According
to the year 2002 census, in the total population,
16 thousand are young people up to 19 years old, 43
thousand are aged between 19 and 64, and a little
over 7 thousand are the elderly.
The
first urban settlement in this area was located in
place of today's Breska and Rvati, and it was Roman.
As everywhere else, the Romans cut the roads through
the land and fortified them. In the 3rd century Emperor
Probes brought here viticulture, which has endured
up to our day.
Obrenovac
is said to have a long past and short history. For
two centuries, it has been the economic, administrative
and cultural hub of this area. However, it first was
a village, squeezed between the Tamnava and Kolubara
rivers, originally named Palez. To its present location,
on the left bank of the Tamnava, it was moved after
the liberation from the Turks, after 1815, when the
old "Turkish" Palez had been demolished
and scorched. That is the name the town is mentioned
by in the written historical documents as early as
the beginning of the 18th century, from the 1717 census.
At
that time Serbian peasants and Turkish craftsmen and
traders inhabited the town. During the Austrian rule,
which lasted up to 1739, it became the administrative
seat of the Palez District with 73 villages. At that
time the majority of townsmen were Germans, Hungarians
and Jews, who named it Zweibrücken after the
two bridges across the two rivers that encompassed
it. When the Turks regained power, Palez lost its
administrative role.
Only
in 1836, the new, Serbian Palez became the administrative
seat of the Posavski District, for the villages on
the left Kolubara bank. At that time it was already
a dynamic town of craftsmen and traders, and a lot
of inns and pubs were opening so the public life slowly
prevailed over the old patriarchal family lifestyle.
In
1824 Palez officially acquired its elementary school
and then the church as well, constructed with the
material from the torn down King Dragutin's Monastery
in Mislodjin. The post office was set up in 1843.
Their
distinct inclination toward Prince Milos Obrenovic,
reaffirmed during and after the Second Serbian Rising,
and paid by some with their lives during the dynastic
fights and Prince's exile, the townsmen crowned with
the appeal delivered to the Prince in person in 1859,
right after his return to the throne, to christen
their town Obrenovac. The appeal was granted. The
date when the new name became official, 20 December
(in the Gregorian calendar) is now celebrated as the
Day of Obrenovac.
Until
the end of the 19th century, the town gradually gained
other institutions and organisations: town's savings
bank, town's cooperative, its first medical doctor,
its first pharmacist, public school, kindergarten,
choir, Red Cross Society, sports society and finally,
in 1899, a spa, that would soon make the name of Obrenovac
well known all over Serbia!
The
year 1902 brought the opening of a telephone exchange.
In 1908 the Zabrezje-Obrenovac-Valjevo Railway was
put into operation. This all boosted the development
of crafts and trade. At the same time, the town became
famous as a granary and trade centre. Such prosperity
continued after the World War I. The first grammar
school was opened in 1922. Industrialisation began
and picked up more and more steam: beside the old
brick and tile industry, there were many steam mills
and sawmills. The electric power station and electric
light reached the town in 1928, the same year when
the new Obrenovac-Belgrade Railroad was ceremonially
put into operation.
Not
only that the World War II interrupted and diminished
the enthusiastic rise of Obrenovac and its economy,
but it, having ended eventually, turned the courses
of progress in some other directions, founded on different
principles, and definitely made the old image of the
town history once and for all. Nowadays Obrenovac
is slowly putting on the face and character of a modern
town, although its progress may have been hectic for
the most part, as is the case with almost all towns
in the country. That is why the development of the
communal infrastructure in the town is an endless
race with time, where the new or improved infrastructure
rapidly covers more parts, yet never fast enough to
reach every industrial or residential zone. It is
somewhat delayed, but it is coming. And Obrenovac
may boast an excellent remote central heating system,
which supplies and warms up with hot water from the
Power Plants almost all homes and business premises
in the town. Its capacities are ample, however it
is yet to improve and develop further.
Obrenovac
has lost the railways. Actually, after 60 years of
operation, the public railway lines were replaced
with the industrial ones for coal transport to the
Nikola Tesla Power Plants. In the meantime a dense
network of roads have been constructed. More than
100 streets of total length of some 30 kilometres
run down the town. 29 kilometres of regional high
roads, 74 kilometres of district main roads and 185
kilometres of local roads cross its territory. Every
settlement is electrified (otherwise would be inadmissible
in the municipality that provides more than half of
total electric energy production in Serbia). |
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