A Rainy Day at Niš Fortress.

A Rainy Day at Niš Fortress in Serbia.

December 2023.

We had to wait for the beating rain to subside before leaving the apartment. It was an inflexibly grim, grey winter’s morning and yet nothing as trivial as the weather could spoil our mood.

After all, this was the first of four days we’d awarded ourselves to explore the Serbian city of Niš. A metropolis steeped in turbulent history; we figured where better to start than its Ottoman-built 18th century fortress. An imposing monument constructed on the site of earlier fortifications dating back to western Roman, Byzantine and Medieval times.

With the rain still spitting, it was a mercifully short walk from our apartment to the entrance gate. Indeed we made it in under ten minutes, taking the Old Fortress Bridge over the murky rush of the Nišava river.

In the dark dampness of the morning the fortress certainly had a sinister feel to it. Which felt quite congruous when one bears in mind that in World War I occupying Bulgarian forces transformed the old joint into a prison for captured Serbian soldiers and patriots.

Quite suddenly the rain had picked up again. Thus we found ourselves stopping for a bit under Istanbul Gate, the main entrance. There is no ticket office, visitors and locals alike can come and go as they see fit.

A Rainy Day at Niš Fortress.

I’m not sure exactly what we’d been expecting to see when we emerged from the gate into the complex. But it definitely wasn’t a Jazz Museum! Opened in 2008, The Nišville Jazz Museum is housed in a former Turkish bathhouse that historians think may have sprang up as far back as the 15th century.

According to experts, the fearsome Ottoman-Bosnian general Minnetoğlu Mehmed Bey most likely financed the bathhouse back in the 1460s. It is incredibly well preserved and the oldest surviving Ottoman construct in the city.

As for the jazz museum, I hadn’t realised prior to coming that Niš was such a jazz-loving city. In fact, the museum came about due to the ever-increasing popularity of the Nišville Jazz Festival, an annual live music event that takes place over eleven days every August.

The festival is a pretty big deal, with some of the world’s greatest musicians and singers having come to play in Niš. I’m talking the likes of Benny Golson, Solomon Burke, Ginger Baker and Joss Stone. We would have loved to visit the museum, but alas it was closed that day. Just our luck.

Nišville Jazz Museum.

Across from the Jazz Museum stands the former Arsenal, an ammunition depot where gunpowder, cannon balls and other weaponry were once stockpiled.

Made of local stone and imported Turkish tiles, it dates back to 1857. Today the fortress souvenir shop operates out of several chambers, its goods displayed in the windows of the vaulted arches.

Moreover, the building hosts an art gallery with rolling exhibitions. And heavens to Betsy the darn thing was even open! On the day of our visit there was a collection of works by Nadežda Petrović, one of Serbia’s most respected expressionist and fauvist painters.

Born in the city of Čačak in 1873, Petrović began professional life as an art teacher in Belgrade. But as a budding young artist herself she eventually quit teaching and left Serbia for Germany where she studied painting with the Slovenian artist Anton Ažbe.

It didn’t take long for her own work to gain recognition. Between 1901 and 1913 she enjoyed exhibitions all over Europe and became a household name in her native Serbia.

Politically active, she co-founded the humanitarian group Circle of Serbian Sisters which provided support to ethnic Serbs persecuted by the Ottomans in Kosovo and Macedonia.

Amazingly, she largely abandoned the art world following the start of The Balkan Wars to work as a nurse. So dedicated was Petrović to her patients that she received numerous awards and honours, including the Medal for Bravery and the Order of the Red Cross. And no wonder, as Petrović’s efforts had resulted in her contracting typhus and cholera.

A Rainy Day at Niš Fortress.

However, this brush with mortality didn’t do anything to keep her away from nursing. By 1915 the First World War had erupted and Petrović didn’t hesitate to serve the Serbian Army in a hospital in the city of Valjevo. Sadly she only lasted a few months before passing away from typhoid fever aged just 41. 

Today she is considered one of Serbia’s greatest artists and a national hero to boot. Fittingly, there are memorials and monuments in her name across the country, while her likeness even made its way onto the 200 dinar banknote.

Admittedly, I’d never heard of Nadežda Petrović before our visit to the fortress. Her life story is an engaging one that deserves to be read, while Sladja and I really enjoyed discovering her paintings in the gallery that day.

Pushing on through the damp paths of the fortress, we soon came upon the remains of Roman thermal baths from the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries. Excavated in 1952, they sit on display outside a large cafe. The cafe was closed that December morning (of course), but this no doubt makes for an atmospheric spot for coffee and a bite, especially in the summer.

Roman Baths.

Within steps of the bath ruins, we paused to look at a couple of memorials. This one is dedicated to Prince Milan I, the Serbian prince I’ve already written plenty about in my many articles from across Serbia.

The other celebrates the life of a writer whose story was new to me. Born in Belgrade to a respected and wealthy family, Jelena Dimitrijević became a renowned academic, poet, novelist and feminist.

Furthermore, she was one of the great polyglots of her time, having learned to speak Russian, French, Italian, Greek and Turkish.

In the 1920s she travelled the world before becoming the first Serbian woman to publish volumes of travel writing. These include the acclaimed collections Letters from India (1928) and Seven Seas and Three Oceans (1940).

Next, we marvelled at another incredible excavation site. These, an info board proudly trumpets, are the remains of an early Byzantine (5th-6th century) street! Dug up in the early 1960s, historians were able to identify many of the remains, which they believe to be evidence of stone and wood workshops in addition to a Christian church.

The street ruins play out around the splendid Bali Bey Mosque, built between 1521 and 1523. Experts reckon there were around ten mosques in the fortress complex back in the height of the city’s Ottoman era. But unfortunately this is the only one that’s survived the ravages of time.

A Rainy Day at Niš Fortress.

Restoration work in the 197os succeeded in bringing the old building back to its former glory. And I must say it still looks pretty good today. We would have loved to peek inside, but you know the story. Around the back of the mosque we caught sight of the fortress’ famous Nišville sign, a grand (and tacky) salute to the jazz festival.

First we found ourselves questioning why the sign had even been made. Secondly, who had been responsible for deciding on its awful colour? Or its position overlooking the Byzantine ruins and the Ottoman mosque?

Amused and bemused, I took a walk over to the sign so that Sladja could grab a shot of me between its giant letters. The elements had really taken their toll on the thing, which was in dire need of a new coat of paint. The icing on our cake of bafflement came when I realised that the sign had been made of… wait for it… polystyrene. *facepalm*

In a day that had already given us fantastic life stories from two iconic Serbian women, there was another fascinating figure to learn more about at this unassuming building. “It’s a mountaineering centre” explained Sladja, translating for me.

This small house is a gathering place for local hikers. Right enough, there are ample walking and climbing opportunities around Niš, particularly on the trails of Suva Mountain and Kalafat Mountain.

Mountaineering Centre.

Embedded into the main facade is this memorial to the Serbian mountaineer Zoran Miletić. A famed climber of international repute, he scaled nearly all of the world’s tallest mountains in his lifetime. In fact, Mount Everest was his only missing peak as he began the ambitious climb (not for the first time) in May of 2002.

I think you know where this is going. Yes, he never made it back down. As the story goes, he’d been doing the climb with some Mexican mountaineers who decided to turn back due to worsening weather conditions.

But Zoran insisted on pushing on alone without oxygen. His body was never found, though experts reckon he made it as far as 8600 metres, very close indeed to the top.

On we pressed through a section of light woodland. At long last the rain seemed to have stopped altogether as above a plane made its gentle ascent into Niš Constantine the Great Airport.

This time our wanderings came to a stop at a small park home to a stunning collection of Roman monuments. There are 41 in total from between the 1st and 4th centuries. Some are altars and sculptures, others are tombstones.

Apparently this is one of the oldest ancient monument sites in Serbia. Gathered from the fortress area and from other spots scattered around Niš, they first went on display here in 1887.

A Rainy Day at Niš Fortress.

The artwork is nothing short of staggering. Sadly there is an almost criminal lack of information onsite and indeed online about the individual pieces.

A few minutes on from the lapidarium we arrived at the oddly-named City Garden.

I say oddly-named because it isn’t really a garden at all. Rather, it appeared to be a nursery where all manner of plants, flowers, trees and bushes are grown for private and commercial use. Most of the pieces on display had price tags attached, so you can simply pick up anything you want and walk it over to the office to pay.

The “garden” is not very big, it takes just a few minutes to wander around. But in the course of doing so we did see a truck that had just been loaded with Christmas trees. I guessed they were about to go out for delivery.

We saw more Christmas trees stacked against a back wall. Which is where we spotted this incredible giant emblem of Yugoslavia. Unceremoniously slumped between some trees, I couldn’t help but wonder how old it was. How it had ended up in the nursery and what (if any) plan there was for it.

City Garden.

Curiously, there is a small public library hidden away at the back of the compound in a gazebo. All the books are strictly Serbian language and you wouldn’t even know the place was there without exploring the nursery as carefully as we did.

By this point we had worked our way to the back section of the fortress. Here the path started to get a bit wild and… shall we say… unloved. Following the path, we passed a row of ruinous structures. Some of which were former weapon depots and storehouses.

In an attempt to cheer up these crumbly old eyesores local artists have painted murals over the facades. Naturally the overriding theme was that of jazz and the city’s famous festival.

It was time to head back towards the entrance for some exploring in the city. Along the way we made one final pitstop at the 3000 capacity Summer Stage.

Finished in 1959, the stage has hosted classical concerts, theatre performances, open air movie nights and jazz festivals.

A Rainy Day at Niš Fortress.

This sculpture meanwhile remembers another cherished event, namely the biennial Yugoslav Choir Festival. Kicking off in 1966, President Tito personally sponsored this patriotic festival until his death in 1980. Today the event lives on although it has been rebranded as the International Choir Festival.

Back through Istanbul gate we went. Then over the bridge and the relentless rush of the Nišava. It was time to explore the city itself, maybe even grab some lunch.

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