Mileševac (cultural monument)

In the very vicinity of Mileševo monastery there are remains of the medieval town of Mileševac.
It was built at the beginning of the Mileševka canyon on the top of a cliff that is accessible only from its southern side.
The other three sides of this hill almost vertically slope down and more or less are inaccessible.

The town is of irregular shape, surrounded by walls made of stone and mortarwith quadrilateral towers in noticeable places.

On its southern side there is a suburb where today’ s modern rural settlement of Hisardzik is situated.

The town had all the elements of a fortress with a suburb, a cult building and a necropolis around it, which are still preservedup to nowadays.
It was probably erected in the 14th century and it served as a defense of the Mileševa monastery and the caravan road passing bellow. Conquered by the Turks in the 15th century it became a Turkish fortress which they enlarged with the so – called Turkish towers that are clearly identifiable even today.

The beauties of architecture, well – preserved walls of this big fortress thrill every visitor and instill admiration for the builders who carried out this construction in such a wonderful way.

Describing the shape and position of the town Mileševac ( Hisardžik ), a famous Turkish writer Evlija Čelebija has recorded :
” It is a beautiful town on a cliff  that rises perpendicularly up to the heavenly garden. This is a solid one – story structure made of stone. But some parts are destroyed due to cannon blows. It has a dozen of towers. Storehouses inside the fort are full of food. There are about twenty decent wooden – roof houses, little Fatih’ s mosque, a hut, ammunition storage and a nice iron gate that opens to the north. There is also an underground plumbing system that serves to secretly supply water from the river. . . The dowtown area is not so developed and pretty. It has around sixty different wooden – roof  houses, a mosque, an inn, around ten shops and some vineyards and gardens here and there.

The suburb of this medieval town can be reached from the Mileševa monastery by an asphalt road while one can climb the town walls by a steep and narrow path that has been preserved since the time of the monastery’ s construction.