Budva, as one of the oldest ancient cities on the Adriatic coast, is still a great archaeological secret, said architect Slobodan Bobo Mitrović.
Speaking under the walls of the Old Town to Belgrade journalists about the history of the Budva Riviera, the architect pointed out that Budva was first mentioned by Sophocles in his plays, as an Illyrian city under the name of Butua.
"The epoch-making discoveries in Budva were made after the earthquake in 1979. Those discoveries located Budva, the pearl of the Adriatic, as one of the oldest ancient cities in the 'Adriatic basin'," Mitrović said.
Stating that Budva has "lived a peaceful life" throughout history, he added that the first inhabitants of that coastal city were the Illyrians who settled it in the third and fourth centuries BC.
"Before the Illyrians, there were fishing tribes and fishing communities along the coast. They lived from fishing. Later, small communities were formed, and with the arrival of the Hellenes, trade and communication began," said Mitrović.
He pointed out that the city's boom began in 1936, when Serbian merchants, Saračević from Novi Sad and Tadić from Belgrade, "fell in love with the area in front of the entrance to the Old Town" and started building the "Avala" hotel.
"With the beginning of digging the foundation, a sensation broke out. They immediately came across gold, Hellenic and Roman graves. Eight kilograms of gold were found, but there is not even 300 grams in our museum. Everything disappeared around the world, because it immediately attracted merchants from from various regions", he said and added that even now, when excavating the foundations, one comes across bones, pieces of ceramics and other archaeologically interesting things.
According to his opinion, Budva experienced its greatest prosperity during the Roman Empire: "We who support tourism like to say that Budva was already a summer resort back then, because it had rich, luxurious villas with mosaics, hypocaust (floor heating technique). ..".
He pointed out that the area of Budva has always been interesting because of the specific configuration of the soil and sea currents that maintain the beaches and fill them with sand, which is why the Budva coast has beautiful bays.
He stated that the ramparts of the Old Town, which tourists especially like to see, date back to the second century AD, and that their current appearance was given to them in 1.495 by the then "Rector of Budva" Nikola Memo.
He added that the cult of the Mother of God, as the protector of the city, had ruled in Budva for centuries.
"At the main gate in the Old Town there was an icon of the Virgin to which the Mikula family had lit a candle for more than 600 years. When the communists came in 1945, by order of the party, a local resident went and took down the Virgin and threw her into the sea. That's when he cut himself. when he tried to take her out of the frame... In the end, there was no one to carry his coffin when he died, no one wanted to come to that man's funeral. Fairy tales were spun around that Mother of God. She was the protector of the city. The fact is that there was never plague, disease, or cholera in Budva, and no one died in the 1979 earthquake," Mitrović pointed out.
He said that in Budva there are also traces from the time of Nemanjić, who built some monasteries there.
Visitors to the Budva municipality have the opportunity to visit some of the eight monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church - Reževići, Praskvica, Gradište, Podostrog, Stanjevići, Vojnić, Duljevo and Rustovo.
Journalists from Belgrade visited the Praskvica monastery, which got its name from a nearby spring of water that smelled of peaches or "peaches".
Abbot Gavrilo said that the main church in the monastery was dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of Paštrović, built at the beginning of the 15th century, that Balša III (son of Jelena Balšić, daughter of Knez Lazar) is mentioned as its founder, and that the Russians in the mid- 19th century.
"The church has undergone various changes over time, including an earthquake and conquests by Napoleon's army, which set fire to and killed the monks.... Later, the church was extended and became bigger and more luxurious than it was," Abbot Gavrilo said.
Above the church of St. Nicholas there is a cemetery where there is also the church of the Holy Trinity, which, according to tradition, dates back to the 11th century.
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