Kuršumlijska Banja

Kuršumlijska Banja, a spa town of 106 inhabitants as recorded in the 2011 census, occupies a 7.77-square-kilometre stretch of the Banjska valley in south Serbia, poised between altitudes of 440 and 500 metres on the southeastern slopes of Kopaonik and flanking both sides of the Niš-Priština highway just 11 kilometres southwest of Kuršumlija and under ten kilometres from the Kosovo administrative border.

Kuršumlijska Banja’s origins as a locus of therapeutic springs trace back to Roman antiquity, when its mineral waters—rich in sodium, hydrocarbon, fluoride and sulfide—drew priests and citizens alike to their curative embrace. Archaeological remains attest to late-antique edifices walled in stone and brick, frescoed chambers and glass-paned windows dating to the fourth through sixth centuries, while a third-century stone monument bears witness to the Roman name Aquarum Bassinae. Silver coins of Emperor Philip the Arab, the griffins of tufa altars and the fragments of tombs all linger beneath layers of later settlement, evincing the route by which a health resort of enduring legacy first emerged.

After centuries of intermittent use, the spa’s modern revival began in 1883, swelling into prominence during the Interbellum. Decreed a royal spa in 1922 by King Alexander I Karađorđević—whose own visits prompted the construction of Hotel Jugoslavija at the town’s entrance—the facilities underwent a transformation that rendered Kuršumlijska Banja, alongside Prolom and Lukovska within the same municipality, one of Serbia’s foremost convalescent destinations. By 1930, electric power coursed through its streets, public waterworks supplied most households and steam baths harnessed springs varying from 14 to 64 degrees Celsius. A four-grade elementary school, later declared a cultural monument, catered to the offspring of families who chiefly had migrated in the late nineteenth century from Kosovo, Kopaonik and Šumadija, bringing with them the Slava celebrations of Đurđevdan, Saint Elijah and Saint Thomas the Apostle.

The spa’s apex arrived in 1941, on the cusp of global conflict. Prior to World War II, the town’s rehabilitation centre—later christened Žubor—had opened in 1982 with an investment of seventeen million Deutsche Marks, enveloping some 95,902 square metres of structures that included villa Milica, the food venue Prepolac, and auxiliary pavilions abutting geothermal springs. Olympic-sized pools, bath tubs, saunas and accommodation for fifty thousand annual visitors endowed Kuršumlijska Banja with both convalescent purpose and recreational appeal. Thermal waters heated residences through a network of pipes, setting the town apart as a self-sufficient haven of health.

War’s end brought Yugoslavian management and momentary expansion; Žubor employed 130 workers and offered 250 beds, yet an ownership dispute surfaced in the early 2000s. Partial state holdings under the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund (PIO Fund) clashed with private claims from “Žubor,” while unpaid taxes for police-occupied years led to further litigation. A 2012 court ruling in favour of the state did little to resume operations; by 2018, the spa complex lay derelict, its infrastructure decaying amid endemic housing around its perimeter. Attempts to auction the center in 2018 and again in 2019 at reduced prices met no bidders, despite a sliding scale that placed the asset under two million euros.

A renewed bid emerged in February 2020, when Planinka—already steward of Prolom and Lukovska Banja, as well as a bottling plant and the Đavolja Varoš park—acquired the spa for €1,415,836. The transaction, approved by government decree, promised an investment of €10–12 million to restore functionality by late 2020 or early 2021. Investigative reports, however, would later unmask the sale as symptomatic of political patronage: legislative alterations in 2014 had reshaped the PIO Fund’s board, paving the way for state-adjacent businessmen to secure assets at below-market rates, while subsequent subsidies of €2.5 million—80 percent more than the spa’s purchase price—arrived months before the complex changed hands. The Anti-Corruption Council, in January 2021, condemned the entire process as entangled in organized corruption and urged annulment of the contract.

Despite controversy, reconstruction commenced in 2020. Hotel Jugoslavija was reimagined as a modern spa-hotel of 300 beds, with its skeleton preserved but enveloped anew by fresh foundations, two swimming pools, a wellness centre, Royal Bathroom and the restored Prepolovac restaurant. Villa Milica regained its nineteenth-century grace, and on the plateau where springs once coagulated into mud baths rose a statue of Hygieia, Greek goddess of health. In April 2022, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić surveyed the site and announced opening for September; subsequent revisions slated inauguration first for year-end and later for February 2023, when the complex adopted the Planinka name.

As Kuršumlijska Banja reclaims its therapeutic identity, the town’s administrative boundaries persist. Designated both an urban settlement and the seat of a mesna zajednica, it embraces nine neighbouring villages—Vrelo, Vukojevac, Dabinovac, Krtok, Ljuša, Tačevac, Tijovac, Trmka and Šatra—whose collective population dwindled from 3,836 in 1953 to 440 by 2011. Vukojevac and Tačevac were vacated entirely by 1991 and 2002, while Šatra and Ljuša, once more populous than the spa itself, now count fewer residents than the town’s eight hamlets: Centar, Crkvište, Vrelo, Zdravkovići, Ivanovići, Arsići, Vukadinovići and Markovići.

Demographic decline has been a constant refrain since the mid-twentieth century. From a peak of 485 inhabitants in 1953, Kuršumlijska Banja fell to 106 by 2011. The elementary school that, in 1961, served 700 pupils with living quarters and a kitchen, closed by 2022; its last charges now travel to Kuršumlija for instruction. A sparse community healthcare centre and a post office endure, yet household counts number only 55, with an average of 2.75 members and an adult population of 125 averaging 43.9 years of age (40.2 for men, 47.3 for women). Ethnically homogeneous, the settlement is predominantly Serbian, and its remaining residents hold fast to agrarian traditions that in 1991 sustained just 16.8 percent of the populace.

Beyond its built and social milieu, Kuršumlijska Banja’s geological underpinnings remain its paramount asset. Springs of 14 to 64 °C channel into baths designed for skeletal-muscular treatment and sterility therapies, supplemented by peloid harvested from ancient mud wells. The synergy of water and mud, unified by millennia of thermal pressure, anchors the spa’s restorative promise. A new road under construction over Radan mountain aims to bind Kuršumlijska Banja with Justiniana Prima, Sijarinska Banja, Prolom Banja, Đavolja Varoš, Lukovska Banja and the Pločnik archaeological site, thereby situating the spa once more at the heart of a regional circuit of heritage and wellness.

Kuršumlijska Banja’s story is thus a composite of geology and geopolitics, of imperial vestiges and royal patronage, of post-war social investment and post-socialist contestation. It endures as both repository and refuge, a compact settlement whose terrain and springs have beckoned emperors and commoners alike. As reconstruction reshapes battered pavilions and reanimates mud baths, the town stands poised to reconcile its depopulated present with the promise of renewal inscribed in every drop of mineral water and every tile of restored fresco. In this convergence of past and future, Kuršumlijska Banja remains, above all, a testament to the persistence of place.