Vršalice – witnesses of a time, forgotten in sheds, rarely found in museums, and even more rarely used for what they were intended for. Among the few in the Valjevo area, which has withstood the test of time and is still in operation, is the Czechoslovak-made wheat and clover threshing machine “Viktoria Kovarik”.
Thanks to Velibor Timotić (62), a hardworking householder from Donja Bukovica near Valjevo, who keeps it impeccably in good condition, there is still work for it, although much less than a couple of decades ago.
She arrived in this Valjevo village back in 1970. Velibor does not know exactly when it was produced, but his grandfather Svetomir and father Zoran bought it from the Đurđević family. Before this threshing machine, the Timotić family had two more, and the first one was acquired by Velibor’s grandfather Ljubomir.
“I started going to the threshing machine with my grandfather when I was 12 years old. Grandfather bought a threshing machine, because he says there will be someone left to work, and that kind of stuck with me, which is probably why I didn’t even leave home.
I continued the work after my father’s death, but as for the wheat, the threshing machines stopped working sometime in the year 2000, when I could hardly find workers to thresh my wheat.
In recent years, sometimes there is work, sometimes there is not. I have two sons who are involved in music, they graduated from the academy, but I don’t believe that they will accept it,” says Velibor Timotić.
Until combine harvesters took over the fields here, the wheat threshing season lasted a little more than a month, and for clover two months. Next to Velibor and his father, there was another worker by the threshing machine.
It was primarily intended for sowing clover seeds. It has two baskets, one for wheat and the other serrated for clover, so that it can peel the small seeds.
This thresher model is from around the time – there is a metal frame at the top of the part where the sheaves of grain or clover are placed, while earlier threshers were lined with wood in that part.
“For it to work well, tuning is essential. It’s like when you buy a good instrument and tune it to play well. When I grew up and matured, I realized how valuable she was. My father and grandfather taught me to work on it, and if I gave it to someone, he wouldn’t be able to work with that threshing machine,” says Velibor, one of the few who still does this work.
In recent years, the thresher is started when the clover seeds need to be threshed. Pantelija Ilić from Beomužević is among the few who still make clover in this way. His son Miloš says that whenever the year is suitable, they leave clover seeds for the following seasons from the crops from their own plots.
He recalls that there used to be several households in his and surrounding villages who owned threshing machines, but many have long since sold them or they are no longer in operation.
“I remember when we were children we played more, but when we grew up and got a little old enough to work, it was an experience. People from the neighborhood gathered and helped out in that way. There were 30 and even 50 of them, even women and children were all involved.
There was work, but there was also socializing, and after the work was finished, the host at whose house she was staying prepared lunch and drinks. The slaughterhouse must be slaughtered if it is not a fasting day, and after that it is moved on to the next one. It went in order, as the households were lined up, so the machinists moved. Now it’s long gone,” says Miloš Ilić from Beomužević.
Source: www.agromedia.rs
