Silence. Complete and utter silence, save for the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds. This was all we heard all day at our cosy little camp spot on a mountain ledge. We’d expected to see cars, a couple of hikers, maybe a shepherd with his flock, but we saw no one all day in this forgotten corner of West Serbia.
The steep gravel track we’d climbed would perhaps put most people off, but the views from the mountain’s edge were worth the strain on our van, and our legs.
Long, golden grass-covered banks peppered with red rosehip bushes sloped down toward the hazy valley below, and led our eyes across a smattering of red-tiled roofs and chimney smoke stacks. There were dozens of settlements nestled into the nooks and valleys of these mountains, but with only a handful of residents in each, sometimes as little as one or two people.
We were told of a village somewhere in Serbia where only two inhabitants remained, but ironically they hated each other and refused to talk, such was the stubbornness of the elderly mountain folk.
We left our spot sometime in mid-afternoon after a leisurely breakfast and a Turkish coffee. Although our destination in Užice was just a few dozen km’s away we had hours of winding gravel tracks ahead of us. We followed them as they swept up and down the mountainsides, wound in and out of abandoned villages, only occasionally passing a babushka in her garden or an elderly man driving a tractor.
The only signs of other residents here were the graveyards and death notices plastered on crumbling buildings, of which there were dozens in every village. Many gardens and fields also had tombstones planted in them; a bizarre tradition that would soon die out along with the remaining villagers, unless some incentive was offered for the younger generations to move back.
As we left the rugged depths of the mountains we were struck by the abandonment and decay across this entire region, saddened by the fact that soon this beautiful landscape could become one big ghost town. The views were awe-inspiring, but we were beginning to realise that the heart of a country does not lie within its landscapes; it lies within its people.
