Historical Heritage and Cultural Traditions of Water-Mills in Function of Domestic Tourism

Diversity of information on traditional values of past times with all differences of cultural environment results in creation of new interests and knowledges that contribute to wider conceptual understanding of cultural values. Traditional way of life and work as the element of cultural and historic heritage has permanent potential in forming of creative touristic attractions. In this context the position of water mills in Serbia is quite special. With the strength of historically played role in life of people and national community, water mills remain essential and significant part of historic tradition and permanent record of the life in the past times. In order to position the water mills in proper way in terms of economic, environmental, cultural, historic and touristic aspects the establishment of integrated institutional framework with the rules of operation of water mills in economic, ecological and touristic ambience is necessary. Along with further management of activities and broader incentives in the work of local water-mills, a number of issues has to be managed including the proprietary rights and the application of customary law, the energy aspects of water mills and the rules for their inclusion in the energy system, the rights to use watercourses as a natural resource, as well as the conditions in terms of equipment and space that must be fulfilled in order to place products from the stone mill, representing additional part of tradition based touristic offer, on the market.