"Avert not thine eyes," she would say.
That is the first thing Bajina Bašta would tell you, if she could speak. Not a greeting, not a welcome — a warning. A quiet, firm instruction. Because people pass through her too quickly,
eyes fixed on the destination, missing everything in between.
Look at me, she would say. Really look.
Bajina Bašta does not shout. She has never needed to. She sits where the Drina bends like a question mark, cradled between mountains that have been here longer than memory, and she speaks in the way that old things speak - slowly, with patience, trusting that those who are meant to hear her will stop long enough to listen.
She would tell you about the river first. The Drina is not just water. She is an argument between two countries that never got resolved, a mirror that reflects clouds nobody else can see, a lullaby for everyone who grew up falling asleep to the sound of moving water. Avert not thine eyes from the Drina, Bajina Bašta would whisper, especially in the morning, when the mist sits on her surface like something sacred.
She would tell you about the mountain next. Tara stands behind her like a guardian who never asked for the role but accepted it anyway — ancient, forested, indifferent to the noise of the modern world. In autumn, Tara burns red and gold, and Bajina Bašta glows in the borrowed light. People come from all over to see it. They take photographs and leave. But the city would want you to know that the colors look different when you are not in a hurry.
She would tell you, too, about the people. Small town people, with small town memories and the kind of loyalty that cities twice the size have long forgotten. She would tell you about the
old men who sit in the same chairs every morning, drinking coffee that has gone cold before they finish it. About the children who still play outside after dark. About the way everyone
knows your name before you have introduced yourself, which can feel like suffocation and like home depending on the day.
If Bajina Bašta could speak, she would not brag. She has nothing to prove. She has the river and the mountain and the sky, and she has learned - the way only small, quiet places learn - that beauty does not need to announce itself.
She would just ask one thing of you.
Avert not thine eyes. Stay a little longer. Look a little harder. You will find that there is more here than you expected — more history, more stillness, more life — if only you are willing to see it.
Tekst napisao:
Bojan Ristićević,
Napomena: Tekst je osvojio drugo mesto na konkursu, na Univerzitetu Singidunum
