NIS- THE MOST IMPORTANT DATA

The town of Nis, having always been the crossroads of Balkan and Europeanroutes linking Europe to the Near East, represents one of the oldest towns in the Balkans, so it has form the ancient times been referred to as the gateway between the East and the West. The prehistoric sites of Bubanj and Humska Cuka offer archeological finds dating 4000 years BC that prove the existence of a preChristian culture in this region. After Dardanians, Thracions and Celts, who had named the town NAISSUS, Romans made Nis a military and trade center, and Constantine the Great was born in it in 274.

Constantine built his magnificent summer residence, MEDIANA, in the vicinity of NAISSUS. In the town area called "Jagodin mala" the remnants wirh a martyry. Thair origin which is traced to the period of the 2nd to 4th cenuries, as well as Constantine's acceptance of Christianity, bear witness if the vwry long Christian tradition of Nis. Nis was harassed by the Huns in 441,and restored in the 6th century by the Emperor Justinian. Stevan Nemanja, the great head of the Serbian state, took over Nis in 1183. It was in this town that he met with the German Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in the year 1189, during the Second Crusade, when they formed an alliance against Byzantine Empire.

In the period to come, Nis was alternately occupied by the Byzantines, Bulgarians and Hungarians all the way to 1386, when it was captured by the Turks and held under their reign up to the liberation in 1877. The Turkish occupation had been shortly interrupted dyring the Austrian conquest.

During the Turkish domination Nis was significantly developed and built, and it represented a center of military and administrative authorities. The Nis FORTRESS, erected in 1723, stands todey as the most beautiful and best preserved Turkish structure in the Balkans. There were several unsuccessful attempts for the liberation of Nis during the 1st and 2nd Serbian Rebellions. The Swrbian commandant Stevan Sindelic, with 3000 of his combatants,fought against 10000 Turks on the Cegar Hill in 1809. His heroic death serves as an example of bravery to generations, the bravery which is still vivid in CELE KULA, a monument unique in the world, built by the Turks if the skulls if dead Serbiand rebels after the battle of Cegar.

After the liberation from the Turkish reign, in 1877, Nis started to develop into a modern town. In 1884, Nis started to deverop into a modern town. In 1884, the railway communication reached Nis, this inducing the developmend of industry and trade, which continued intensively at the beginning if the 20th centuty, when Nis was supplied with electricity (in 1909). It lasted all the way to the beginning if the World War I, the formal declaration of which was recived in the form of an ordinary telegram by the Serbian Govrrnment Prime Ministry, then located in the District Government Palace in Nis, on June 28th, 1914. In the former Officer's Club (now the Cultural Center), the People's parliament of Serbia issued the well-known "Nis Declaration" which defined the struggle of all the South Slavs in the Balkans to unite into one state.

In the period from November 10th, 1915, to October 12th, 1918, the town was under the occupation of German, Austro- Hungarian and Bulgarian troops, and then liberated by the Serbian and French armed forces. The town development was again intensive after the World War I. Nis then become the center of the Morava Country. During the World War II, Nis was heaculy bombed, and the reprisals of the enemy are evidenced by the notorius Nazi Concentration Camp "Crveni Krst", out of which a group of inmates succeeded to ascape on February 12th, 1942, as well as by the Bubanj Massacre Memorial marking the place where German fascists executed more than 10000 patriots from this region of Serbia in the period 1941-1944.

Nis is now a macro-regional center and the official seat of the District -Administration. With about 350 thousands of inhabitants, it is the second biggesst town in Serbia (after Belgrade), aspiring to grow further and to enter the 21st century confirming its status if AN OPEN AND MODERN EUROPEAN TOWN.