Veliko Gradište

Kladovo

Kladovo is a town and municipality located in the Bor District of the eastern Serbia, situated on the right bank of the Danube river.

In Serbian, the town is known as Kladovo, in Romanian Cladova, in German as Kladowo or Kladovo and in Latin and Romanised Greek as Zanes. In the time of the Roman Empire, the name of the town was Zanes while the fortifications was known as Diana and Pontes.

Emperor Trajan had a number of fortications constructed in the area during the Roman times, such as the well-known Trajan's Bridge (Pontes was built on the Serbian side, Theodora was built on the Romanian side). Later, Slavs founded a settlement that was named Novi Grad while Ottomans built a fortress here and called it Fethülislam. The present-day name of Kladovo is first recorded in 1596 in an Austrian military document.

The main business are the hydro-electric power plants of Đerdap: Iron Gate I and Iron Gate II. Other businesses began primarily to support the building and operation of the power plant, and the local folk. The population of the villages around Kladovo is mostly supported by the family members who work as guest-workers in the countries of western Europe, agriculture is a side activity more than an income-generating one.

Kladovo has a beach, Đerdap Archaeology Museum, Orthodox Church of Saint George and a pedestrian zone (Kladovo Skadarlija). Kladovo is on the European bicycle path and in 2016 about 16,000 cyclists passed through the town. As of 2017, the bus line Belgrade-Kladovo was the only one in Serbia which had bicycle carriers on the buses. The neighboring villages of Tekija and Brza Palanka also arranged beaches on the river. Other touristic attractions include the organized visits to the Iron Gate I power plant, local cuisine and the surrounding wine region between Kladovo and Negotin, the Negotin Krajina. In the 19th century, the wine produced here was shipped to Belgrade, Novi Sad, Budapest, Vienna, etc.