The Balkan Peninsula is notorious for being one of the great battlegrounds of history. And yet, it possesses another side unknown to many, where ancient forests and vast wetlands harbor pristine wilderness, and sheer cliff walls and desolate plateaus preserve a seemingly unchanged past. Surveying these striking and stark landscapes, one might think they’ve ventured into the Middle-earth of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
Indeed the Balkan Peninsula is home to a variety of regions that border on mythical. In Croatia’s Kopacki Rit Wetlands, land mines keep people away, but enable native wildlife to thrive. Further south, Montenegro’s Tara River carves through Europe’s longest and deepest canyon, and neighboring forests provide refuge to rare animals such as the Balkan Lynx. To the east, millions of birds flock to the Danube Delta to feast on swarms of mosquitoes. And at the west of the Balkans is Skadar Lake, a remarkable landscape of peaks and water.
This is a journey to a world seemingly forgotten by time. This is the wild Balkans.
Wild Balkans premieres Sunday, January 31, 2010 (check local listings).
Photo: Rita Schlamberger, ©ORF/Science Vision
A general note,
since we are talking about Balkan, we have to understand the importance “saying names properly”
there was a reference of “Skadar lake”
there is no such thing as Skadar lake ( I am Familiar with the term, but it is an insult to the indigenous population calling a part of their land in deformed way), maybe you meant, if you meant Lake of Shkodra.
One more reference to Middle Earth or Elves or Tolkien and I’m changing the channel. I don’t care how wonderful the cinematography is, the narration and writing of this is puerile to the point of imbecility.
Who wrote the narrative? Really inane. Why compare to Tolkien’s writing? Betw. his Norse-style “language” and the SLAVIC names of the places here — big difference. Weird.
Then, medvid/medved is not a “nickname” for brown bear, it is the common name for bear in many Slavic languages. Medved/vedmed, medvid/vedmid.
The photography is beautiful, but the commentary is really bad. Don’t know if I want to hear the rest.
Lovely show. I have visited the Balkins many times in the last 10 years: predominately Serbia. But also Croatia (what a beautiful coast) , Bosnia, Montenagro (amazing mountains and gorges) and northern Greece.
tourists who only go to southern Greece and Athens are missing the local culture and native people. Not to mention it is very inexpensive and uncrowded compared to the generic south.
The few people you see in this show you can find anywhere out in the countryside. They live very much like a thousand years ago relying on the land and each other.Oxen carts, orchards and natural crops.
Each time I visit visit Serbia, I am in awe at the variety of landscapes and people of this evolving country.
Despite our stupid american news reports, most people want to leave behind the nationalist/religious bias of the past and join the modern world .But I digress: I agree with many of the comments above:
this show while beautiful, it is over heavy with birds, skips serbia, lacks a map which ALL amercians could use,
and wish they dropped the Tolkien references.
None the less a lovely show with a long delayed attention to the Balkins. thank you
It’s amazing that so many people feel the need to be so negative about a very interesting program. Was it perfect? Probably not, as humans don’t create perfection. It was certainly better, as in more informative and entertaining, than the vast majority of programs on t.v. today.
I was watching this episode a few nights ago. I heard the name “Titlich”, or something like that. It was located between 2 mountains I think. My grandfather was born there. I’ve been trying to find information about it for years but don’t have the correct spelling so I’ve had no success. I grabbed a pen and paper when I heard the name but couldn’t write the spelling down quick enough. I didn’t hear what they said about it because I grabbed my computer and was trying to find info on it.
If anyone knows anything about this place I would very much like to learn more about it. Thank you in advance. I’ll check back every few days.
It’s a mystery that the producers of this episode felt the necessity to make the references to Tolkein’s Middle Earth. Was the point to somehow frame this beautiful but little known area with reference to an imaginary but well known one? The places shown were beautiful on their own account and needed nothing else to support them. By the end of the film the constant references to Middle Earth became a joke and a distraction from what could otherwise been a fine program about the Balkins. What a shame to have spoiled it so unnecessarily.
Donna Campbell, probably it’s too late by now, but still, in case you haven’t received an answer – I believe you mean the plain of Tikves (pronounced Tikvesh) in Macedonia.
In my opinion, the “Tolkien references” were fun. I really enjoyed them even if unable to see the point. Why be so negative?