People vs. river

In late 19th and early 20th century the Austro-Hungarian Empire took on a huge river engineering project in Ljubljana Basin - they chained the mighty Sava river into a straightened channel running north-northeast of Ljubljana from Tacen through Šentjakob all the way to Litija.

But Sava wouldn't be tamed. In the nineteen thirties it broke the channel from Tacen to Šentjakob and the engineers decided to let it be; they just made sure the bridges didn't collapse. The channel downstream held fine, because the now free river lost some of the power and the pressures on the channel walls were reduced.

However, in september 2010 a huge flow following torrential rains destroyed part of the channel and wild Sava carved a great 'S' into its banks (like a warm knife through the butter) just beyond the Šentjakob bridge, simply washing away hundreds of meters of the retaining walls and taking thousands of tons of rocks, sand and soil with it.

You can see a part of the newly created bend on the left bank, a sandspit on the right bank - and the straightened channel downstream, still holding Sava and defying its power. Who knows for how long ...

Kite aerial photo, Nikon 1 J1 on a Rokkaku kite.