First ski club in the Balkans
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First ski club in the Balkans
The first ski club in the Balkans was founded in Lovcen, back in 1892. The club began its existence thanks to the Norwegian Henrik Angel (1861-1922), who was an athlete, writer (published several books) and the first Norwegian delegate to the International Olympic Committee. Henrik was a colonel of the Norwegian army since 1911, in 1918 he joined the French Foreign Legion, participated in the First World War.
In 1891 he first came to Montenegro to get acquainted with the people who had fought for many years for the freedom and independence of their country. As the Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade mentions, in order to make Henrik easier to move around in the snow, he took skis with him. It is mentioned that the oldest skis were found in Norway 4,500 years ago. Nevertheless, the drawings on the walls in the caves prove that the skis were used much earlier. Before skis became a way for entertainment and they began to be used in sports, they served as a means of transportation and for work.
When Henrik was in Montenegro, then at the request of Prince of Montenegro, Nicholas I, he decided to open a ski school. In 1892, Henrik, together with a French professor, then working at the French Embassy in Cetinje, founded the ski club Cetinjsko skijaško društvo. In 1893, Henrik arrived in Montenegro and already brought with him a hundred pairs of skis - so opened the first ski school in Montenegro, and the Balkans. The very idea of the school was that people living in the mountains, learn to ski, and also teach them to use skis all winter.
Returning to Norway, Henrik, animated by the Montenegrin people and his struggle for independence, wrote four books. In the books Through Montenegro on skis (1895), Sons of the Black Mountains (1896), A Heroic people-Tales from Montenegro (1902), A small nation in the struggle for survival (1914) writer shared his impressions of travel.
In the book Through Montenegro on skis the writer told how to fight for the independence of his country. For several decades, this book was a favorite among Norwegian youth, and helped to bring the two peoples closer together. Henrik's books were also translated into the Montenegrin language. Besides books, the memory of the great Henrik Angel lives in several monuments set in Lovcen. In 2008 the presentation of the film HENRIK ANGELL-SKIMISJONAREN was held. In Norway, also installed busts of this outstanding man.
After visiting Montenegro, Henrik Angel continued to travel, taught to ski the French army, in his spare time traveled through the Alps, rode a bicycle from Norway to Italy and back through the Alps. Also, he fought against the Bolsheviks in the war in the north of Russia, in Murmansk, where he got frostbite and injuries - from which he died in 1922.
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