Silver Lake or Srebrno Lake ( sr, / , lit=Silver Lake) is an

oxbow lake An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake or pool that forms when a wide meander of a river is cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. In South Texas, oxbows left by the Rio Grande are called '' resacas''. In Australia, oxbow lakes are call ...

along the right

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

bank in the Braničevo region in eastern

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

, near the town of Veliko Gradište. It is a popular tourist

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that tries to provide most of a vacationer's wants, such as food, drink, swimming, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping, on the premises. The term ''resort ...

Location

The lake is located east of

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mi ...

, northeast of Požarevac and west of Veliko Gradište.

Geography

The lake itself is in the broad, low valley of the

, but the neighboring hills rise up from on the north ( Gorica hill) to on the south ( Lipovača hill), while the entire western part of the valley is enclosed by the elongated hill of Veliko brdo and its highest peak of Anatema (). The mouth of the river Pek into the Danube, known by its inverse flow during the high water levels, is just south of the lake.

Historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

sites of the medieval city-fortresses of

Ram Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

and

Golubac Golubac ( sr-cyr, Голубац, ; ro, Golubăț) is a village and municipality located in the Braničevo District of eastern Serbia. Situated on the right side of the Danube river, it is bordered by Romania to the east, Veliko Gradište t ...

also in the vicinity of the lake, so as the springs of " Hajdučka voda" ( Hajduk's water). Silver Lake is an arm of the Danube on its right bank. With the main river bed of the Danube it engulfes the marshy ''ada'' (river island) of Ostrovo. On both points which connect the lake to the Danube it was dammed and bridged in 1971 by the Veliko Gradište- Zatonje road which also crosses the island. Other settlements on the lake are Biskuplje and Kisiljevo. Silver Lake has an irregular arch shape, it is long, up to wide and covers an area of . It is situated at the altitude of and deep as much as . The water is clear due to the lack of pollution and the natural filtration of the water through many sand dunes. The lake is abundant in fish, including white amur,

common carp The Eurasian carp or European carp (''Cyprinus carpio''), widely known as the common carp, is a widespread freshwater fish of eutrophic waters in lakes and large rivers in Europe and Asia.Fishbase''Cyprinus carpio'' Linnaeus, 1758/ref>Arkive The ...

(the largest had ),

wels catfish The wels catfish ( or ; ''Silurus glanis''), also called sheatfish or just wels, is a large species of catfish native to wide areas of central, southern, and eastern Europe, in the basins of the Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas. It has been introd ...

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish water, brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are kno ...

perch Perch is a common name for fish of the genus ''Perca'', freshwater gamefish belonging to the family Percidae. The perch, of which three species occur in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Per ...

zander The zander (''Sander lucioperca''), sander or pikeperch, is a species of ray-finned fish from the family Percidae, which includes the perches, ruffes and darters. It is found in freshwater and brackish habitats in western Eurasia. It is a popul ...

grass carp The grass carp (''Ctenopharyngodon idella'') is a species of large herbivorous freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae, native to the Pacific Far East, with a native range stretching from northern Vietnam to the Amur River on the Sino-Russi ...

and other

freshwater whitefish The freshwater whitefish are fishes of the subfamily Coregoninae, which contains whitefishes (both freshwater and anadromous) and ciscoes, and is one of three subfamilies in the salmon family Salmonidae. Apart from the subfamily Coregoninae, th ...

Economy

The lake has been a popular holiday and fishing destination for decades, but recently experienced visitor's boom, attracting tourists from all over

Central Serbia Central Serbia ( sr, централна Србија / centralna Srbija), also referred to as Serbia proper ( sr, link=no, ужа Србија / uža Srbija), is the region of Serbia lying outside the autonomous province of Vojvodina to the nor ...

, despite lack of major accommodations. The lake has one hotel (''Srebrno jezero''), several restaurant- boardinghouses, a weekend-settlement and the largest

car camping A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

park in Serbia. As a result of the lake's growing popularity, it has been since recently advertised as "Serbian sea", since Serbia is landlocked. A major plans for turning Silver Lake from the resort of the middle class into a more elite place were announced in July 2007. In the next seven years it is planned to build three hotels, congressional halls, pools (both opened and covered), golf courses, cycling paths, shopping malls and

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or ...

. The tennis courts have been constructed earlier in 2007. In 2017, the Silver Lake had the tourist capacity of 2,000 beds with 500 being in construction with the deadline in 2018. There are over 50 objects as part of the village tourism, seven villas, but still only one hotel. Basketball player Miloš Teodosić opened hi
TEO4 Basketball Camp
on the lake. Vicinity of the lake is the location of many festivities: the annua
Silver Lake Chess Festival
Serbian

beach volley Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the ...

championships, "The Days of Carevac" (dedicated to Vlastimir Pavlović Carevac), "Bean Festival", "Fishermen Evenings" (

fish soup Fish soup is a food made by combining fish or seafood with vegetables and stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, form ...

cooking competition, dating from the 1960s), Silafest (international festival of tourism and environmental film), "The Dusks of

" (poetry festival), etc. There were over 50,000 visitors in 2016, including many from the neighboring

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, who mostly visit by weekends. By 2020, the small, grassy

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concrete ...

was arranged, but it was deemed insufficient. Regulatory spatial plan was announced in 2020, which includes the proper airport, the first planned touristic airport in Serbia. Locality Beli Bagrem was chosen. The original landing strip is to be long, but with possible extensions to as plans include not only local, but regional flights (Germany, Italy, Romania, Austria). Apart from commercial objects, garages, hangars and other typical airport facilities, construction of

heliport A heliport is a small airport suitable for use by helicopters and some other vertical lift aircraft. Designated heliports typically contain one or more touchdown and liftoff areas and may also have limited facilities such as fuel or hangars. I ...

is also planned. Deadline is set to 3 to 5 years. At the Veliko Gradište side of the lake, a small, simple pier was built in time, and named Silver Lake Marina. In February 2022, construction of the proper marina with 200-

mooring A mooring is any permanent structure to which a vessel may be secured. Examples include quays, wharfs, jetties, piers, anchor buoys, and mooring buoys. A ship is secured to a mooring to forestall free movement of the ship on the water. An ''an ...

lots, was announced. It will be adapted to receive international cruisers.

References

Sources

* {{cite web, url=http://www.vreme.com/cms/download.php/917srebj.pdf, title=Srebrno jezero--turistička budućnost Srbije, publisher= Vreme, date=2008-07-24, author=nedeljnik Vreme, Beograd

External links