Pluzine Municipality

Plužine proves that national infrastructure requires local sacrifice. The municipality of 2,232 residents exists because the Yugoslav government decided in the 1970s that the Piva River valley should become a reservoir, flooding the original town of Plužine and dozens of surrounding villages beneath 188 meters of water. The Mratinje Dam—a 220-meter arch dam ranked among Europe's largest—created Lake Piva: 45 kilometers long, 12.5 square kilometers of surface area, and Montenegro's largest lake entirely within its borders. The old town sits on the lakebed, its streets and homes accessible only to fish. Piva Monastery was relocated stone by stone before the flooding; the residents got relocation assistance and the obligation to start over.

The hydroelectric plant generates electricity that flows to Montenegro's grid, powering Podgorica and exporting surplus to neighbors. The flooded valley's residents received neither ownership stake in the plant nor guaranteed electricity at reduced rates—they traded their homes for the national benefit of baseload power generation. This was central planning's core logic: optimize resource allocation at the federal level, compensate displaced populations with new housing elsewhere, declare the trade efficient because kilowatt-hours gained exceed hectares lost. The 2,232 people living in Plužine today inhabit a rebuilt town 1,102 of them concentrated in the administrative center, the rest scattered in villages that survived above the waterline.

The lake created tourism potential that partially offsets displacement costs. Piva Regional Nature Park, declared in 2015 as Montenegro's first such designation, attracts visitors to Piva Canyon's 3.8-kilometer gorge and reservoir cruises through submerged valleys. But tourism infrastructure remains minimal compared to Durmitor or the coast. The municipality lacks the population base (smallest in Montenegro) and accessibility (remote northwestern mountains) to generate revenue approaching the hydroelectric plant's output. The dam produces; the lake attracts; the municipality hosts both and captures neither's primary value. The electricity sells in Podgorica, the tour operators register in Žabljak, and Plužine collects taxes on gas stations serving transit traffic.

By 2026, the municipality faces the permanent condition of sacrifice zones: the costs were immediate and local (flooded homes, displaced families, destroyed villages), while the benefits are diffuse and national (electricity for all, tourism for some, profit for external operators). The population of 2,232 is half what the pre-dam villages held, and continues declining as youth leave for opportunities in regions that did not drown their economic base. Reservoirs are efficient energy storage, but they are permanent. The old town of Plužine will remain underwater until the dam fails or someone decides electricity is less valuable than valleys.