Sava Lake

How it formed

The lake is a former right arm of the Sava river at Ada Ciganlija. Work on it started in 1957, when the city created a directorate to build a recreation centre on Ada Ciganlija, and it was completed in 1967, when embankments were built above and below the arm. The lake is gently curved, and it is divided into two parts: a settling basin in the south, through which the lake is supplied with water, and the sport and recreation part.

History

The lake was formed when an arm of the Sava was cut off. Long before that, the island beside it was a backwater that mattered mainly in wartime. Its name appears as “Gypsy island” in German and Italian works of the 18th century, though some link it to an older Celtic name. In 1821 Prince Miloš Obrenović declared Ada state and national property, and in 1932 it hosted the European rowing championships.

It also had a darker side. The island held a prison, nicknamed the Little Serbian Alcatraz, whose inmates included Milovan Đilas, Moša Pijade and Borislav Pekić, and on the night of 17 July 1946 the new Communist authorities executed Draža Mihailović and other former politicians here.

In 1957 the city decided to restore the neglected island. Work began in 1960, with an army pontoon bridge to the mainland, and by September 1961 a 6 km embankment had stopped the spring floods. In 1967 two dams joined Ada to the shore at both ends and created the lake, and the first bathers came in the 1968 season. Belgrade marks Ada Ciganlija Day on 25 May.

Nature

The lake's fish include carp, wels catfish and pike, and freshwater crayfish live in it. Since 1994 freshwater white jellyfish have also been seen in it; they are a normal phenomenon in freshwater lakes that warm above a certain temperature and are completely harmless to people. Water plants play a large part in cleaning the water. The woods off the main paths even have mushrooms at the right time of year.