging from the population base, there are not that many churches. The large and small shops here are not completely closed on Sundays like in Northern and Western Europe, but they just get off work slightly earlier than during the week. Starting from September, the wood purchased by each family is transported one by one by old-fashioned trucks and unloaded. In the following days, the old and young men will spend some time slowly turning their axes to split the wood, and then store it. In an open storage room, it is neat and tidy, very much like an art work expressing winter storage. In this kind of environment, I sometimes can’t help but wonder, does a man who has no experience in chopping firewood have some shortcomings in life? By the way, the winter here is not too cold. Every house has a stove and a fire wall. If you burn some wood, the whole house will be warm enough.
Trebinje’s wine and bacon are specialties that could have been world-famous here. The quality of wine depends on the grape variety. The grape varieties grown here are very suitable for wine making. Such grapes generally do not taste good when eaten directly. What is even more commendable is that most of the families are good at wine making. In early October, almost every household will set up a stove and distill wine. After more than 20 days of fermentation, the grapes are magically transformed into brandy, wine, etc. through seemingly simple distillation furnaces and pipes leading to a cooling tank, and then stored in an air-conditioned wine cellar. The best gift for a distinguished guest from afar is a bottle of home-brewed wine. This wine is moderately sour and not overpowering. The locals will proudly recommend you to drink it. When it comes to store-bought wines, they look down upon them because they have too many added things.
Bacon requires a stove to be smoked for a long time. This is why smoke, wine, and bacon are everywhere in the small town in autumn. It is said to be cooking smoke, for lack of a better word. In fact, it is not cooking under a pot, because most houses now have electric stoves in the kitchen. As for why such exquisite wine is not known to outsiders? There is a joke that they are reluctant to sell them to foreigners because the quality is so good.
Regardless of whether they are men or women, most Serbian people are hard-working, peaceful and friendly. Stable living habits in a small place will form a stable acquaintance society (called face to face group in sociology). Born here, raised here, people meet each other without looking up. Compared with big cities with dense floating population, everyone still has to Pay more attention to being a good person. In the words of game theory, this is called losing reputation because the price of multiple games is too high. This long-term and stable harmonious relationship is often conditioned on multiple games.
The Serbs have a heavy past, they love freedom, they are brave and good at fighting, and they also have brilliant sports achievements; the Serbs are among the best in the world (Dinaric/Danubian anthropological classification), and at least among the tallest players in the NBA There are two Serbs (Slavko Vraneš 2.26m, Boban Marjanović of the Houston Rockets 2.24m); freedom-loving Serbs love guns, especially the elderly who experienced the war thirty years ago. There are almost no restrictions on gun ownership in local laws, and the so-called registration system is not strictly enforced. It is normal to have several guns at home, some registered and some unregistered. Whether it’s a wedding or a gathering of friends, it’s normal to shoot a gun into the sky to celebrate when you’re drunk, but sometimes it’s annoying to do so at midnight.
Generally speaking, it is difficult for the law to restrict illegal people from owning guns, but it can effectively restrict law-abiding people from owning guns. A society where law-abiding people own guns will have better security than a place where only law-breakers have guns. It is unlikely that bullying will occur in such a place, because there will not be much difference in strength between a strong man with the same right to hold a gun and a weak old woman. This is the benefit of gun rights. The Serbs consider themselves to be the holders of traditional values and are unlikely to pursue globalization and diversification, making it difficult to see the mixed situation seen from outside. Coupled with the sensitivity to strangers in a society of acquaintances, what lawless person would dare to come to such a small town to do evil?
Coming to Trebinje for the first time from a big city, it takes some time to adapt to the fact that the house is open at night, and it also takes time to adapt to the fact that children can go out alone here. Key Kids is completely accessible here without the need for a key.
The residential houses in Trebinje are mostly two- and three-story buildings with red roofs, and there are only some low-rise apartment buildings in the city center. People here are used to building houses in a leisurely manner. Nowadays, everyone uses concrete as the overall structure of the house. The first floor is poured first, and the steel bars used to connect the second floor may be exposed for a year, which usually does not affect the ability to move in first on the ground floor. In places with sufficient sunlight, windows generally appear smaller, and every home has aluminum alloy roller shutter windows to block sunlight, as well as the open storage room next to the foundation mentioned above for storing firewood… as well as frequent minor earthquakes, Many factors from the tourism industry have jointly created the characteristics of this residential area.
Speaking of earthquakes, small earthquakes are by no means uncommon here. You may come here once every month. One of them was accompanied by a booming sound. The sound was loud but the vibration was not strong, so the author thought it was a heavy truck unloading nearby! In April this year, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 occurred in the nearby city of Stolac, killing one person. That day, a strong earthquake was felt even across the sea in Italy.
Most of the local houses are what Americans call multi-family houses, two or three-story buildings that can house several households at the same time. The stairs are outdoors and the entrances to each house are independent of each other. The landlord either lives upstairs or downstairs, and the remaining apartments are easily rentable during the tourist season. The interiors are often renovated first, but there are still many houses whose exteriors have not been renovated for several years, creating a sense of post-modern art that is unintentionally formed. The only thing that makes people worried is that many houses did not install stairs and balcony railings before the temporary suspension of work. Looking at a house like that, thinking about the danger of someone falling if they push the door out, I couldn’t help but feel tight in my heart, and I felt like I was afraid of heights even on flat ground.
Yesterday morning I got up and went out to the balcony. I saw that the neighbor’s house across the street had started to build their second-story house after construction had been suspended for an unknown period of time. Four or five sturdy Serb boys started building the wall with large pieces of lightweight bricks early in the morning. Another neighbor’s grandfather also saw the construction scene. He turned back and took out a bottle of brandy from home, walked across the yard and went upstairs to the construction site to give it to the young men, and shook hands with them one by one. To be honest, this type of neighborly affection and courtesy only exists in the author’s childhood memories. Now that warehouses are more solid than before, etiquette is no longer seen.
Swifts and sparrows are common birds around the house. I also stared at each other with the pigeons who were soaked in the heavy rain on the roof opposite. We don’t like umbrellas, but we like to get some rain, right? In the early morning, the open grasslands and woods outside the city are excellent places for bird watching. Those rare birds seem to be more aloof and don’t like to live with humans. So when you leave the residential area, you will obviously hear many different kinds of birds singing. Some can make dozens of rapid beeps in a row, which are brisker than the famous eight continuous notes of the Blue Danube. When it comes to singing gifts like this, even the best sopranos who have received long-term education in mankind must be inferior. In the words of the British naturalist John Ray in his book “The Wisdom of God Revealed in Creation”, this is the huge difference between the skill of nature and the crudeness and imperfection of art. Besides, we haven’t talked here about the wonder that John Ray talks about when you continue to look under the light and microscope.
On a higher hillside, I found large snakes with a diameter of more than 5cm on the road. They did not look as brightly colored as venomous snakes. The snake eagle in Trebinje is the most famous, and it seems that there will be no shortage of food for it in the mountains. Once you reach the top of Monte Leota, you have a better chance of seeing soaring eagles. The biggest meaning of soaring is that you can hardly see the flapping of its wings, but it can fly up, down, left and right at will. Would the eagle be proud of its skill or grateful for the air currents around it that held it up? At least it won’t praise its Creator, and it certainly won’t steal the Creator’s glory. What a big difference between animals and humans! (to be continued)
Copyrights granted By: Ryan Jin solely to FICA Lab for online publication
