The locals of Lepetan noticed yesterday and reported to the competent authorities new damage and theft of stone from the old parapet walls on the local road Tivat-Kotor via Prčanje.
Unknown perpetrators devastated a number of parapets on the road route through the Verige strait, from where they had already removed and carried away several pieces of large, beautifully hewn stone blocks. Likewise, on several parapets, it can be seen that the thieves have already begun "preparations" for taking away new pieces of stonework, because the joints between the stones have been broken and they are already prepared to be lifted and taken away under the cover of night.
This latest act of vandalism and crime was reported to the Municipal Police of the Municipality of Tivat, as well as to the Police Directorate of Montenegro - Tivat Security Department, and the residents of Lepetan hope that the authorities will find the perpetrators and stop this criminal activity that has happened before.
The parapets, which were mostly built during the Austro-Hungarian rule over Boka Kotorska, or immediately after it, are part of the traditional architectural heritage of those regions, as well as part of the visual identity of Boka's coastal roads. In addition to the utilitarian and technical function of improving traffic safety on narrow and winding roads along the sea, because their main purpose is to serve as fences or retaining walls that should physically prevent vehicles from falling from the road into the sea, parapets also have a secondary role as a kind of physical barrier that the most exposed parts of the road should be protected from the impact of sea waves.
In the area of Tivat, the most impressive and numerous old traditional stone parapets are located on the part of the coastal road Tivat-Lepetane-Stoliv-Prčanj-Muo-Kotor, as well as on the part of the road below Ivovića Park in Donja Lastva. There are, however, newer examples of their construction, aesthetically not much weaker than the old parapets from a century or so ago, because partly stone parapets also exist along the Adriatic highway on the stretch from Lepetan to Opatovo.
Unfortunately, this part of our cultural heritage and an example of the use of natural material - stone, which "works" so well in the coastal environment, is often threatened by the criminal activities of unscrupulous individuals who often organize organized destruction of parapets and steal processed cut stone from those walls.
The most drastic examples of such devastation in the earlier period were the parapet on one of the most beautiful viewpoints in Boka, the curve above the church of Our Lady of Angels in Veriga, while now it is also happening on the parapet walls on the stretch from Our Lady of Angels south towards Lepetani. Damage to the stone parapet walls, which are more recent, also exists along the route of the Jadranska magistrala, in the town of Luka and on Opatovo near the former Artillery Institute of the Arsenal.
The municipality of Tivat previously repaired damaged or stolen stone parapets along the route of the old road to Kotor via Lepetan, i.e. Prčanja, but the local administration of Tivat has so far failed to achieve any concrete cooperation with the Traffic Administration and the Public Enterprise for the management of the maritime property under the jurisdiction of the state road transport infrastructure, i.e. the strip of maritime property in which these parapets are located, but unfortunately, not even with NGOs that, on paper, deal with the protection of traditional architectural heritage.
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