Underwater Sardine Dance

• The Balkans
Fishing for sardela or sardina (Sardina pilchardus) on the coasts of Dalmatia and Istria began thousands of years ago. The region was part of the Roman Empire, then largely a Venetian dominion, and has always been sustained through fishing mainly sardines. All along the coast, many towns promote the age-old practice of fishing by lateen sail boats for tourism and on festival occasions. Today, industrial producers continue this tradition. Currently, there are four factories of canned sardines: in Rovinj, Zadar, Postira and in Sali, on the island Dugi otok ("Mardesic" factory, founded in 1905).
Although currently a landlocked country, Serbia has a tradition of consuming sardines, and used to have access to the Adriatic coast as part of Yugoslavia. The first factory producing canned sardines opened in 2007 in the village of Belotinac (near the southern city of Niš), mostly using fish from Croatia.