Kragujevac
The city where Serbia spent twenty years doing everything for the first time
- When to go
- September 19° · 8 rainy days
- Per day
- ~39 · 41 · 43 €budget · mid · comfort, per person · checked 22 Sep 2026
- How many days
- 1–2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 34 km Kraljevo
- Right now
Between 1818 and 1841 Kragujevac was the capital of Serbia, and almost everything the country got for the first time it got here: the first court in 1820, the first grammar school in 1833, the first theatre and the first constitution in 1835, the lyceum in 1838. When Miloš Obrenović moved the capital to Belgrade the list stopped, and the town was left with the evidence and no job.
The Sretenje Constitution was proclaimed on Candlemas 1835, in the prince's meadows, before some two and a half thousand delegates and ten thousand onlookers. It was among the more liberal constitutions in Europe at the time, and it lasted fifty-five days: Russia, Turkey, Austria and Prussia — none of which had a constitution of its own — leaned on Miloš, and he repealed it on 11 April the same year. That is the shortest and truest story of Kragujevac as a capital.
The second layer of the city is 21 October 1941. In reprisal, the Germans shot 2,264 people that day, in groups of fifty to a hundred and twenty, over seven hours, and 2,794 counting the two days before. Among them were 261 boys of secondary-school age and forty children aged eleven to fifteen. Desanka Maksimović wrote 'A Bloody Fairy Tale' about it, a poem schoolchildren across the country still learn by heart. The execution ground has been a 352-hectare memorial park since 1953, and since 2012 the 21st of October has been the national day of remembrance for Serbian victims of the Second World War.
The third layer is the factory. Zastava signed with Fiat in 1954, began building the little 750 a year later — nine hundred and twenty-three thousand of them by 1985 — and between 1985 and 1992 sold around a hundred and forty thousand Yugos in America. The plant was bombed in 1999, Fiat took it over in 2008, and the same halls have been turning out the electric Grande Panda since January 2025 and the petrol one since January 2026. The town still measures itself in shifts.
Guides for Kragujevac
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Kragujevac in 2 days
→Day one covers the centre and Šumarice, on foot or a short bus ride; day two leaves town for Lake Gruža and Borač…
Day trips from Kragujevac
→Lake Gruža and Borač fort are the one day trip out of Kragujevac — about twenty kilometres west, reachable only by car.
Where to stay in Kragujevac
→In Kragujevac the choice isn't a district but quiet: the centre is all on foot and close to the sights, Šumarice is…
What Kragujevac costs
→Serbia is not in the eurozone — everything is paid in dinars, and the euro here is only for comparison, at the National…
Kragujevac past the six main sights
→The 1818 Old Church, a performance at Serbia's first theatre, and Zastava's industrial complex — three things the six…
What to eat in Kragujevac
→Roast meat, kajmak and brandy are the base, wedding cabbage cooks for hours, and the kafanas in the centre run all day.
The best time to visit Kragujevac
→Kragujevac has a continental climate: winter can drop below freezing, summer runs warm, and May–June and September…
Getting around Kragujevac
→Kragujevac has no airport of its own — the way in is by coach from Belgrade, and the town itself is covered entirely on…
Mistakes everyone makes in Kragujevac
→Kragujevac has no airport, the theatre doesn't run when you want it to but when there's a show, and the Šumarice…
What to see in Kragujevac
Šumarice and the 21 October Museum
A 352-hectare park on the execution ground, laid out in 1953, with monuments placed at the graves — Miodrag Živković's 'Interrupted Flight' for the pupils and teachers, Nandor Glid's 'A Hundred for One'. The museum opened in 1976, designed by Ivan Antić. Allow two to three hours; the park doubles as the city's walking ground.
€0.85 / group €1.28 · 2–3 h · booking: recommended
Milošev venac and the Amidža Konak
What is left of Prince Miloš's court complex. The Amidža Konak was built between 1819 and 1824 and is the only surviving building of the group: Miloš's own konak was destroyed in the Second World War, Princess Ljubica's burned down in 1884. It is a museum now, and in the same grounds stand the Old Church of 1818 and the Princely Serbian Theatre.
The first theatre and the first grammar school
The Princely Serbian Theatre was founded in 1835 with Joakim Vujić as its first director — the first theatre in Serbia, and still working. The First Grammar School dates from 1833, and out of it grew the Lyceum of 1838, which followed the capital to Belgrade and became the Great School and then the university.
€2.56–5.11 · the whole performance · closed outside performance dates · booking: recommended
Zastava, and what remains of it
There has been a factory here since the mid-nineteenth century, first a cannon foundry and then the Military Technical Institute, and the town grew around it. The Prince's Arsenal, the old industrial quarter in the centre, is now a protected complex holding museum and university space — the clearest way to see why Kragujevac looked like a workers' town.
- Š
Šumadija cooking
In the kafanas downtown, such as Gradska Kafana Balkan or Stara Srbija, the table is ordered for the whole party, not per person, and the meal runs long. What's actually on that table, and at what price, is on the food page.
€4.25–12.80
Around it: Lake Gruža and Borač
Twenty kilometres west is Lake Gruža, locally the 'Šumadija sea', with a road right round it and places to fish. Above it stands Borač, a medieval fort on a volcanic plug, and that is the best reason to drive on from Kragujevac rather than back.
free
Stories from Kragujevac
How it actually was when we were there, and what was worth it.
Kragujevac, Šumarice: how to read 21 October 1941
→The order fixed a figure of 2,300 people in advance, and nearly five hundred more were shot. Šumarice reads as that gap.
Two things you probably did not know
Kragujevac was the first capital of modern Serbia, from 1818 to 1841. The country's first grammar school, first lyceum and first theatre opened here, and the Sretenje constitution was adopted in the town in 1835.
In Sumarice, on the site of the shootings of October 1941, a monument is dedicated to the pupils and teachers taken out of class. The park covers the ground where the executions took place and carries a monument for each group.
Ready for Kragujevac?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Kragujevac — day trips or weekends.
Serbia
→The north an hour away by train, the mountains three or four by car — Serbia divides by the time you have
Montenegro
→The Bay, the riviera or Ulcinj for the sea, Durmitor for July — choose the coast by its beaches and the north by the month
Greece
→The north by road, the Cyclades by ferry, Rhodes by air — pick the region first and the island second
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Ovčar-Kablar Gorge, Rtanj and Sokobanja
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Kragujevac if you have been.
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