On a mountain where winter visitors usually check that their scarves and gloves are firmly in place, some skiers once needed just one thing for a spot of sunbathing: their ski boots. At Bobanove rupe, they left the rest to the sunshine.
It sounds like a tale told after an unusually long afternoon of après-ski. Yet old Jahorina had room for just such a custom: sunbathing without clothes, surrounded by snow. While some visitors set off for another run, others claimed a patch of winter sunshine and took their break by rather different rules.
There was no grand resort entrance announcing the attraction. There were skiers, hollows in the snow and little sunbathing terraces they had made themselves. The boots stayed on. Coats, jumpers and everything else could wait.
The hollows named after a ski instructor
Bobanove rupe lies on the plateau of Gola Jahorina. Its distinctive sinkholes, natural depressions in the mountain terrain, were a favourite gathering place on sunny winter days. Skiers stopped there to rest, and beginners came to learn.
The name remembers Boban Ilić, a ski instructor who brought his pupils to this part of the mountain. Before his name became attached to it, the spot was simply called Rupe — “the hollows”. A practical name, of the sort mountain people often give to familiar places.
In time, the instructor left his mark on the name as well as on his pupils. The hollows became Boban’s. It is a pleasing kind of mountain memorial: no pedestal or plaque, just a name passed along whenever someone says where they are heading.
A sun terrace made by the skiers
In these hollows, some skiers fashioned their own places for nude sunbathing on the snow. They did not wait for a terrace to be built for them. They made their own, to suit themselves.
The oddest detail is also the smallest. You might expect heavy ski boots to be the first thing a sunbather would take off. At Bobanove rupe, they were precisely what stayed on. Everything else could be dispensed with.
This little episode does not tell us how widespread the custom was, or how long it lasted. What it preserves is an unexpected glimpse of everyday mountain life, away from hotel openings and sporting achievements.
Five terraces and a bowl of beans
Sunbathing also had an entirely regular place in a Jahorina holiday. The mountain once offered five sun terraces: two in Rajska dolina, one below Hotel Jahorina, another below Hotel Košuta, and one at Poljice.
Visitors had chairs with backrests, and bean stew was served at mealtimes. After skiing came a rest, some winter sunshine and a hot meal — a programme that needed little explanation.
There is an essential distinction here. Those five terraces were part of the mountain’s tourist facilities. The nude sunbathing spots at Bobanove rupe were made by the skiers themselves. The story of five sun terraces should therefore never be mistaken for a story of five official nudist terraces.
History with its ski boots on
We tend to picture a mountain’s past through old lodges, its first ski lifts and photographs of skiers carrying equipment that now looks unfamiliar. But everyday life was always larger than a postcard. It included jokes, idle afternoons, unusual habits and forms of relaxation that never made it into an official programme.
Bobanove rupe has kept just such a memory. Some people went there to learn how to stay on their skis. Others discovered that, on a sunny day at least, they could stay in nothing but their ski boots. And Jahorina, like any mountain with a long memory, had room for both stories.
