The Čik or Čiker (
Serbian Cyrillic: Чик or Чикер;
Hungarian: Csík-ér,
Croatian: Čik or Čiker) is a river in northern
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
. A long right tributary to the
Tisa river, it flows entirely within the
Bačka
Bačka ( sr-cyrl, Бачка, ) or Bácska () is a geographical and historical area within the Pannonian Plain bordered by the river Danube to the west and south, and by the river Tisza to the east. It is divided between Serbia and Hunga ...
region of
Vojvodina
Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...
province.
Course
The Čik springs out in the northwestern part of the
Subotička Peščara, between the village of
Tavankut and the city of
Subotica, near the Hungarian border, at an altitude of . It starts as an unimportant slow stream of water near the Tavankut hamlets of Čikerija and Kobino Selo. From its source to the mouth, the river flows in the southeast direction, next to the hamlets of
Verušić and
Naumovićevo.
As the river grows, next to the villages of
Višnjevac,
Čantavir and
Dušanovo, dams were constructed to regulate the flow, in both upper and lower course. In the lower course there are thick growths of
reed
Reed or Reeds may refer to:
Science, technology, biology, and medicine
* Reed bird (disambiguation)
* Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times
* Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales
* ...
on the banks of the river, which is at this point 2–4 m deep. After the villages of
Tornjoš,
Svetićevo and
Obornjača, the river empties into the
Tisa at the village of
Bačko Petrovo Selo, at an altitude of .
Characteristics
The Čik has been neglected by environmental institutions for some time, but in the 1990s the lower part of the course was cleaned and the once almost-dead river was re-populated with many species of fish (
carp,
pike,
bream
Bream ( ) are species of freshwater and marine fish belonging to a variety of genera including '' Abramis'' (e.g., ''A. brama'', the common bream), '' Acanthopagrus'', ''Argyrops'', '' Blicca'', '' Brama'', '' Chilotilapia'', ''Etelis'', '' L ...
,
pike-perch,
tench), becoming a major fishing resort.
The Čik belongs to the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...
and it is neither channeled nor navigable. Itself, it drains an area of . The name of the river comes from the Hungarian word ''csikó'', meaning
foal.
After
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, a new border was drawn between Hungary and the newly formed
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (future Yugoslavia), as stipulated by the 1920
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon (french: Traité de Trianon, hu, Trianoni békeszerződés, it, Trattato del Trianon) was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference and was signed in the Grand Trianon château in Versailles on 4 June 1920. It forma ...
. The border left significant number of divided ethnic population on both sides, so both states encouraged the relocation. Those who decided to move were called "optants". Serbian optants changed their land in Hungary for the land of the Hungarian optants in Yugoslavia. A group of optants settled along the Čik river close to the border and formed a new settlement called Čikerija. It mirrored the
Csikéria village on the Hungarian side. Čikerija originally consisted of 28 ''
salaši'', individual family farms, founded by the optants from the Hungarian village of
Deszk, near
Szeged
Szeged ( , ; see also other alternative names) is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat of Csongrád-Csanád county. The University of Szeged is one of the m ...
, which still has a Serbian minority. By 2018, only one ''salaš'' was still operational. The hamlet belonged to the village of Tavankut, until Tavankut was divided in three separate settlements in 1978 when Čikerija became part of the newly carved village of
Ljutovo.
References
* Jovan Đ. Marković (1990): ''Enciklopedijski geografski leksikon Jugoslavije''; Svjetlost-Sarajevo;
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cik
Rivers of Serbia
Geography of Vojvodina
Bačka