Guided cycling tour / Along the Drava River with Boris Kolar
Thursday, 20 June 2024, 18:00
meeting point: old sanatorium, Tyrševa 19
end: Mariborski otok
With Boris Kolar, writer, biologist, ecotoxicologist and an outstanding expert on the Drava and other “Maribor waters”, we will go on a cycling tour, where the author’s expertise and his exceptional (humorous) sense of storytelling will intertwine. Boris Kolar will take us through the different worlds that emerge in and along the various rivers, streams, ponds, springs and embankments in Maribor, where we will get to know both the biological and the cultural and historical life of these waters.
We will meet the author in the garden of the old sanatorium, the main venue of the Triennial EKO 9, and first go together to the three ponds, where we will learn about their origins, their importance and what is wrong with them. We will pass through Tomšič’s Avenue to the railway station and continue our journey to Melje. We will cross the Malečnik Bridge, where we will talk about the two canals of the Drava, and head to the double-decker or Melje Bridge, where we will talk more about the canalised river and the fish that live in it. We will then continue along the Drava to the springs below the Church of St. Joseph in Studenci, where we will learn why there are so many springs in this particular place. We will cross the Drava via the Studenci footbridge and head to Maribor Island. Here we will talk about the island, beavers, fish and the drinking water pumping station that feeds Maribor and, for two Maribor people.
Boris Kolar is a biologist, ecotoxicologist, farmer, writer and moderate hedonist. He has co-written and conceived the screenplays and ideas for the documentaries Daughters of the Sea and Emerald River, and was once a columnist for the newspaper Večer. He is the author of the novels Iqball hotel and otopimo Islandijo!, which were shortlisted for the kresnik prize, and O vinu, kozah in drugih prevarah. His texts are about close contact with nature, they are bright and, above all, extremely witty.
