Old households across the plain and along the river banks, the “salaši” and the “čarde” are today attractive destinations for enjoying fish specialties, “tamburitza” music and home made wine
If a traveler heads for dreamy Vojvodina, as vast as eye can see, he will be welcomed by the “salaši” (a kind of farmsteads), rising from the sea of wheat as islands. Old shadoofs, “čarde” (traditional taverns by the river) and carriages will introduce you into an entirely different world, the one from times long gone.
“Čarde”, where bohemians awaited numerous dawns, can be found near almost all the “salaši”, on the river banks in the Grand Plain (the Pannonian Plain), in the environment of willow groves and rivers.
There is no such atmosphere in Serbia like the easy-going atmosphere in thick shades at the “salaši”, or the merry atmosphere at “čarde” with sounds of tamburitza and dancing in the rhythm of local sounds.
The world went slow at those places and such atmosphere requires natural surroundings – tame nature, “non-baptized” wine in “bocun” (old traditional bottle), homemade strudel, tamburitza sounding and all of it in an easy-going rhythm.
Everything is old, home-like, from authentic interiors to feasts at the “salaši”, as “first comes ‘fruštuk’ (breakfast), and then trip”. One might wish to take a carriage ride or horseback ride across the endless plain. And then, for a true pleasure, head for any of the “čarde” along the Danube, the Sava or the Tisa to enjoy the sound of tamburitza music and fish specialties till early dawn.
There are no working hours, there are no measurements nor menus here. Black fish pot is steaming like it has been for centuries, and when the tamburitza players make “mess” and the river itself is just about to “jump into” the plate, at that very moment one knows what the true good atmosphere is.
Rumor has it that the legendary astronaut Yuri Gagarin visited the famous “čarda” in the town of Kovilj and ate fish soup from a fish pot. That fish soup used to be cooked only in water from the Danube so that those eight fish species from the Danube, and the ninth used as spice, could “swim” better.
“Čarde”, small houses with eaves over the river, are treasuring tamburitza music and old fish specialties like white fish soup or cat fish “škembići” (chitterlings).
“Čarde” have survived till this day, and they existed even before the more famous “kafanas” (traditional taverns), mostly in the 18th and the 19th century, at the time when waterway on the Danube to Pest and Vienna was opened.
Once they were inns for travelers seeking for a place to rest, at the time when boats were pulled upstream. The very word “čarda” comes from the Persian language and represents an “eave on four pillars”. Today this word exists only in Serbian and Hungarian languages.
On the other hand, “salaši”, oases of peace and silence, were built across Vojvodina and they represent vast farms outside the Pannonian villages. Preserved “čardaci” (old traditional wooden houses), wells, wall furnaces and households introduce visitors to the world of old farms and some different life.
The word “salaš” (farmstead) comes from the Hungarian word “szallas”, meaning “field settlement”. There used to be thousands of farmsteads in Vojvodina, but after the World War II large number of these farms lost their owners and were abandoned.
Over hundred of these farms have survived till this day, while some of them are open for tourists. The “salaši” and the “čarde” are more than 200 years old specific monuments of culture in Vojvodina, and can be treated as true ethno museums.
Photo: Micki/Wikimedia commons (license: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported)
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