Pančevo

The first stage of traditions in Banat, Pancevo, has been known as a town of the history as the churches of many confessions have been witnessing. Pancevo has been a multiconfessional town indeed, and one should merely go to the cemetery to take account. A half of the tombs have been Orthodox, a quarter Protestant, and the last quarter Jewish. This was a town of colonisation during the Habsburg monarchy. The Austrian, Hungarian and other workers, artisans and others had been coming to settle here, and that is what has given the today multiethnic aspect to the town with not less than 23 nationalities. The communities have been co-existing in the greatest peacefulness and there has been developing an industrial life with the famous brewery constructed in 1722.

  Today, Pancevo remained an industrial town being such a one since 1945 with its petrol refineries and its chemistry plants. The 1999 bombings had damaged them to the ecological consequences. But it had known how to develop its trumps on the Danube bank, especially with the camping on the bank of the river.

THE TOURIST SITES

THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF USPENSKA - In the centre of the town, this church has been a symbol of the town. Its two square towers with a roof in bronze, each having got its own clock have been visible from everywhere and have been designating the imprint of the town. It had been constructed in 1807 in a baroque style. Here one may see a nice iconostasis and the icons from the first half of the XIX century. The two towers had been constructed in 1815, they had been renewed in 1857. The church had no frescoes until 1930 when the artist Zivorad Natasijevic had realized them. This has been the only church one may hear the organ in. Since 1995 the classical music concerts used to be held here ordinarily.

THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF PREOBRAZENSKA - Erected in the quarter which the inhabitants affectionately call Margita this impressive edifice has been a combination of four different architectural styles: the Byzantine, the Roman, the Renaissance and the Serbian. Its rather impressive dome had been overhead by four semi-cupolas white on the side has been rising a tower of a very particular style more than 45 meters high. At the time of its construction in 1878 it had attracted attention by its pride in a little provincial town, but the inside had on the contrary been very modestly decorated. In 1908 the iconostasis has been finished by Uros Predic, a painter well known specialist for the icons, who had realised 34 icons for the church. In 1911 the artist academician Steva Aleksic had realised the wall frescos combining the religious and national motives. The church of Preobrazenska had been recognized an exceptional cultural monument.

THE MONASTERY OF VOJLOVICA - Six kilometres to the South from Pancevo on the road to Starcevo there is the orthodox monastery of Vojlovica. It has been one of the most ancient ones in Vojvodina because it has probably been founded in XV century by the monks fleeing from the Turkish invasion. The monastery had been suffering very much during the wars between the Turks and the Austrians and had to be restored many a time. Today, opts church has been presented as a monument of the baroque style from the XVIII century with an iconostasis of the same age. One should know that there had been confined the Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo Dozic with his personnel.

Today it has been true that the monastery has been surrounded by many refineries what does not make the visit agreeable, but the efforts at the restoration and managing had been done from 1981 to 1988.

The archeological site of STARCEVO - In the North-West away from the village of Starcevo on a branch of the Danube there are the remnants of a little agglomeration from the Neolithic ages. You may find here the foundations of a few houses, with a hearth each, as well as the painted ceramic earthenware. Many of the objects discovered here are in the Museum of Pancevo