Perast

Perast (Cyrillic script: Пераст) is an old town in Boka Kotorska (Bay of Kotor), Montenegro. It is situated a few km northwest of Kotor.

Geography & History

Perast lies beneath the hill of St. Elijah (873 m), on a cape that separates the bay of Risan from the bay of Kotor (two smaller bays within the Boka Kotorska) and overlooks the Verige strait, the narrowest part of Boka. The average yearly temperature in Perasto is 18.3°C, and the number of sunny days is 240 (or around 2,500 sunny hours per year).

Near Perast there are two small islands: one is called St. George island, and the other called "Gospa od Škrpjela" (Our Lady of the Rock), and each of them has a picturesque chapel. Gospa od Škrpjela is particularly interesting given that it is the only artificially built island in the Adriatic, with an area of 3,030 m² — it was built upon a rock ("Škrpjel") after two venetian sailors from Perast found a picture of the Virgin Mary on it in 1452.

Venice owned the city between 1420 and 1797. Perast was part of the Venetian Albania. The city's sixteen Baroque palaces were mostly built in this period, too, as were its seventeen Catholic churches and two Orthodox churches. The old city does not have a defensive wall, but instead it has nine defensive towers, the most important of which is the tower of the Holy Cross. These were built by the navy of the Venetian Republic in the 15th and 16th centuries. Perast was at its peak in the 18th century under the Venetian Republic, when it had as many as four active shipyards, a fleet of around one hundred ships, and 1,643 residents. At that time the most beautiful buildings arose in this fortified town. Many ornate baroque palaces and magnificent dwelling-houses decorated the town of Perast, full of typical venetian architecture [Citizens of Perast (in that period the city had only 1,500 citizens) became privileged in the Venetian Republic. They were allowed to trade with large ships and to sell goods without tax on the Venetian market, which made them very rich.As an example of the wealth of people from Perast, at the end of 18th century they managed to collect 50,000 Venetian gold coins (about 200 kg of gold) in order to pay the famous Venetian constructor Giuseppe Beati to build them the highest campanile (55 m) on the East-Adriatic coast. Right in front of Perast there are two small islands. St George with its small church from the 12th century and the artificial island "Gospa od Skrpjela" (in venetian "Madonna dello Scarpello") with a very interesting legend. On the reef whose top was 1m above the surface of the water, people from Perast had been throwing rocks and sinking old shipwrecks for 200 years, thus creating a plateau of 3,030 square meters, which they then built a church on. Along with the impression that the island gives with its architecture, for centuries the church received many gifts and now it is a type of gallery and treasury of various objects. Beside 68 oil on canvas works, work of Tripo Cocolia (the most talented baroque painter on the East-Mediterranean coast from 17th century), on the church walls there are 2,500 golden and silver votive tablets which people from the Kotor area donated to the church in order to avoid various human disasters.] . The population has since decreased to 430 in 1910 and around 360 today. The fleet was dissolved by the rise of the steam engine.

From 1941 to 1943 during WWII, when Mussolini annexed the territories around kotor to the Kingdom of Italy. The area was part of the italian Governorship of Dalmatia and was called "Provincia di Cattaro". After 1945 Perast was restored to Yugoslavia and now is part of the independent Montenegro.

Demographics

In the last census there were: 146 Montenegrins, 101 Serbs, 29 Croats, 10 Yugoslavs, 3 Bosniaks, 1 Macedonian, others: 59,"TOTAL": 349.

Gallery

Notes

External links

* [http://www.perast.com/html-ENGLESKI/index-english.html Informations about Perast (Perasto)]
* [http://www.rastko.org.yu/rastko-bo Foundation for Culture and Tradition of Boka Kotorska "Project Rastko-Boka"]
* [http://rastko.users.cg.yu Foundation Rastko-Boka News]
* photos from Perast [http://www.fotokate.pl/?act=gal&kat=0&podkat=1&str=3&desc=Perast fotokate.pl]
* [http://montenegro-travel-guide.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=50 Perast Attractions]