For nineteen days Ohrid will be all about the water. The fourth edition of the Ohrid Water Festival runs from 12 to 30 August, with over twenty events on the lake and four evenings of music.

Mayor Kiril Pecakov and festival president Nikola Vretoski announced the programme at a press conference. Fifteen sports clubs and associations are staging competitions in sailing, kayaking, water polo, diving, marathon swimming, SUP, aquathlon, sport fishing and the traditional kayak regatta.

The centrepiece remains the Ohrid Swimming Marathon. On 29 August from 11am, as part of the festival, the Balkan Championship in marathon swimming will also be held with races over 2.5, 5 and 10 kilometres, organised by the Ohridski Branovi 2008 swimming club, with the Small Harbour listed as the venue.

The music programme starts on 26 August with a concert by Gjoko Taneski, followed by performers from the Zlatno Slavejce children's festival, the group Vezilka and Nokaut. There will also be exhibitions devoted to the lake, water sports and the region's flora and fauna.

Sport instead of a postcard

Pecakov says this is the direction the city is moving in - joining its natural and cultural heritage to sports tourism. That is not an empty phrase. Ohrid has been sold as a photograph for decades: a church, a boat, a sunset. A photograph does not bring guests in the second half of August, when the season starts to tail off. A competition drawing clubs from several European countries does, and it brings overnight stays with it.

Vretoski says the number of participants grows every year. That is the figure worth watching next summer - not how many events are in the programme, but how many people actually travelled here for them. Until then, Lake Ohrid will spend nineteen days being something more than a place to take pictures.