THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE IN SERBIA: You've never heard of it, and the air is healing, people live up to 100 years, they drink water from a stream (VIDEO) (PHOTO)

Imagine that there is a place in Serbia where the air is a medicine, the drop of water you drink directly from a stream or from is a therapy, where people live up to 100 years with a smile, and the trees are over 500 years old. Imagine that there is a mountain in Serbia, up on the sone, where you come across by an accident and then you don't want to leave it. You don't have to imagine anymore, that place really exists. In Serbia. And it has a very unusual name - Kamena Gora (Stone Forest)! 

Mysterious place in Serbia: There water curtain, the temperature is 5 degrees during the summer, and the rocks are carved like steps (PHOTO)

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Yes, I too have come here almost by accident. I heard about this place from a friend who was fascinated, and he heard about it from another fascinated friend, who happens to be one of the most famous Serbian cardio surgeons. And is there any better commercial besides the fact that the "heart master" came here, made a house and decided to stay. Or would you believe some billboard inviting you to visit some other place, allegedly equally beautiful and nice? I wouldn't.

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

HEART, KINDNESS, GOOD AND THE SPIRIT OF WHITE ANGEL 

Kamena Gora is everything but stone, although the name was made according to the landscape where it is located, and that is a forest on a rocky mountain, or "forest on stones". Perhaps it is a forest and stones, but the people are so kind and nice... just like that stereotype of Serbs that made the stories about us present us open, hospitable and hearty. Imagine a place where people have nicknames like Hearty, Dear, Kindy... Yes, as I said, there is such a place. It is 17 kilometers away from Prijepolje, and for everybody who didn't have more than D from geography, the closer guideline is close to monastery Mileseva, founded by King Stefan Vladislav (1234 - 1243), where the famous fresco of White Angel is located, which is decorating the walls of this magnificent Serbian holy shrine from the era of Nemanjic dynasty.

The area of the local community of Kamena Gora is located at an altitude of 800m to 1.496m, where the highest peak is Ravna Gora, which is almost in the same level with Crni Vrh on the other side of the mountain. Kamena Gora borders Montenegro. And with the sky.

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

Or, as a colleague of mine said it better: "It seems like its only a 100 meters to the sky on Kamena Gora!" Away from the main road, the entire Kamena Gora is a living legend and unique keeper of legends, the region of true beauty and the place where hosts of pure heart and "kind" temper live. Instead of stones, your eyes are "captured" on the islands of forests, the vast green meadows with flowers, the irresistible anthem of silence, a charming song of birds and magical ripples of the water. The locals say that it has been like that forever. The Kamena Gora has been OFFICIALLY PRONOUNCED A AIR RESORT long back in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and it is an oasis of fresh air, unpolluted nature, and mountain climate. 

Foto: Wikimedia/Panoramio/Slavo Gluščevic

THE HEALING AIR, FOOD, WATER

Unlike people from Zlatibor or Kopaonic, the people from Kamena Gora didn't allow the tourists to murder their fairytale. To make it more beautiful with their looks, breaths, and steps, that is a yes, but to destroy it or to make some circus out of it by some businessmen, that is a no.

Because try to at least imagine that there is another place in Serbia without a single shop because everybody has everything they need here... at least everything they need to live happily. Or imagine a place without a single hotel. Try to imagine a place where they don't know that there is an organic food since they have been eating food like that for their entire lives. Or the place that has only one tavern. Which works till 10.

Pharmacists say that around 250 medical herbs are growing here. Hydrologists agree that the blood is not going through the veins of Kamena Gora, but the water that is breaking out of every stone, that there are 125 springs of healthy drinking water, and 90 of them never go dry. I was also discovered, like the mentioned cardio-surgeon, by walkers, climbers, paragliders, rafters, but also people who pick edible mushrooms.

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

THREE MOST FAMOUS LEGENDS OF KAMENA ZORA 

And again, some of my colleagues said it better than me (J.M. Novosti), there are numerous legends that follow this unique place, and the three of them are the most famous ones.

Trojan, one of the most famous springs, is a keeper of the local legend. Three young men came to the source and they discovered to each other that they are all in love with the same girl, which is in fact, a very beautiful fairy. The conflict of the fairy-girl was lethal for the all three of them. That is why it got the name Trojan, and not far from there, there is a spring which got a name Krvavac (Bloodstream) which became from their blood. When she saw what happened, the fairy-girl climbed to the top of Pribojna and she cried for seven days. Her 27 tears created 27 new springs.

Kamena Gora is "famous" that it is a village of a hundred-year-olds, highlanders that easily walk into their 11th decade of life. As they say, there were those who reached 100 years and they couldn't even compete for the place in the book of old people of Kamena Zora. And those who were well over 100, their years were never precisely determined, because the age of the ancestors was calculated by historical events. It is known for some that they were old enough for school or army during the first First Balkan War, so they could easily make mistake after that.

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

The largest and the oldest living legend of this village is Svetibor (Holy Pine tree). The pine tree from where you can see almost over entire western Serbia during the summer, and it has around 500 years. The locals believe that it is a holy tree and that there are records sealed with wax in Svetibor that testify about the roads and crossroads of Serbs. Those are, according to the locals, all the secrets of Serb migrations, who, and from where he is heading.

When you approach it for the first time, it is good to hug Svetibor. And to think about a wish. Monica Bellucci hugged it recently because Emir Kusturica made one of the key scenes in his movie "On a Milky Way". 

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

I am not the first, nor the last, who discovered this hidden Serbian paradise out of the blue, I am also not the first who tried to describe it in words and in a photograph. And while some said that Kamena Gora is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE IN SERBIA, the other said that it is a VILLAGE WHERE LEGENDS COME ALIVE! I will be the third group - who will return here regularly.

Aleksandar Sasa Jovanovic / Telegraf.rs

P.S. The photos and videos you see here were made in the last few days, when it is -10 degrees on Gamena Gora, and -15 to -20 during the night (when sounds seize to exist), without a dash of wind. It is enough to type "Kamena Gora" in Google for more interesting photos. And you take care not to fall in love because you are doing so at your own risk. Don't say that Telegraf didn't warn you and that the author is to "blame".

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

Foto: Telegraf/Aleksandar Jovanović

(Telegraf.co.uk)