Boleč

Boleč (Serbian Cyrillic: Болеч) is a suburban settlement of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in the municipality of Grocka.

Location

Boleč is located 17 km east of the Belgrade, near the road of "Smederevski put" which connects Belgrade and Smederevo. One of the branches of the Bolečica river flows through the settlement and givs its name to it (its derived from Serbian words for "bol" (pain) and "leči(ti)" (to cure), so it means the "water that heals the pain").

Population

For decades, population of Boleč was growing slowly but steadily. Since the mid 1970s however, the settlement (classified as the rural one, the village) is experiencing accelerated growth which continues until today, with large number of refugees from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo settling in this area. Originally south of the "Smederevski put", as the settlement was growing it reached the road and connected to other surrounding villages (Ritopek, Vinča, Leštane), so today it makes one built-up area all the way to Belgrade. Population of Boleč:

* 1921 - 890
* 1953 - 1,213
* 1971 - 1,476
* 1981 - 3,360
* 1991 - 4,659
* 2002 - 5,750

Economy

Until late 1970s and early 1980s economy of Boleč was based on agriculture, especially on fruit growing as the one of major Serbian fruit regions begins here and stretches to Smederevo, 35 km to the east. Since then, a boom in privately owned small companies boosted the economy and attracted new population to migrate in the settlement. The only large company is the branch of PKB, agriculturale company, with fruit plantations and huge refrigirators ("PKB - Voćarske plantaže").

References

* Jovan Đ. Marković (1990): "Enciklopedijski geografski leksikon Jugoslavije"; Svjetlost-Sarajevo; ISBN 86-01-02651-6