Zara

Upon the news of the death of Zarija Lekić (84), the former president of the Municipality of Bar (from 1993 to 1997), Baran's first reaction was: "A good man!" "Good" means everything: virtuous, noble, dignified... and everyone knows that they said the right word, which describes this mild-mannered man from Crmnica.

We didn't know each other well. Once, during my many years of study, I asked him, as the manager of the library, to hire me to be a librarian. He told me that it seemed to him that my affinities were different, more dynamic.

And I got to know him well only on the other side of the Adriatic, in Bari.

In the mid-nineties, on the occasion of the "Roads of King Nikola" bicycle race, a four-member "delegation" from Bar stayed in Bari: the President of the Municipality Zarija Lekić, two directors in tourism, Dragan Simović and Vojo Banović, and, independently of them, me, as a journalist of Radio Bar , which was supposed to accompany the meeting between the mayors of Bar and Bari. But nothing came of that meeting, because two days earlier the mayor of Bari was arrested for some embezzlement. Dragan "stinged" his friend Zaro that the arrest did not bode well.

The cyclists were accommodated in bungalows on the outskirts of Bari, and the four of us went to the "Leon d'oro" - the "Golden Lion", a hotel in the city center. When the receptionist said that the bed and breakfast costs one hundred marks, I said goodbye to my companions and started looking for private accommodation. I had 200 marks in my pocket and a long list of what to bring my daughters. The President of Bar Municipality, the founder of Radio Bar, stopped me with the words:

"You're not going anywhere, you're staying with us."

I thought that he would withdraw the money, which, as they say, would be refunded upon his return. However, it never occurred to him to damage the Municipality in any way.

"We'll sleep together in my room."

I passed unnoticed past the reception and into the luxurious, spacious room, picked up all the pillows from the three "bar" rooms and made a relatively comfortable bed on the floor.

After a half-hour conversation, we fell asleep, but the sound of the phone woke us up. Zarija answered.

"Hello?"

"Ready?"

"Ready."

"Mayor of Bar?"

"Please?"

"Mayor of Bar, Zarija Lekic?"

"Yes, I am."

“Kod vac uno illegalo?”

"Who?"

„Illegal, one moment… Vujovic.“

Zarija followed, he covered the receiver with his hand.

"Milan, they discovered us. They will arrest me as well as their mayor. Thank God, there will be an international scandal. What should we do, cried our mother?"

„Pronto, pronto, illegalo Vujovic?”

Tajik.

"What shall we say, the rupture of the brocade?"

While I was also feverishly thinking about what to say to the Italian at the reception, a typically bar-like voice came from the receiver: "Zaro, uiiip!". The benevolent president, happy that our "smuggling" remained undetected, did not get angry with Dragan Simović, from the next room, he just laughed and commented:

"Well, these bar mangups are nowhere to be found..."

And Simović also told me an anecdote from Lekić's apartment, which happened a few days after Zarija's office ended. They were playing battle and they needed paper. Zarija got up and tore out four pages from the middle of his younger son's notebook.

"He didn't even bring a sheet of paper home from the municipality," Simović explained the scene.

Zarija definitely "bought" me during an epidemic in the city hospital. The woman, all distraught, brought her dehydrated child in her arms. The president of the municipality was visiting the children's ward and when he saw that mother crying, he cried with her.

I loved meeting him. I always felt better after a short chat with him. He used to walk with a company, lately with his Slavica. The two have two sons, Mašan and Srđan, well-mannered and exemplary young men.

And Zarija was one of the heroes of "Bar Tales".

In the fourth book from this series, which was promoted about fifteen days ago at the "Bar Chronicle", there is also this incident:

One of the most popular presidents of the municipality, Zarija Lekić, came to this position from the position of president of the municipal union. While he had not yet "paid off" the trade union and assumed his new position, in agreement with Zdravko Gvozdenović, the secretary of the municipal assembly, Sabaetin Perazić, the head of the Directorate for Joint Affairs, went to his office to ask him, as the president of the trade union, whether they will support the initiative to increase (low) salaries in the Municipality.

"And what did he tell you?" - asked Zdravko, after returning from Zaria, a kind of pensive Sabaetin.

"He told me that, as the President of the Union, he absolutely supports me, but that we will have to wait and see what the President of the Municipality thinks about it!?"

Bar mourns for a good man, the former president of the Municipality, Zarija Lekić, who was buried yesterday in Komarno, his native village.