Ecomuseum Batana, Maritime museum in Rovinj, Croatia
The Ecomuseum Batana is a maritime and city museum in Rovinj, Croatia, dedicated to the traditional flat-bottomed wooden fishing boat known as the batana and the fishing culture built around it. The museum complex includes the House of Batana near the waterfront and the nearby Mali Škver, a small working shipyard where these boats are still built by hand.
The batana boat has been part of Rovinj's daily life for centuries, used by local families who depended on the sea for their livelihood. UNESCO recognized the importance of this living tradition, which helped lead to the creation of the ecomuseum as a way to keep it from disappearing.
The batana boat has long connected different communities in Rovinj, both Croatian and Italian families who fished the same waters for generations. Today, local singers called bitinadurs sometimes perform traditional songs near the waterfront, keeping old musical traditions alive alongside the boats.
The ecomuseum runs all year, with a denser programme during the summer tourist season. Its units are spread along the waterfront: the House of Batana on Obala Pina Budicina 2 by the big pier, Spacio Matika in a stone wine cellar, and Mali Škver, the small square in front of the House of Batana where open-air events take place. The Batana Trail can also be covered by sea, from Mali Mol around the old town peninsula to Spacio Matika, accompanied by a barkariol boat driver.
The Rovinj regatta of traditional boats with lugsails and lateen sails was first held in 2005, not 2006. It keeps alive the skill of sailing with the lugsail, which the small Tomos outboard motor called "penta" displaced from use by the 1960s.
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