When, celebrating his seventy-third birthday, Lazar Popović, a resident of the suburbs of Budimlja, went out yesterday morning to visit the graves of his parents, he was in for an unpleasant surprise. The night before, someone tore the bust of his father Andrija, a first-time fighter, who died in the national liberation war in 1942, from the tombstone and took it away.
The bust stood in that place for 40 years, and Lazar says that his feelings are as heavy today as when his unfortunate father died in the war.
"I was a child, and maybe I didn't understand the gravity of death then. Today I feel like my father died for the second time. This is the most difficult day in my life," Popović told "Vijesti".
He says that the vandals did a lot of damage for a small interest, because on the same night, four more busts disappeared from the Buda cemetery, while they failed to "uproot" the fifth one.
"Those busts were very expensive to make, while vandals can sell them for just a little bit of money. All the busts were made of bronze, and they were stolen only for the reason that they would be melted down and sold," says Lazar.
Even if the police did an investigation, this man does not believe that the perpetrators will be discovered or brought to justice.
"These graves are our sanctuaries. But in this society, sacred things are not respected and it seems that nothing is sacred anymore," says Popović with exasperation.
In addition to the Popović family, the tombstone bronze busts of the Čantrić, Bojičić and Malević families also disappeared in the same night.
Budimlja Local Community Board member Žarko Čantrić, who lost a bust of his late uncle, says that the entire village is horrified.
"Something like this has never happened in this village. The locals are bitter and angry, and if the police don't solve this quickly, I'm sure we won't sit idly by. This is serious vandalism," says Čantrić.
The opinion and indignation of all other residents of the Buda parish, one of the oldest settlements in the Lim valley, is undivided. Three kilometers away from the city, Budimlja today has about three to four thousand inhabitants.
This village used to be the seat of the Bishopric of Buda, with the famous Šudikova Monastery. That is why it is not surprising that this is, after the city cemetery, the largest cemetery in Beran municipality.
That the cemetery in Budimlja is even more than ten centuries old is indicated by the fact that a few years ago, in this very cemetery, archaeologists unearthed the foundations of a church or temple from the Roman era quite by accident.
Thefts of copper objects are frequent
Thefts of valuable copper and bronze metals in Berane have always been current, but recently they have become more frequent again, while the police helplessly search for the perpetrators.
Ten years ago, the entire copper roof disappeared from the unfinished building of the health center, only a few hundred meters away from the police building, under the cover of night, bit by bit. The copper roof was also removed on several occasions from the hotel "Lokve", on the Cmiljevica mountain.
This also happened recently, although that hotel has been renovated. The citizens of Beran appeal to the police to put an end to the thefts, and believe that, if only copper and bronze are involved, it would not be difficult. Most of them are probably right when they say that one should only find buyers of copper and bronze in the north, of which there are only two or three.
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