SAILING WITH SERBIAN KNIGHTS
SLAVJANA SHIP SAILS Serbia, Serbia, you are my love, you are my sister... This is a song sung by the Russian priest-monk Feoktist, one of the creators of an unusual idea: to convey the memory of common ancestors to the future generations, he ordered replicas of old Russian ships. One of the three ships, named Slavjana, crossed over the "the seven seas" from the far north of Russia to arrive in Serbia and to be presented to the Serbian Svibor knights. The Slavjana sail is a part of the tourist offer of Belgrade this summer.
T
he knights’ alliance Svibor has for decades cooperated with the Russian knights – Bogatyrs. They pay each other visits, cross arms at tournaments and make plans of epic proportions. One such idea was a big venture called "Travelling to the country of Serbia". On Lake Onega, in the shipyard of the city of Petrozavodsk, sailboats of special Karelian resin fir are constructed, and their structures are equal to the medieval ones. Such ships sailed in Russia and Europe a thousand years ago. It was based on the records of visits to the medieval Serbs who came to Russia as scholars and Orthodox missionaries that an idea emerged to embark on "a return historic march". Three replicas of the ships were constructed: Vitez, Hrabr and Slavjana. The first trial sails took place in the cold northern Lake Onega, on the Nativity of the Virgin, in the autumn of 2011, when the ships embarked on their epic tour. At a festive gathering before the start of the venture, the monk Feoktist consecrated the sailing ships and sent a message to brotherly Serbia, "We present you the Slavjana ship, so wait for us!"
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Summer | Leto 2015 BelGuest
The ship sails on every working day from 6 p.m. and on Saturdays at 4 p.m. and at 6 p.m. from the Zelenilo port at the Zemun quay, near the Hotel Yugoslavia. www.svibor.rs; www.tob.co.rs ACROSS SEVEN SEAS Vitez, Hrabri and Slavjana traveled three years and traveled a long road of seven thousand kilometres. They sailed through eight states and literally across the seven seas, countless of rivers, lakes and canals. Along the way, they suffered many a temptation: they were stopped by the frozen river, they were slapped by giant waves, were accompanied by dolphins and found themselves in the midst of naval manoeuvres... When they arrived at their destination, the Russia knightly brothers, as they had promised, donated Slavjana to Svibor. REVIVING HISTORY We were guests at the promotional tour, which, in cooperation with the Tourist Organisation of
Belgrade (TOB), was organised by Svibor: "We use the ship for exercises, and from this year, in cooperation with the TOB, we also use it for tourism purposes. Since there are only three such ships, visitors of Belgrade and Belgraders have a unique opportunity to sail in the manner it was done thousands years ago. We have designed a tourist-historical spectacle on rivers which, with knightly competitions and crew dressed in knightly armours, revives the period of the Middle Ages. The main charm of Slavjana is, still, the story about the ship, who built it and how, where it sailed, why is it here today with us,” the knight Radivoje Radulović, president of Svibor, speaks with BelGuest magazine. With the ship's bell, that, according to Orthodox tradition, rings once strongly and the second time quietly, we sailed on the Danube and the Sava. From the coast and anchored ships people enthusiastically waved us. Slavjana is so beautiful and unusual that we warmly recommend it. Dragana Barjaktarević