These days, UNESCO experts visited nominated localities in Montenegro for the UNESCO list. We wondered why they were bypassing Budva? It's not surprising. Budva was not nominated, because you can neither approach it, nor see it, nor recognize its medieval ramparts
Let's go in order. At the Government session on January 21.01.2016, XNUMX. information on the realization of the project of nomination of Venetian defense fortresses between the XV and XVII centuries on the soil of Montenegro, for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List, was adopted, without any fanfare that such an event deserves.
The Forte mare fortress in Herceg Novi, the Kotor and Ulcinj fortifications were nominated, although Kotor as a whole is already on the UNESCO list. It was an initiative of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
The cultural public did not know about such an important job of nomination. The reasons for such lack of information are that the Ministry of Culture is not in the habit of putting its work projects on the website, except when the Minister congratulates someone or receives congratulations. Neither the Directorate for Cultural Heritage, nor the Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Assets have this custom of advertising. Therefore, the cultural heritage, its condition, the projects of the state of Montenegro are a secret that its citizens cannot know. Although the cultural workers themselves often state that the reform of society begins with the reform of culture, they are unable to disclose what would make every citizen of Montenegro proud. Why are cultural institutions so closed and secretive when it comes to such important projects? Dozens of popular texts and films about Venetian fortresses have been published in Croatia and Italy and have been nominated. Unfortunately, even the prime minister was not able to use this nomination for UNESCO in support of his successes, and that event is no less important than joining NATO and the European Union, because being on the list of cultural assets important for humanity, such a small country, is something that brings worldwide reputation.
Kotor and Durmitor are on the UNESCO list
The reason for such an introduction is due to the question: why is Budva not in that nomination, when as a pure Venetian creation, it has existed since the beginnings of the Roman civilization, from the XNUMXnd century BC and early Christianity, with four hundred years of Venice and continues to the present day and is recognized in the being , the identity and culture of the peoples in today's Montenegro.
Venice came to Budva in 1442 and was there until its last day in 1797. She laid the evident contours of the ramparts and pier. On the walls of Budva are the coats of arms of Morosini, Gradenig, Mem, Querini, with the state coats of arms of Venice, and all ninety rectors who governed Budva are known. The form of the ramparts as they are today was installed in 1495. The promenades of the ramparts with arcades, with mashikula, toparnica, escarpment - all in carved stone, belong to the typical architecture of Venice. With the fortification gradation of growth from the sea, on the rock to the elevation of the Citadel over the city, which has the classic position of the Acropolis, a rare harmonious beauty even for medieval fortifications. With its architectural form, proportion and details, the Gradenigo bastion is perhaps the most beautiful of its kind in Montenegro.
Then what is the reason that Budva was not nominated? There are some theoretical assumptions, how the teams of the Ministry of Culture dealt with the evaluation during the nomination. It is true that Austria-Hungary demolished part of the castle of St. Mary of today's Citadel in 1838 and built a large barracks, which is perhaps an obstacle to the stylistic purity of the cultural property. But there are many such cases all over the world, and even these contrasting cultural layers have qualities as testimonies of a certain time.
The Old Town of Budva has other disturbances from recent times, after the reconstruction from the earthquake, which were noted by several commissions. In 2013, the last Commission for the revaluation of immovable cultural assets made reports, but this is also a secret hidden by the protection services because they do not deliver reports to the Municipality, nor to legal and natural persons, the owners of cultural goods. Most of the changes in the Old Town were allowed by the multi-decade director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Cetinje (four and a half terms) with his professional assistant, against all the rules of the profession and the law, and the Administration for Cultural Properties, as it is, is not far behind him the new name of the mentioned institution since 2010. By the will of the party's experts for cultural heritage, by their action or inaction, Budva has ceased to be a "testimony of time" and therefore perhaps uninteresting to UNESCO experts.
It is a wonderful miracle that despite such "professional care", the Budva ramparts, a medieval fortification, remained the same as in 1495, when they were built in the form they are today. If we exclude the various hanging lamps, which are no problem to remove, the ramparts are, it can be said, preserved in their original form and the inevitable question is why the Ministry of Culture did not nominate Budva when it is a pure Venetian creation.
Being on the UNESCO list means being among the world's elite. Who gave themselves the right to exclude Budva from such a significant nomination, which was a world address from Sophocles, IV century BC to the present day. Which irresponsible services made such a big professional, historical and ethical mistake by excluding Budva from the nomination? And all this hidden from the court of the public.
If today we see the intentions of the authors of the draft Spatial Plan of the coastal area, which in the text of the plan envisages "interpolations in and around the historical cores", then it is clear why the Ministry of Culture does not publish anything on the website, why the Directorate and the Administration also do not have a website for current affairs, why they prefer they keep quiet about everything and why they are happiest when no one asks them anything. It is important to satisfy the big and imaginative investors "strategic saviors of Montenegro" and condescendingly, without any dignity of the profession and the law, close their eyes, destroy the cultural heritage, and advance in their career, secure the highest state awards, become an academician and receive a national pension.
Here, you and such experts are doing studies on the protection of cultural assets, they are either processors or auditors, or they are on the jury, or they are licensed designers, and all for personal benefit, to the detriment of the cultural heritage of Montenegro. Their professional and professional lives last as long as their mandates last, but long enough to destroy what the previous generations built for centuries and left to posterity and world civilization.
You can write well-intentioned letters to the minister (without publicity), you will not get an answer, although writing and the word are the only tools at his disposal. You can ask him parliamentary questions in the Parliament of Montenegro. You will always get imprecise, unconvincing and incorrect answers, as well as promises that will never come true.
Until recently, great personal financial interests and now animosity towards Budva and the political authorities of both the state and the municipality, with the wholehearted help of the Administration for the Protection of Cultural Property, succeeded in reducing Budva to a third-class fairground after 2.500 years of existence.
In 1650, Don Krsto Ivanović wrote that "Budva is a city, small in terms of the extent of the walls that surround it, but large in the reputation it enjoys for its virtues and courage."
Today we can say: Budva, a city big in its scope and its streets, but small in virtue and reputation.
That's how Budva, due to ignorance and irresponsibility or deliberate intent, lost the chance to be nominated for the UNESCO list of objects important to humanity.
The author is an architect from Budva
Bonus video:
