30 Sights in Niš, Serbia (with Map and Images)

Skull Tower is a stone structure embedded with human skulls located in Niš, Serbia. It was constructed by the Ottoman Empire following the Battle of Čegar of May 1809, during the First Serbian Uprising. During the battle, Serbian rebels under the command of Stevan Sinđelić were surrounded by the Ottomans on Čegar Hill, near Niš. Knowing that he and his fighters would be impaled if captured, Sinđelić detonated a powder magazine within the rebel entrenchment, killing himself, his subordinates and the encroaching Ottoman soldiers. The governor of the Rumelia Eyalet, Hurshid Pasha, ordered that a tower be made from the skulls of the fallen rebels. The tower is 4.5 metres (15 ft) high, and originally contained 952 skulls embedded on four sides in 14 rows.

Wikipedia: Skull Tower (EN), Heritage Website

The Monastery of the Holy Mother of God Sicevo, the Monastery of the Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Monastery of Sicevo, is a Serbian monastery from the first half of the 17th century dedicated to the Presentation of the Virgin. The monastery is located in the area of Sicevo in the municipality of Niška Banja, about 16 km, east of Niš towards Pirot, in the initial part of the Sicevac Gorge, below the "Huge Stone", Kusača, on the left bank of the Nišava River, in Vladimir Miletić Street.

Wikipedia: Манастир Свете Богородице Сићево (SR), Heritage Website

The Monument to the Liberators of Nis, locally known as the Horse, is located in the very center of the city, on King Milan Square and marks the period of liberation wars against the Turks, Bulgarians and Germans.

Wikipedia: Споменик ослободиоцима Ниша (SR)

Mediana is an important archeological site from the late Roman period, located in the eastern suburb of the Serbian city of Niš. It represents a luxurious residence with a highly organised economy. Excavations have revealed a villa with peristyle, thermae, granary and water tower. The residence dates to the reign of Constantine the Great 306 to 337. Although Roman artifacts can be found scattered all over the area of present-day Niš, Mediana represents the best-preserved part of Roman Naissus. In 1979, Mediana was added to the Archaeological Sites of Exceptional Importance list, protected by the Republic of Serbia.

Wikipedia: Mediana (EN), Heritage Website

Niš Fortress is a fortress in the city of Niš, Serbia. It is a complex and important cultural and historical monument. It rises on the right bank of the Nišava River, overlooking the area inhabited for longer than two millennia. It was protected by law in May 1948 as it was declared a cultural site of great significance. The current condition of the fortress lists it as one of the best preserved fortifications of this kind in Serbia as well as on the Balkan Peninsula.

Wikipedia: Niš Fortress (EN)

The Crveni Krst concentration camp, also known as the Niš concentration camp, located in Crveni Krst, Niš, was operated by the German Gestapo and used to hold captured Serbs, Jews and Romanis during the Second World War. Established in mid-1941, it was used to detain as many as 35,000 people during the war and was liberated by the Yugoslav Partisans in 1944. More than 10,000 people are thought to have been killed at the camp. After the war, a memorial to the victims of the camp was erected on Mount Bubanj, where many inmates were shot. A memorial museum was opened on the former campgrounds in 1967 and in 1979 the campgrounds were declared a Cultural Monument of Exceptional Importance and came under the protection of the Socialist Republic of Serbia.

Wikipedia: Crveni Krst concentration camp (EN), Website

The church of St. Nicholas in the village of Manastir, also known as the temple of St. Nicholas of Myrilica, was one of the churches of the Jelašnica parish, which is part of the Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church of Niš, and was renamed a monastery.

Wikipedia: Црква Светог Николе у Манастиру (SR), Heritage Website

The Latin Church or Rusalia in Gornji Matejevac, on the hill Metoh above Niš, is dedicated to the Holy Trinity and belongs to the group of rare preserved buildings from the pre-Nemanjić period, and was most likely built in the first half of the 11th century, during the Byzantine rule over the area.

Wikipedia: Латинска црква у Горњем Матејевцу (SR), Heritage Website

The building under the vaults and the basilica in the Niš Fortress is one of the archaeological sites and a unique spatial ambient unit on the central plateau of the ancient imperial Nais. Namely, it is a public, representative part of the ancient city, with all the features that characterize the late antique – Tetrachian architecture. Archaeological excavations at this site, in the Niš Fortress, which were carried out from 1982 to 1985, for the first time discovered the material remains of this ancient street and its buildings. Archaeological findings resulting from these excavations indicate that the complex of buildings on the central plateau may have been built in the first decades of the 4th century, and that it can be linked to the reconstruction of the city carried out in Constantine's time.

Wikipedia: Грађевина под сводовима и базилика у Нишкој тврђави (SR)

Memorial Park Bubanj is a World War II memorial complex built to commemorate the shooting and execution of more than 10,000 citizens of Niš and people from Serbia and other parts of the country, but according to some data, over 12,000 people, and it is located in Palilula municipality of Niš, Serbia.

Wikipedia: Bubanj Memorial Park (EN), Heritage Website

Islam-aga's Mosque is the only working mosque in Niš, Serbia. There is another in Niš Fortress which is converted into a gallery, and another close to the University Rectorate, that was damaged during the Anglo-American bombing of the city in 1944.

Wikipedia: Islam-aga's Mosque (EN), Heritage Website

The City Garden in the Niš Fortress is a special ambient and park unit designed as an exhibition, sales and educational space on the southeastern plateau of one of the largest and most representative buildings from the period of the Ottoman Empire and one of the largest fortresses in the Balkans, today a cultural and historical monument of great importance.

Wikipedia: Градска башта у Нишкој тврђави (SR)

Salon 77 in Niš is one of the three exhibition spaces (galleries) of the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Arts in Niš. This gallery space is located in the Bali-beg mosque from 1523, in the central part of the Niš fortress. The space with a square base, with 16 windows and a dome on the ceilings, 12 m high, which used to be the Turkish Mosque, with its architectural values and internal vault height of almost 10 m, is very suitable not only for exhibition activities of visual artists, but also for concerts and other acoustic performances.

Wikipedia: Салон 77 у Нишу (SR)

Monument to the Turks hanged by the Turks in 1821. It is located in the center of Niš in front of the fortress bridge. It is rectangular in shape, with a slightly wider and profiled pedestal and a pyramidal end, placed on four lower pillars. With its archaic shape and dimensions, it resembles tombstones.

Wikipedia: Споменик Нишлијама обешеним од Турака 1821. (SR)

The early Christian tomb in Niška Banja is an archaeological site with a monumental necropolis-tomb with two hypogeal calottes and a sacral monument from Ancient Rome. During the construction of a new health institution in 1972, in the area of today's main park of Niška Banja, together with the remains of a settlement from the Hallstatt era from the end of the 5th century or the beginning of the 6th century, this necropolis was discovered with two calottes, which very much resemble tombs with two calottes in the necropolis in Jagodina Mala in Niš.

Wikipedia: Ранохришћанска гробница у Нишкој Бањи (SR), Website

Gunpowder magazines in the Niš Fortress are a ground-floor rectangular building built in the period from 1720 to 1723, by the Ottomans. Originally, they were intended for the accommodation of gunpowder, ammunition, protection of soldiers and defense of buildings in the event of an enemy attack, in the Middle Ages, but in the 21st century, after the realization of the revitalization program of the Niš Fortress, one by one they were turned into a space intended for numerous cultural events.

Wikipedia: Барутане у Нишкој тврђави (SR)

Pešturina is a cave in the municipality of Niška Banja in southeast Serbia. It is located southwest of Jelašnica and 20 km (12 mi) southeast of Niš. Artifacts from the Middle and Upper Paleolithic periods were discovered since the archaeological excavations began in 2006. The remains, identified as the Mousterian culture, were dated from 111,000 BP+ 5,000 to 39,000 BP + 3,000, which makes Pešturina one of the latest surviving Neanderthal habitats. The cave has been nicknamed the "Serbian Atapuerca".

Wikipedia: Pešturina (EN)

The monument to King Aleksandar Karadjordjevic is located in the center of the city, on the square of the same name in Niš. The monumental monument is the work of academic sculptor Zoran Ivanovic from Belgrade, and it was cast in the foundry "Kuzman" in Smederevo. The pedestal of the monument is carved with the inscription "King Aleksandar Karađorđević 1888 – 1934". The height of the monument is 4.5 meters, on a pedestal 7 meters high and weighing 3.3 tons.

Wikipedia: Споменик краљу Александру Карађорђевићу у Нишу (SR)

The Stambol Gate in the Niš Fortress or the Constantinople Gate is one of the four entrances (exits) on the fortified earthen rampart built by the Ottomans in the period from 1719 to 1723. It got its name from the direction of the road that led east, to Stambol.

Wikipedia: Стамбол капија у Нишкој тврђави (SR)

Suva Banja or Vrelo princa Tomislava is a thermal mineral karst spring that occurs at the intersection of the Nišava and Studenski rassed, 300 m southeast of the "Main Spring" of Niška Banja. The water from this cave thermal bath originally appeared only occasionally, after the snow melted and heavy spring rains, as a lukewarm spring, at the elevation (274), which is about 30 m higher than the "Main Spring" of Niška Banja. That is why the cave thermal bath Suva Banja is characterized as an example of the apparent drying up of springs in karst terrains. This phenomenon is explained by the bifurcation of the underground stream that "feeds the spring", an important process of morphological-hydrological evolution of karst terrains. Due to such a hydrothermal mechanism, this powerful cave thermal was previously a pseudo-periodic spring, because during the low state the entire underground flow flowed through the channel and erupted at lower permanent springs.

Wikipedia: Сува бања (SR)

The main spring of Niška Banja is a thermo-mineral karst spring that erupts at an elevation of 248.47 on a rock about 2.5 meters below the surface of the terrain and the main spa facility. With the original Roman captage, executed in the form of a domed well built in layers of brick and birch, hot water emerges from the spring from below and climbs under the top of the dome.

Wikipedia: Главно врело Нишке Бање (SR)

Byzantijska Street in the Niš Fortress is one of the archaeological sites and a unique spatial ambient unit on the central plateau of the ancient imperial Nais in the immediate vicinity of the Bali-beg Mosque. Namely, it is a public, representative part of the ancient city, with all the features that characterize the late antique – Tetrachian architecture. Archaeological excavations at this site, in the Niš Fortress, which were carried out from 1962 to 1963, for the first time discovered the material remains of this ancient street. Archaeological findings resulting from these excavations indicate that the street on the central plateau may have been built between the 5th and 6th centuries, and that it can be associated with the reconstruction of the city carried out in the post-Constantine time.

Wikipedia: Византијска улица у Нишкој тврђави (SR)

The hammam in the Niš Fortress is located next to the Stambol Gate. It was built in the 15th century and is the oldest preserved Turkish building in Niš. It was recorded for the first time in 1498 in the Niš census defter. At that time, two hammams were recorded in Niš: "Ali Bey, son of Michal Bey, and Mehmed Bey, son of Minet Bey."

Wikipedia: Хамам у Нишкој тврђави (SR)

The Monastery of St. John the Baptist belongs to the Diocese of Niš of the Serbian Orthodox Church and represents an immovable cultural property as a cultural monument. The original monastery dates back to the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. The year of construction is without reliable data, but due to the method of construction, it is related to the 11th century.

Wikipedia: Манастир Светог Јована Крститеља код Горњег Матејевца (SR), Heritage Website

The monastery of St. Nicholas is located near the remains of the medieval fortress Zeleznik, about two kilometers east of Miljkovac, about 15 km from Niš. A church with a semicircular apse and a semi-shaped vault. It was built at the end of the 19th century on the remains of the old medieval monastery church of St. Nicholas. Nikola. Today it is a cultural monument of the Niš region.

Wikipedia: Манастир Миљковац (SR)

The monument to Prince Milan Obrenović and the liberators of Niš in 1878 is located in the Niš fortress. It was built in 1902 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the liberation of Niš and the first anniversary of the death of Prince-King Milan Obrenović

Wikipedia: Споменик кнезу Милану Обреновићу и ослободиоцима Ниша 1878. године (SR)

The Kamenica Monastery belongs to the Diocese of Niš of the Serbian Orthodox Church and is an immovable cultural property as a cultural monument. It is located in the village of the same name on the territory of the municipality of Pantelej and is dedicated to St. George the Victorious.

Wikipedia: Манастир Каменица (SR), Website

According to the balneological classification, the school fountain is a hypothermal thermomineral karst spring, with a significant content of calcium, magnesium, hydrocarbonate, aluminum oxide, iron oxide and silicon dioxide. The spring of the school fountain erupts at the old school, Niška Banja, which is where its name comes from. The yield of the spring is 2.5 liters per second, and the water temperature is 17 °-19 ° C.

Wikipedia: Школска чесма (Нишка Бања) (SR)

Balanica is a cave complex and paleoarchaeological site in the City of Niš' municipality of Niška Banja in southeast Serbia. It consists of Velika Balanica and Mala Balanica. The entrances of two caves are 7 m (23 ft) apart, at an elevation of 329 m (1,079 ft), and form one cave system. A third cave, Pešturina, is also nearby. The two Balanica caves extend parallel to each other, likely being connected at the rear.

Wikipedia: Balanica (EN)

The Church of the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos is located in Donja Vrežina, in the municipality of Pantelej. It is dedicated to the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, which is celebrated on August 28.

Wikipedia: Црква Успења Пресвете Богородице у Доњој Врежини (SR)