The murmur of multiple languages and even more accents, hipsters struggling to pierce the olives with a toothpick at the crowded stands (they did not expect the pits) and an abundance of various products characteristic of the Bar region - all this and much more could be seen at the 18th Olive Festival in Stari Bar .
The beautiful Saturday day encouraged the visitors to walk the part from Red Shirts Street to the entrance to the Bar cobblestones, where the first stalls were full of olives, olive oil, but also onions, figs, pomegranates, mandarins, lemons...
Right at the very beginning was Mujo Asović's stand, which this year won the award for the best set-up.
"I come from Velje Selo, from Mrkojević. As you can see, we won the first place for the best stand, and everything is local goods, bar yolk and olive oil from this year", said Asović to "Vijesta" before returning to serve many interested people.
A little further on, there were also stands with products made of olive wood, which attracted a lot of attention, and a special attraction, especially for foreigners, was the display of honeycombs on which bees flew.
There were also stands with soaps, sometimes bags of tobacco, but also miscellaneous goods, so sailor's caps, flutes and scarves of the Montenegrin national football team, Real Madrid and Manchester City somehow managed to squeeze into the Masliniad.
There were indeed exhibitors from all over Krajina, through Gretva to Crmnica, but local favorite Bajazit Haverić won the award for the most fruitful harvest.
Bayazit, whose so far is only a kilometer from his stand at Masliniada, was not modest after the award.
"I am one of the best olive growers in Montenegro, I have about 600 trees and this year I managed to pick up eight tons of olives and produced between 1.500 and 1.700 liters of olive oil," Bajazit told "Vijesti".
He believes that the secret of success is hard work in the olive grove, but also natural fertilizer because he also owns livestock and has his own mill where he produces oil.
Up next to the cobblestones, there were also the first devices for pressing rose hips, which was also a kind of attraction because they could refresh themselves on the spot and watch the production process.
Filip Jovović had a similar idea, who had a model of an olive mill at his stand.
He told the "News" that he used to bring an entire scalameria to previous Olive Festivals, where you can see how olives are squeezed to produce oil, but the cobblestones are steeper as the years go by.
"This type of mill still exists, but it is used less, and more a centrifugal system because there is less contact with the air of the oil and then it is of better quality. This one is not bad, of course, but sometimes more modern is still better, some things are moving forward", concludes Jovović.
Hot bones were also sold on the steepest part of the cobblestones, and the entrepreneurial innovation was noticeable in accordance with the increasing popularity of Masliniade among foreigners, so the inscriptions were in both English and Russian.
An elderly gentleman from Bar, who asked not to be named, jokingly commented that the exhibitor's guard had also gotten younger and that he needed to climb almost to the entrance of the old town to find someone he knew.
A well-known face at the Masliniad was the ambassador of Palestine Rabi Hantuli, who attends the event every year.
"This is a very beautiful and interesting event, that's why I come regularly. I also come because of the symbolism of the olive tree, which is common to our Mediterranean area, many wonderful people in one place", said Hantuli.
The Olive Festival organized by the Municipality of Bar, the NGO Olive Festival and the Tourism Organization of Bar is still held today from 11:XNUMX a.m., when the official program begins.
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