A Trip to Southern Serbia – Part 2

Guča

Niš was actually a way station on my way to Guča, which was the peak of my trip. It’s a small town with a world-famous trumpet festival, whose official name is Dragačevski sabor trubača, due to its location in the Dragačevo region. Each August, unless the festival is cancelled, half a million visitors flock to the town in western Serbia with a population of 2,000. The festival started in 1961 when fans of folk tradition decided to organise an event that would revitalise the mundane landscape. A world phenomenon was brought into existence – the largest ethnic festival in Europe where a competition is held for the best group of trumpeters and the best young performer is chosen to the accompaniment of national folk costumes. A procession of approximately 200 orchestra of 1,200 competitors, including foreign ones, walk past the trumpeter statue in the town’s centre. Rakia and beer flow in streams and mountains of meat are roasted. Trumpets are played from morning to evening and there’s a real Balkan party free of charge. The festival’s very motto – play, trumpet, play for joy and for nothing else – vividly describes the event. Despite southern Serbia definitely being a cheap destination, the same doesn’t apply to the festival in Guča, as the prices are rather high. I was in Guča in 2019. Last year’s festival was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it was held again this August, after a one-year-long break. I’m certain this year’s festival was so much more cheerful because of that.

Zlatibor

Going past Užice, which was named after president Tito (Titovo Užice) in Yugoslavia, up until 1992, we arrive to the Zlatibor mountainous region, one of the most famous and popular resorts in Serbia. In the winter, it attracts visitors to its numerous ski slopes, and in the summer, it draws hikers who enjoy fresh air of the alpine climate, since Zlatibor, lying at an altitude of around 1,000 metres, is regarded as a climatic spa.

The Šargan Eight

We boarded the train, known as Nostalgia, at a charming train station in Mokra Gora, which then took us through the Šargan Eight. It’s a narrow-gauge railway that once connected Belgrade, Sarajevo and Dubrovnik. The last scheduled rail service ceased in 1974, and the section between the Mokra Gora and Šargan Vitasi stations was renovated at the beginning of the millennia. It’s now become a popular tourist destination. For a price of seven euros, you can go on an approximately three-hour ride on a 15-kilometre railway with three train stations going through 22 tunnels and across a few bridges and viaducts. The total length of the tunnels is 5.5 kilometres and the longest measures 1.6 kilometres. On its journey, the train has to overcome a difference in height of 300 metres and climb a slope of 18 degrees, resulting in the railway’s unusual shape of the number eight, which gave it its name. But it’s not just about the ride, as there are a few stops along the way, where passengers can go sightseeing and refresh themselves.

Drvengrad

After a pleasant train journey, we head to the nearby Drvengrad, which was built by the famous Sarajevo-born filmmaker, Emir Kusturica, as a backdrop for his film Life Is a Miralce. It’s an ethnographic village built in 2003 on Mećavnik Hill above Mokra Gora, which offers a beautiful view of the surrounding landscape, even the Šargan Eight. The name Drvengrad means “wooden town”, as most of the buildings are made of wood. Some of them are original and were transported from other places in Serbia and neighbouring Bosnia and Hercegovina and were renovated, while others were built from scratch. There’s a wooden Orthodox church in the main square, dedicated to St. Sava, and the streets are named after people Kusturica admires: Nikola Tesla, Ivo Andrić, Ernesto Che Guevara, Diego Maradona and others. Drvengrad, which has been hosting a music and film festival since 2008, is also known as Kustendorf, which is a portmanteau of “dorf”, meaning village in German, and Kusturica’s nickname “Kusta”. And while we’re at Drvengrad, it’s also worth mentioning Kamengrad or Andrićgrad, which was founded by Kusturica in the nearby Višegrad in neighbouring Bosnia and Hercegovina. It was built using stones and named after the writer Ivo Andrić, a Nobel Peace Award laureate, whose novel The Bridge on the Drina was set in Višegrad, next to the famous bridge that still stands to this day.

We’re not that familiar with the places in southern Serbia and they’re not really known for important tourist attractions, and yet they’re still well worth visiting for the trumpet festival, the train ride, their kind people and the pristine nature.