Rafting

Logging and wood industry are quite important for Bosnia, and the Drina river is the main route in the transport of logs from their starting point in the high mountains. Such transport has traditionally been done by rafts.

On the Drina logs were tied together into rafts and drifted down the river. Transportation consisted of a great number of rafts, and the strong and experienced rafters went first. They always started on Monday and the only day off in a year was the St Nicholas Day – their patron saint. Timber was transported along the Drina to Šabac and then along the Sava all the way to sawmills on the Sava and on the Danube rivers. Until after the First World War, the rafters used to go home on foot, from Sremska Rača.

And today there are fewer and fewer rafts and ferries on the Drina – they have been replaced by  a new tourist attraction, the Drina Regatta. Regatta is actually a great funfair on water. Every year thousands of people gather around and on the river in all sorts of colourful vessels, coming down the Drina to the unavoidable trumpeters’ music.

GEOGRAPHY

The greatest mass event, the Drina Regatta takes place every year in the second half of July; it starts from the Perućac Dam, goes to Bajina Bašta and on to Rogačica – some twelve kilometres downstream. But there is also a great regatta taking place somewhat farther downstream, near Ljubovija.