The trade
From the second half of the nineteenth century, logs from forests worked under Austro-Hungarian administration were floated down the Tara and the Drina to the sawmills at Foča. At first the timber came from the right bank of the Tara; later the route reached up the river as far as Mojkovac.
Locally the workers are remembered as triftari or splavari. They rode long rafts made of logs bound together, and the job was respected and well paid because of what it cost.
What made it hard
- A log raft barely steers. It carries momentum and cannot stop, so every line had to be chosen early.
- Many of the rafters could not swim, on a cold river full of rock.
- Men died doing it. Several places along the Tara are said to carry names that remember accidents from this period.
From timber to tourists
Records kept in Foča describe a group of visitors from Germany and England going down the Drina on wooden rafts as early as 1923. The timber floating stopped during the Second World War and started again afterwards, and from the late 1950s the rafters increasingly carried paying guests rather than logs.
The inflatable boats came later. The idea — a crew reading the water for passengers who cannot — is the same one.
The Drina connection
The Tara meets the Piva at Šćepan Polje and becomes the Drina, which carried the timber on to Foča. Most of the written history of the trade is kept on the Bosnian side, in Foča, which is also where tourist rafting on these rivers was first organised.
Why it is worth knowing
It changes what the day is. Rafting the Tara is sold as an adrenaline trip, and it is one. It is also the latest use of a river that has been worked by boat for well over a century.
If the water is flat and your skipper is in the mood, ask about it. Local guides often know the stories that go with particular stretches of the river.