Serbia’s Hyde park

What am I doing in Morovic when I’m not a hunter or a fisherman? … You’ll find out later…

Morović is a settlement in Srem, with 300 houses scattered around two rivers Bosut and Studva, which in the very center of the village make a delta.. They call it Venice of Srem. In the summer the road is in a real cool shade made by poplar trees.

Morović has five bridges, two of them in the center, with romantic names: the bridge of Love and the bridge of Sighs. Steel structures of bridges in the center of the village were made in Pest and set in 1900 and 1902

Morovic is located in an oasis of over 22,000 hectares of dense oak forests, full of deer and wild boars. It is also a true paradise for fishermen, lovers of carp, pike, babushka.

It has an incredible geographical position because it is located close to important roads.

People from Morovic used to let up to 30,000 pigs in the woods. They were “black hair”, created by crossing the Srem pig and the white mangull. There were a small number of  farmers, because bread and money could be gotten faster than to wait for wheat and corn to be ready.

Morović is a very old settlement. Discovery of the Roman cemetery confirms it. The legend says that Morovic was named after the old Morovic family that ruled this area in the 13th century. After the extinction of the Morovic family, the Hungarian king Matija Korvin gave these lands to his son, and since then the rulers in Morovic become changeable.

Morovic was also called the shield of  Slavonians, because there were heavy fighting with Turks here. There was also a fortress that was surrounded by channels on all sides while the river flow was changed by human action.

When Karlovci Peace was signed in 1699  Morovic belonged to Austria and became a part of frontier. The influence and significance of Morovic under Austro-Hungarian rule is getting weaker.

During The second world war power  in the village was taken over by the notorious Ustashas.

At the entrance to the village there is the oldest, Catholic church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the 12th century,

There are at least three legends about the church. One of them is that Maria Theresa ordered a tunnel to be dug through which her lover could visit her. The Queen of the Habsburg Monarchy had a reputation that she was no stranger to an affair in fact, it was even rumored that some of her sixteen children were the result of love adventures with young peers. The legend says that the queen wanted to conquer the young proud lover and ordered that a small door to be made that anyone who wanted to enter had to bend down. However, the young lover was cunning, and he decided to enter the church backward. It is not known how it ended, but the legend remained.

According to the second legend, there is the possibility that the Metodije ,Cyril’s brother was buried in the church. Cyril was buried in Rome and there are no relevant data for Metodije.
According to the third legend, the church was erected by lady Jelena after her husband Stevan Štiljanović went to war. As a poor Catholic woman, she wanted to ask the Blessed Mother for his safe return.
Some people say that Despot Štiljanović himself has picked it up. Not a few of those who are convinced that the church was actually built by the first Christian king of Hungary’s Stefan.

However, many elements contribute to its mysticism. Underneath it, there are certainly many crypts, hidden spaces and tombs that need to be discovered

A little outside the village is VU Morovic.

Two villas, Srna and Košuta, and five wooden bungalows were built for the president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, with the idea for him to rest here after his operation in Ljubljana in 1980.

Villa “Srna” was expressly built during Tito’s disease from 1979-80, and it is equipped even with an elevator, they say, because of the marshal’s amputated leg. The whole interior is in oak wood, and in the villa there are two apartments, a billiard room and a kitchen equipped like in the best hotels, there is also a marble
bathroom that is bigger than many others in Belgrade apartments.

Tito liked to come to Morovic, and according to one anecdote he was the only one “to be blamed” for the formation of the hunting grounds. Apparently, when he first came, instead of a wild boar, he killed a pig from one of the nearby farms. He was so angry that he immediately ordered the farms to be moved, and the forest to be  fenced as a new hunting ground.

Apart from the residential villa “Srna”, the complex consists of an open type hotel – villa “Košuta” and five four-bed bungalows. At the hotel restaurant, whose bar is decorated with a stuffed Bengal tiger, a trophy from Tito’s trip to Africa.

I do not know if the ramp was made for Tito, but in any case all praise.

In Morovic, they say, it is best to come in September when the deer use their bleat calls.

Instructions for using Morovic:

  • Turn off your mobile phone,
  • Throw ball, badminton, frisbee
  • Bring your blanket Eat a hunting lunch
  • Awaken your inner child

All in all, the politicians knew how to pick when they founded Morovic and I had a lot of fun.

Written and enjoyed,

Marko Veličković

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