Đavolja Varoš

On the southwestern slopes of Radan Mountain in southern Serbia, about two hundred slender earth pillars crowd a steep hillside. Most of them wear a cap of andesite, a hard volcanic rock. The pillars range from 2 to 15 metres in height and are 4 to 6 metres wide at the base. Similar formations exist elsewhere in the world, but none has as many pillars or such tall ones. The name Đavolja Varoš means "Devil's Town". The bare columns, with multicoloured volcanic rock behind them, stand out sharply against the dense beech forest that surrounds them, and the ravine beneath them is called Paklena jaruga, "Hell's Gully".

The formations are the product of soil erosion in a landscape shaped by intense volcanic activity millions of years ago. The andesite caps shelter the softer earth below, so the material around each cap washes away while the column under it survives. In its present form, though, the "town" is fairly young. As people cleared the surrounding forests, rain was able to attack the slopes. The pillars are still changing: old ones crumble and new ones appear. Tomislav Rakićević examined and described the site scientifically in 1955. Two springs rise below the pillars. One, Đavolja voda ("Devil's Water"), is extremely acidic, with a pH of about 1.5, and carries around 15 grams of minerals per litre. The other is Crveno vrelo, the "Red Well". The chemist Aleksandar Zega first analysed their waters in 1905. Nearby are the shafts of medieval mines that Saxon miners opened in the thirteenth century at the invitation of King Uroš I, to extract iron, copper and smaller amounts of gold and silver.

Local folklore explains the pillars in more than one way. One tale says the devil poisoned a spring so that anyone who drank from it lost their reason. Under that spell a brother and sister were about to marry, and heaven turned the whole wedding party to stone before the ceremony could take place. Another tale speaks of a witch who petrified everyone who cheated her. A small log church dedicated to Saint Petka stands just before the formations, built on the foundations of a thirteenth-century church. The state first protected the site in 1959, and in 1995 the Serbian government declared it a natural monument of the highest category.

Getting there

Đavolja Varoš lies in the territory of the village of Đake, in the municipality of Kuršumlija, about 30 km southeast of the town of Kuršumlija. The nearest town in a straight line is across the boundary with Kosovo. Within Serbia, the closest larger town is Prokuplje, about 32 km away. The nearest airport inside Serbia is Niš Constantine the Great Airport (INI), about 54 km away.