KASTEL FORTRESS

Set on the banks of the Vrbas, this fortress (Tvrđava Kastel/Тврђава Кастел) is really not the most impressive in the country. Its well-preserved ramparts now house a children's park, an exhibition hall, the Kazamat restaurant and serve as the setting for several festivals (rock, theater, etc.). They form an elongated trapezium: about 40 m from north to south, and more than 100 m long on the part located on the bank of the Vrbas. The location of the fortress is the historical heart of the city, the nucleus from which human occupation has developed since the Neolithic period. Established as a castrum (military camp) during the Roman period (2nd century), the Kastel was gradually strengthened in the Middle Ages and during the Ottoman period. It took its present form in 1714 under the impulse of the Bosnian Albanian governor Köprülü Numan Pasha (briefly Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire in 1710). Equipped with medieval towers and six small bastions "à la Vauban", it was thus able to resist, in 1737, the siege of the Austro-Hungarian army of Prince Joseph-Frederic of Saxe-Hildburghausen. This is the only major feat of arms associated with the building. Nearby are the Ferhadija Mosque (to the west), the covered municipal market (to the north) and the Museum of the Serbian Republic (behind the market). Finally, to the southwest, beyond the small tributary of Vrbas, the Crkevena, stands the wooden minaret of the Dolačka Mosque. Erected in 1688, this was destroyed in September 1993 and rebuilt in 2007.