No one remembers where the canoe originated at the end of 1949 in the gymnasium in the Sivo dom building in the Nikoljac settlement of Bijelo Polje, but that event was the reason why in the post-war years many Bijelo Polje residents, eager for company and fun, rushed to the banks of the Lim River and wrote the history of Montenegrin and Yugoslav kayaking with this unusual vessel.
A veteran among them Mirko Stanic, Although he is well into his 90s, he still makes his living kayaking, spending an average of two to three hours on the waves of Lim every day.
"The Lim, its beauty and rapids make me feel unwell if I don't walk through its waters for a few hours. The clean air, the surrounding grass and trees complete the feeling that you are at the source of the ozone you breathe," Stanić told "Vijesti".
Throughout all those decades, he never stopped practicing sports, which he later passed on to his family, and until recently, his wife often accompanied him on his rides. radmila, with whom he had three children.
"We passed on our love of kayaking to our children and grandchildren, and the beauty of kayaking was also extensively tested by the youngest member of the family, great-grandson Alek, whose visits became unimaginable without a visit to Lim," said Stanić.
And thanks to him, the Sports and Recreation Center hopes to soon establish a club. At the center's initiative, the equipment was renovated and a kayaking school has been running for five years, for which the 82-year-old is largely responsible.
"There is no better place to spend a vacation than the waters of the Lim. We teach them to canoe, we have solid equipment, and above all, the most important thing is socializing. The only requirement for admission is the minimum age, that they are not under seven years old," explained Stanić.
That's how old he was when he first encountered a kayak.
"At that time, the waters of the Lim were flooded with thousands of logs that were transported for the needs of the railway from Plav, via Bijelo Polje and Prijepolje to Višegrad. We would find rafts, connect two logs together and row to the end of the Bijelo Polje border. It was all the more of a miracle for us when something appeared on the Lim that could sail upstream," Stanić recalls.
Great credit for the development of kayaking in Bijelo Polje, he says, belongs to the then teacher, and later a medical doctor and famous surgeon, Dr. Blago Popović who in 1951, on his way to Slovenia, stopped in Apatin, where kayaks were being made, and ordered another one, in addition to the one found in the hall. Although the district financial service initially refused, the then president of the district Radomir Medojevic After 'going out into the field', he said that he had made a mistake in ordering that kayak at the Municipality's expense, and ordered at least two more to be ordered, so that if someone capsized, these two could come to the rescue.
The first club was formed in 1953, and in a short time cooperation was established with clubs from other republics, after which meetings and competitions began.
"In the beginning, there was only the "Jablan" club from what was then Titograd, which had better equipment and more experience. The first competition was organized on the Morača, then on the Lim, and in 1957, they went to the Yugoslav competitions. Most of them were on the Sava, but also in Macedonia on the Vardar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Neretva and Vrbas," he explained.
Kayaking flourished until around 1965, when, due to the opening of a cellulose factory in Berane, fewer and fewer people went to the Lim, especially young women.
"Our club won the first three places everywhere, even though we often went to demanding sections without preparation, because we didn't have the money to come a few days earlier to get acquainted with the course," says Stanić.
At Yugoslav competitions, the Bijelo Polje team won first place at the 1960 Junior Championship in canoeing, when they Nikola Buckic and Mirko Stanić were better than the then undisputed Slovenians, since when, as he explained, they are the best in canoeing in Montenegro.
"In addition to me, our kayakers were permanent members of the Yugoslav national team, most often Nikola Bučkić, Djokica Loncarevic, Birth, Rice i Ipko Kasumovic, including Jusuf KurcehaicIn addition to Dr. Blago Popović from the first generation, we should also mention Hazelnut Buddha, who taught and prepared young kayakers, and a great contribution to the development of the sport was made by the sabbath i Sabro Sabanovic", who was also the club's president for a long time," Bjelopoljac pointed out.
As he explained, there were always a large number of girls and women who were kayakers, and there was almost no girl in Bijelo Polje who had not sat in a kayak at least once.
"Among the girls who excelled in that sport were Nena Good i Zora Loncarevic, who were champions in Yugoslav competitions, and later tried their hand at those competitions as well Meleca Kasumovic", he said, noting that Zora Lončarević Đokica's brother, as a student in Belgrade, was a member of the local Academic Kayak Club and won first place in the Serbian championship for years, and that he occasionally competed for the Bijelo Polje club and was one of the most prominent kayakers.
He recalls with nostalgia the multi-day events of carrying Tito's baton for May 25th on kayaks from Plav to Višegrad, which bring special impressions and memories.
"At that time, we were all competing to participate in such an event, where the citizens of Plav happily saw us off, and welcomed us in Berane, Bijelo Polje, and all the way to Višegrad."
Kayakers often participated in searches for drowning victims, and were among the first to come to the rescue when students from a bus that overturned with students from the Bulgarian town of Svishtov were rescued from the cold waves of the Lim River.
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