Dobra

Dobra exists because the Danube narrows here—and because Romans needed to control that chokepoint. At the entrance to the Upper Gorge in the Iron Gates, where the Danube reaches 96 meters deep (its deepest anywhere) and squeezes to 160 meters wide at Kazan, the village of Dobra sits on the site of Roman Saldum. The settlement flourished from the Flavian period (68-96 AD) through the mid-2nd century, part of Emperor Trajan's strategic road system through the Djerdap Canyon. Archaeologists found Dacian vessels alongside luxurious Roman imports—the material evidence of a frontier where civilizations met.

The gorge divided more than river: in antiquity, Romans called the upper stretch Danubius and the lower stretch Ister, as if the passage through these cliffs transformed the water itself. Every empire since—Byzantine, Slavic, Avar, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Ottoman—has contested this terrain. The 1972 Djerdap-I hydroelectric dam, built jointly by Yugoslavia and Romania, added industrial infrastructure to a landscape already layered with fortifications.

Today Dobra sits within Djerdap National Park, Serbia's largest at 63,608 hectares. The park balances conservation with tourism: hiking, biking, fishing, boating—the gorge that once funneled armies now funnels visitors. By 2026, the question is whether UNESCO World Heritage status (the park is on Serbia's tentative list) will bring preservation funding or tourist pressure that the Roman-Dacian archaeological sites cannot absorb.