Čačak

Čačak has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb) bordering on a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfb). The average temperature of the city and its vicinity is 10.47 °C (50.85 °F) with 74.1% humidity, and it is characterized by warm summers and cold winters. Winds blow from the north and northeast and rarely from the west because of the mountains that block them. The average temperature in August is 20.6 °C (69.1 °F), while in January it is 0.5 °C (32.9 °F). There are on average 38 days with snow during the year. The average wind speed is 2.3 metres per second (5.1 mph). The usual number of foggy days is 54. The average yearly precipitation is 802 mm (31.6 in).[6]

There are a few recorded instances of sandstorms originating in the Sahara arriving to the town.

The original name of the town was Gradac (meaning "little town"), which developed around the Moravski Gradac monastery, built in the late 12th century. First mention of the name Čačak was in a document issued by the Republic of Ragusa. Dated on 3 January 1409, it refers to the events from 18 December 1408, and this date is today the official Čačak Town Day.[8][9][10]

The origin of the name is obscured today. However, several dictionaries from the 19th and even from the 20th century, including works of major linguists Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Đuro Daničić, mention words čačak and the corresponding adjective čačkovit, meaning (lumps of) frozen or dried mud, or lumps of stone protruding from the ground. The widening along the West Morava where Čačak is located, was indeed regularly flooded until the 20th century. Daničić suggested that the origin of the word is the root skak (skakati means jumping in Serbian). The word and its variants completely disappeared from Serbian language today, but some other toponymy of the same origin were preserved, like in the name of the Čakor mountain.[8]

In time, erroneous but widespread theory developed, claiming that the name indeed means "mud", but that it is of Turkish origin. At the time of the name's first mention this region wasn't occupied by the Ottoman Empire yet, mud is called differently in Turkish language, nor there is a Turkish word corresponding vocally to čačak.[8]

The region has several archaeological sites, dating from prehistory to the present, the oldest from the 15th century BC.[11]

Princely tombs of an Illyrian type (Glasinac culture) were found in two mounds of Atenica with Ionian glass, glass-paste, an amber bead depicting a swan, and an Attic plaque of a wild boar, all dating to the late 6th century BC.[12] More ornithomorphic fibulae of bronze swans were found in Mojsinje.[13][14]

Prehistoric tumuli have been unearthed in Mrčajevci.[15] The Triballi and Scordisci tribes lived in this area by the time of Roman conquest.

The Roman thermae in Čačak

The town was inhabited in Roman times, with traces of the Roman settlement still visible today, like Roman Thermae built in the 2nd to 4th century period. These still stand behind a secondary school in the center of Čačak.

Nearby, in the village of Gradina at the foot of the Jelica mountain, a Roman compound (fort) with a martyrium and necropolis has been excavated, with three churches, one of which produced a pentanummion for the late Roman Emperor Justinian in the 526–537 period. Justinian is also believed to have founded the fort in the 530s. The presence of burnt layers on the sight could be evidence that the settlement was destroyed in the conflict that characterized the region following the barbarian invasions of the late Roman Empire. In the same region, in the 6th century, four other forts were built.[16]

Slavs settled the area during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (610–641). From 1168 to 1189, after incorporation into the First Bulgarian Empire and then various Serbian states, Stefan Nemanja's brother Stracimir Zavidović controlled the West Morava region, including the city, then known as Gradac. Stracimir, a Serbian župan, raised the Church of Our Lady of Moravian Gradac at the highest point of the town.

In 1459, the Turks completed their conquest of the area, incorporating it into the Sanjak of Smederevo and converting Stracimir's church into a mosque. The town's name was changed from Gradac to the current Čačak.

Evliya Çelebi, an Ottoman explorer of the 16th and 17th centuries, described Čačak as the main place in the local kadiluk. In 1717, Čačak became a part of the Habsburg Empire after the Austrians defeated Ottomans, signing the Treaty of Passarowitz. Austrian rule was short-lived, and 21 years later Čačak would again become a part of the Ottoman Empire. Most of Čačak's Serb residents at the time of reconquest had deserted the town, migrating north safety in the Habsburg Empire. In their stead were settlers from Montenegro, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Vlachs from the countryside nearby.

Čačak at the beginning of 20th century

Čačak has two years on its coat of arms. The first is 1408, in which Ragusan archives first name the town. The second is 1815, the year the Second Serbian Uprising began and the year the Battle of Ljubić was fought in the hills near Čačak. This battle is famous for one of the greatest Serbian rebel victories. Then a small group, the rebels defeated a much stronger Ottoman army numbering 5,000–12,000 men. Soon after, the Principality of Serbia, one of the first nations liberated from Ottoman rule, secured its independence.

In 1837, one of the first Serbian grammar schools was completed. In the 1837–1941 period Čačak gradually modernized, with its town center modeled in a Vienna Secession style popular at the time and standing to this day. During World War II, Čačak was part of the short-lived Republic of Užice, which, while the first liberated territory in Europe, was cut off by German forces shortly after it was founded. On 4 December 1944 Čačak was finally liberated by the Yugoslav Partisans. It has since evolved into a large town and a regional center, later being given the official status of a city within today's Republic of Serbia.

The city is mostly inhabited by Serbs (95.3%), followed by minorities of Roma, Montenegrins and other ethnic groups.

Being located on a crossroads between the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary during the 19th century, Čačak was home even to people of ethnicities that were not common in Čačak's region. One such example was a small Armenian community which began to settle from 1885, fleeing the forcible draft into the Ottoman army and the general oppression against the Armenians in the empire.[21] Most members of this community worked in the coffee business. By the 1950s most of them had emigrated as the new Communist authorities, in the massive process of nationalization after World War II, confiscated Armenian businesses.[21]

The ethnic composition of the city is given in the following table (as of 2011 census):[22]

There are two faculties located in Čačak, which are a part of the University of Kragujevac:

• Faculty of Agronomy
• Faculty of Technical Sciences

There are seven secondary schools:

• Čačak's Grammar School (one of the oldest grammar schools in Serbia, 1837)
• High School of Economics
• Technical High School
• Medicine High School
• Machine High School
• Musical High School
• F&C School

There are many primary schools and childcare centers.

• 
  Faculty of Technical Sciences
• 
  Čačak's Grammar School
• 
  High School of Economics
• 
  Technical High School
• 
  Musical High School

Borac Hall, February 2019

Čačak Stadium, February 2019

The "Mladost Sports Center" which is located on the coast of West Morava River, next to the Čačak Stadium, two faculties and numerous other important buildings, offers many sports venues for locals.[30] The whole area where the Sports Center is located is the town's most important entertainment area.[30]

Čačak is nationally famous for its clubs in various team sports; the most popular ones are basketball, football and handball. The basketball club Borac Čačak and football club Borac Čačak have been participating in the top-tier leagues of Serbia for many consecutive years with much success. Women's handball is also very successful and popular.

In the vicinity of Čačak there are more than 20 churches and monasteries, the largest number found on such a small area in Serbia. They represent cultural and historic monuments of great significance. The most important ones are the Church of the Ascension of Jesus, a church on Ljubić hill dedicated to Saint Tsar Lazar, as well as the Vujan Monastery located on a nearby mountain of the same name. Special value is attributed to the monasteries of the Ovčar-Kablar Gorge, which as a cultural and historic whole date back to the Middle Ages and represent the particularity of the region's cultural and artistic heritage created over the centuries. There are 12 monasteries and churches in the gorge:

• Uspenje
• Vavedenje
• Jovanje
• Nikolje
• Blagoveštenje
• Vaznesenje
• Preobraženje
• Sretenje
• Sveta Trojica
• Ilinje
• Savinje
• Kadjenica

Thermal and mineral springs with medicinal properties provide the basis for the development of recreational tourism. There are three spa resorts within the territory of the city of Čačak: Gornja Trepča, Ovčar Banja and Slatinska Banja. There are also picnic sites: Gradina and the "Battle and victory" park (also called "Spomen" (remembrance) park) on the Jelica mountain, the Memorial complex on Ljubić hill, Grujine fields, rafts on West Morava river in Beljina, Parmenac, Međuvršje and Ovčar Banja, and picnic sites on the tiny rivers called Dičina, Kamenica, Čemernica and Banja.

• 
  Crkva Uzašašća Isusova
• 
  Nacionalni muzej u Podgrađu
• 
  Crkva Svetog Tsar Lazar na Kljaić brdu
• 
  Most na West Morava rijeci i Šimunić jezeru
• 
  Monument to Stepa Stepanović
• 
  View on Ljubić from West Morava in winter
• 
  West Morava meanders in Ovčar-Kablar Gorge
• 
  West Morava meanders in Ovčar-Kablar Gorge
• 
  KK Borac Sports Hall
• 
  The monument to the fallen soldiers of the Balkan Wars and World War I

Čačak is twinned with: