Serbia
Iron Gates on Danube
Iron Gates: The Danube Gorge Between Serbia and Romania
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Good to know
Sailing the Gorge
Ships pass the Iron Gates as a scenic cruise rather than a port call, often on the same day as a stop at Golubac, and the views are from the deck. Your cruise line will tell you when the ship enters the gorge and which stretches it passes in daylight.
- The gorge forms part of the border between Serbia, on the south bank, and Romania, on the north bank.
- Its narrows come in sequence: the Golubac gorge, Gospođin Vir, the Great and Small Kazan, and finally the Sip gorge below Orșova.
- At the Great Kazan, the narrowest point, the river is 150 meters wide and up to 53 meters deep.
- The Iron Gate I dam, completed in 1972, raised the river near the dam by about 35 meters, and ships pass it through navigation locks.
- The Serbian side is the Đerdap National Park and the Romanian side the Iron Gates Natural Park.
What to Look For
The gorge is a string of landmarks rather than one view, and several of them are cut into the rock itself. Keep binoculars handy and know which bank to watch.
- Golubac Fortress: A medieval fortress stands on the Serbian bank at the head of the first gorge.
- Lepenski Vir: This Mesolithic site lies on the Serbian bank in the Gospođin Vir gorge. It was found in 1960 and moved to higher ground before the reservoir rose.
- The face of Decebalus: On the Romanian bank at the Small Kazan, a likeness of Decebalus, the Dacian king who fought Rome, was carved into the cliff between 1994 and 2004.
- Trajan's plaque: On the Serbian bank, the Tabula Traiana, a Roman inscription 4 meters wide, records the road the emperor Trajan had cut into the cliffs between AD 98 and 100.
A Brief History
The Iron Gates have been a barrier and a crossing point for thousands of years, from Mesolithic villages and Roman road builders to the engineers who finally tamed the rapids in the 20th century. Much of what stood on the old banks now lies under the reservoir created in 1972.
- The first settlers: Archaeologists named the Iron Gates Mesolithic culture, dated to about 13,000 to 5,000 years ago, after the gorge. Lepenski Vir, one of its key sites, has the remains of seven successive settlements.
- Rome on the Danube, AD 98 to 105: The river was part of Rome's frontier. Trajan's engineers cut a road into the cliffs, and Apollodorus of Damascus built a bridge downstream from 103 to 105, ahead of the final conquest of Dacia.
- Pilots and rapids: Rocks and rapids made the gorge notorious among boatmen. Under Ottoman rule local pilots guided ships through, and the Serbian prince Miloš Obrenović later appointed Serbian pilots in their place.
- Ada Kaleh: This walled island about 3 km below Orșova passed between the Austrian and Ottoman empires several times from 1669. After the 1878 Congress of Berlin it stayed the sultan's property, apparently because the treaty never mentioned it, with its own tax and customs freedoms, until it passed to Romania in 1923.
- Blasting a channel, 1889 to 1896: Hungarian engineers spent 11 years cutting channels through the rocks, and the Sip Canal was opened on 17 September 1896 by Emperor Franz Joseph and the kings of Romania and Serbia. Its current was so strong that until 1973 ships were hauled upstream by locomotive.
- The dams, 1964 to 1984: Romania and Yugoslavia began a joint dam project in 1964. Iron Gate I opened in 1972 and Iron Gate II in 1984, and old Orșova, Ada Kaleh and at least five other villages, home to about 17,000 people, were cleared and flooded.
- Saving Trajan's plaque: Before the water rose, the Tabula Traiana was cut from the cliff in a single 350-ton block and raised 22 meters, in work that ran from 1967 to 1969.
- Protected land: Serbia created the Đerdap National Park in 1974 and Romania its park on the north bank in 2001. In July 2020 a wider area on the Serbian side became a UNESCO Global Geopark.
The Iron Gates with Children
The gorge suits children who like spotting things, so give each age something to find before the ship reaches it. Agree in advance which bank everyone should watch.
- Younger children: Look for the giant stone face of Decebalus carved into the cliff on the Romanian bank at the Small Kazan.
- School age: Find the Roman plaque on the Serbian bank, then work out how a 350-ton block of rock was lifted 22 meters up the cliff to keep it above the water.
- Teenagers: Read about Ada Kaleh before the trip: a walled island that kept its own customs and tax freedoms into the 20th century, until the reservoir covered it.
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