TARA NATIONAL PARK

Tara National Park with extraordinary species of flora and fauna, numerous coniferous trees of which some are a hundred years old, rare animals, picturesque meadows and clearings, it is a real challenge for each nature lover.

The worthy God Tar chose this beauty among the mountains  to spend his godly life on it. It generously accepted him and endowed him with its supreme beauty. As a  token of gratitude Tar left it his godly name and made it special, the goddess among the mountains.

At the beginning of the last century Milovan Glisic searched for a cure for his sick lungs on Tara.

The famous narrator stayed at the monastery mansions, not far from the site where the hotel “Omorika” is situated nowadays. Thus, precisely a century ago, on the land of the monastery of Raca, tourism was born on Tara. That was a mountain house with 60 beds at the place called Kaludjerske Bare.

Mountain Tara is embraced by the river Drina in its big curve  from Visegrad to Bajina Basta,  breaking through the serpentine and lime rocks of the mountains and separating by its flow the Bosnian hills from Serbia.

The massif of Tara  is located in the western part of Serbia, bordered by the river and the canyon of the Drina to the north-east, and by its south-eastern part and its branches it descends to the plateau of Kremna .

“That year when St. Georges day comes on Good Friday, the Drina will flow down the Tara”

As he spoke, thus it happened. At the beginning of the eighties of the previous century, in the very bosom of the Tara, in the village of Zaovine, the first reversible hydroelectric power plant in Europe was built. The accumulation of The White Rzav is not only the vision of the prophets of Kremna but the real architectural miracle as well. Over the years this human creation merged into the magnificent surroundings. The Drina canyon is the third largest in the world, third only to the Grand canyon of the Colorado and the canyon of the river Tara. They are larger but not more beautiful.

Rafting fans called it the Serbian Niagara because of its numerous stone  bisections-cataracts which make splendid waterfalls .

Few are the places in our country which have been preserved from the fierce attacks of the so called nature lovers. Fortunately , this goddess among the mountains has been preserved, in 1981. it was proclaimed the National park and has been protected by the state.The great geomorphologic and geologic diversity, with specific hydrological characteristics of natural and anthropogenic origin, have brought about the riches of the flora and a great number of endemic and relic species of plants. Above all, that is  the Pancic spruce which has Tara as its only habitat. Searching unsuccessfully for 20 years for a conifer that was explained by the local people to be nothing of the sort of fir, pine or spruce and that it existed somewhere in the Uzice district, the great scientist Josif Pancic found himself in the village of Zaovine on the mountain of Tara in August 1875. Then Pancic and the spruce named each other. This tertiary endemic relict bears his name.

On one of the most splendid parts of Tara, the place called Kaludjerske Bare, the Military institution “Tara” comprising the hotels “Omorika”, “Beli Bor”, the pavillion “Javor ” and the National house “Jeremicak”. The hotel “Omorika ” was built in 1977. and it has 420 beds, a swimming pool, sauna, trim cabinet, halls for table tennis and billiards, a disco club and courts for different sports. It is suitable for summer, winter and congress tourism, as well as for the preparations of the sportsmen.

The mountain of Tara has exceptional climatic conditions. Mild continental and mountain climate of Tara is such as to have a positive effect on the curing of asthma, bronchitis and anemia. Mountain air incites the strengthening of the immune system of the body. Climatic characteristics of Tara match the type of the air spa.

Although the man has been present on Tara for centuries, the nature has been fully preserved here. The harmony of economics and ecology is the most important prerequisite of the development, both of the nature and the cultural- historic values and the villages within the National park Tara .

The miraculous beauty that captures the chance visitor and to which he returns again, each time enraptured and infatuated at first sight, is as an encouragement to him. One does not come on Tara to stay for an hour or two or for a day or two. The one who at least once steps onto it remains its lifelong admirer and always returns to it.