The word   

The word skamija (скамья in Russian, scamnum in Latin) means a school desk, which is the same as it was defined in The Dictionary of the Serbian Language published in 1818 by Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic. Skamija is a school desk in a form of a set "that allows sitting and writing, made of wood. The seat is at a fixed distance from the desk, and there is a compartment under the writing surface that is used to place school books and satchels. The upper board has a shallow channel for pencils and a hole that holds the ink bottle – both necessary to prevent things from falling off the board due to its inclination. Students were strictly prohibited from writing on the upper surface of the school desk, but most of them did it anyway, usually by a folding knife or some other sharp object."

Translated by Bojan R. Golubović