Pirot

Pirot lies where the road to Sofia passes below Stara Planina, and it is known in Serbia for two products. The Pirot kilim is a flat-woven wool rug with geometric patterns, each with a name and a traditional meaning, woven by women on vertical looms in a technique that produces the same image on both faces; the craft nearly died and is being sustained by a cooperative and a small number of weavers. Peglana kobasica, the ironed sausage, is a flattened dried sausage made in winter from beef, lamb and goat, pressed repeatedly as it dries. The town has a medieval fortress above the Nišava, the Ponišavlje museum in a nineteenth-century house, and the old Tijabara quarter of low merchant buildings.

History

The Roman settlement of Turres, a military station guarding the main road, stood here, and Justinian I rebuilt its towers among thirty fortresses between Niš and Sofia. In 1153 the Arab geographer Burizi recorded the place as Atrubi, and in 1182-83 the Serbian army of Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja took the lands from Niš to Sofia (Wikipedia, Pirot).

What to look for

• Kilim weaving - vertical looms and the geometric double-faced rugs.
• The fortress - the medieval walls above the river.
• Tijabara quarter - the old low merchant streets.
• Ironed sausage - the pressed dried sausage made through the winter.

When to go

April to October for the town and the mountains behind. Sausage production is a winter activity, roughly November to February, when it is actually being made. Kilim workshops run year round but need arranging.

What to expect

Genuine hand-woven Pirot kilims are expensive and slow to make, and cheaper machine-made imitations are widely sold as the real thing. Workshop visits need contacting the cooperative ahead. The fortress is a modest ruin. The town is a working place with few tourist facilities.

Nearby

Stara Planina rises north; Gostuša village is in the hills above.

Key facts