Iron Gates
The Iron Gates (Bulgarian: Железни врата; Romanian: Porțile de Fier; Serbian: Ђердапска клисура / Đerdapska klisura or Гвоздена капија / Gvozdena kapija; Hungarian: Vaskapu-szoros) is a gorge on the river Danube.
A wider protected area on the Serbian side was declared the UNESCO global geopark in July 2020.
[1][2] Archaeologists have named the Iron Gates mesolithic culture (dated circa 13,000 to 5,000 years ago) after the gorge.
An alternative Romanian name for the last part of the route is Defileul Dunării, literally "Danube Gorge".
The broader Donji Milanovac forms the connection with the Great and the Small Kazan gorge, which have a combined length of 19 km (12 mi).
The riverbed rocks and the associated rapids made the gorge valley an infamous passage for shipping, even for the most seasoned boatmen.
Near the actual "Iron Gates" strait the Prigrada rock was the most important obstacle (until 1896): the river widened considerably here and the water level was consequently low.
[10] Migratory fish are particularly badly hit, being rendered unable to move upstream or downstream between their spawning grounds and areas used at other times in their life cycle.
The construction of the Iron Gates had a major impact on the local fauna and flora as well—for example, the spawning routes of several species of sturgeon were permanently interrupted.
The flora and fauna, as well as the geomorphological, archaeological and cultural historical artifacts of the Iron Gates have been under the protection of both nations since the construction of the dam.
Sandstone statues dated to the early Neolithic era indicate that the area has been inhabited for a very long time.
East of the Great Kazan the Roman emperor Trajan built the legendary bridge erected by Apollodorus of Damascus.
On the Romanian bank, at the Small Kazan, a likeness of Decebalus, Trajan's Dacian opponent, was carved in rock in 1994–2004.)
John Hunyadi and his 15,000 men defeated the 80,000-strong army of Beylerbey Şehabeddin at Zajkány (today's Zeicani), near the Iron Gate of the Danube river in 1442.
The 1878 Congress of Berlin forced the Ottoman Empire to retreat far into the south, but the island remained the property of the Turkish sultan, allegedly because the treaty neglected to mention it.
[citation needed] Appointed in 1883 and again in 1886, Minister of Trade and Transportation Gábor Baross, Hungary's "Iron Minister", presided over modernization projects at Hungary's sea port in Fiume (Rijeka), and regulation of the Upper Danube and Iron Gate.
[7] In 1890, near Orșova, the last border town of Hungary, rocks were cleared by explosion over a 2 km (1.2 mi) stretch in order to create channels.
