Novo Selo (Ново Село) - a village in the Municipality of Novo Selo, in the vicinity of the city of Strumica, and the administrative center of the municipality. Novo Selo is the seat and largest settlement within the Municipality of Novo Selo and one of the largest villages in Strumica. It is located at the foot of the mountain Ograzden in Strumica Field, at an altitude of 236 meters. The village is 21 km east of the town of Strumica, and 8 km west of the Macedonian-Bulgarian border crossing.
Old history
First the settlement was located in the
locality Selishte, then in Volchji Dol, and then moved to the
present place. In the village and the surrounding area there are
several archeological sites, such as: Bel Rid, Gradishte, Kostunica,
Novoselsko depot, Selishte, Chuka and Shopov Rid.
Ottoman
Empire
The village is mentioned in the Ottoman censuses of 1519
and 1570 under the name Yeni oj (New Village). It is assumed that
with the arrival of the Turks on the Balkan Peninsula in the second
half of the XIV century, the fertile plain was taken away from the
Christian population and it was forced to form a new settlement east
of the locality Volchya Mogila. The new occupation of the population
became animal husbandry. The fact that this village has existed for
a long time is the large number of graves in the area of
Grobcheto. Remains of the foundations of some houses can still be
seen from this village.
At the end of the 17th and the
beginning of the XVIII century, the population of the village
started to emigrate to the current place in the village. The final
emigration of the inhabitants of today's location ended in the early
nineteenth century. Gradually the village started to grow and turned
into a market center of the surrounding villages.
In the XIX
century the village had 1,200 inhabitants and was the first of the
village settlements in the Strumica kaza. In 1842 the church "St.
Georgi ”, and in 1866 a school in Macedonian language was
established in the house of the Panzievci family, as a result of the
efforts of the prominent citizen from the village, Dimcho
Hadzi-Penev. Later, the location of the village was moved to the
house of the Gozevci family, and even later to the so-called Popski
Dom.
In 1895, a VMORO committee was established in Novo Selo.
Goce Delchev also resided in the village, and the great Komitas duke
Manush Georgiev also lived here. The first serious burglary in the
Strumica region was the so-called Novosel affair when 5 Albanians
were killed, followed by the arrest of 30 people in Strumica led by
Stojan Georgiev as the head of the Strumica District Committee.
Kingdom of Bulgaria
In 1913, during the Balkan Wars, the
village was seized by the Greek army and 160 houses were burned.
According to the Treaty of Bucharest until 1919, Novo Selo entered
the borders of the Kingdom of Bulgaria in the newly formed
administrative district of Strumica.
Yugoslavia
After the
end of the First World War, according to the Nej Peace Treaty, the
village was included in the Kingdom of SCS, together with the
Strumica region, while after the end of the Second World War, within
the SFRY. During World War II from 1941 to 1944 the village was
again included in the borders of Bulgaria. At that time the mayor of
the village was Atanas Machukov.
In 1936 a school building
was built with the money of the villagers.
Macedonia
After
the disintegration of the SFRY, the village was formally included in
the Republic of Macedonia. According to the territorial organization
of the Republic of Macedonia, the village belongs to the
Municipality of Novo Selo and is its administrative center.
Archaeological sites
Bell Reed
Bel Rid - archeological site in Novo Selo, Municipality of Novo
Selo. It is a settlement from late antiquity. 500 m northwest of the
village rises a high hill on which remains of the foundations of
several buildings have been found, and on the surface there are
fragments of ceramic vessels, pithos and roof tiles.
Gradishte
Gradishte - archeological site in Novo Selo,
Municipality of Novo Selo. It is a settlement from late antiquity.
It is located 4 km north of the village. It is a high dominant hill
with a flattened plateau, with an area of 150 h 100 m, on which
there are preserved remains of foundations of a wall 1.60 m wide,
built of stone and lime mortar. Fragments of pottery, pithos and
roof tiles are found on the surface.
Kostunica
Kostunica -
archeological site in Novo Selo, Municipality of Novo Selo. It is a
settlement from Roman times. In the meadows located 1 km east of the
village there is a large mound with a diameter at the base of 35 m.
At the top there is a dug bunker with which the mound is
significantly damaged.
Novosel depot
Novoselsko Depot -
archeological site in Novo Selo, Municipality of Novo Selo. It is a
depot of medieval coins. On the edge of the village, at the place
where there is a lot of remains of construction material (late
antique construction site?) And is a slope of the mountain Ograzden,
in 1995 81 Paleo-Byzantine coins from the 6th century were
accidentally discovered. The depot consists of 6 solids, 38 foleys
and 1 half-foley by Anastasius I; 1 solid, 2 tremis and 29 foals by
Justin I, as well as 2 solids and 2 foals by Justinian I. The coins
are kept in the Museum of Macedonia in Skopje.
Seat
Selishte - an archeological site in Novo Selo, Municipality of Novo
Selo. It is a settlement from the Copper Age. At the foot of Mount
Ograzden, on a small terrace that rises above the Novoselska River,
4 km north of the village, there are fragments of pottery, handmade.
A stone ax with a hole for a handle and a pintadera was found.
Chuka
Chuka - archeological site in Novo Selo, Municipality
of Novo Selo. It is a settlement and mound from late antiquity. At
the edge of the village, on a gentle slope with an area of 150 ×
120 m, which descends to the south, there are fragments of ceramic
vessels, pithos and roof tiles, as well as pieces of slag from
molten iron. Their greatest concentration is in the fields of S.
Georgiev and I. Patulev. There are traces of a destroyed mound on
the field.
Shopov Reed
Shopov Rid - archeological site in
Novo Selo, Municipality of Novo Selo. It is a mound from Roman
times. In the immediate vicinity of the Chuka site there are two
mounds with a diameter at the base of about 30 m, one of which is
damaged.
Buildings
Church "St. George "
„St.
Gjorgji ”- a Christian temple located in Novo Selo, Strumica region.
It was built in 1842.
Novoselski Monastery, with the church
"St. George "
Saint Anthony - Orthodox Macedonian monastery above
the Strumica village Novo Selo. The monastery rises on a hill on the
mountain Ograzden, which is located above Novo Selo, from where you
can see a panorama of the whole village. Within the monastery there
is a residence where three monks live in accordance with the
Ascetic-hesychastic tradition of the Mount Athos monasteries.
Beekeeping is developed in the monastery and quality honey is
produced. A necropolis, probably dating to Roman times, was
discovered at the site in the 1990s, and initiatives were later
taken to build a monastery complex.
Church
The main and
only monastery church is dedicated to St. George. It was consecrated
on August 28, 2004 on the feast of the Great Mother of God with the
blessing of the Metropolitan of Strumica Mr. Nahum. The church has
not been frescoed yet and the iconostasis has not been made (state
2015).
Fountain of Baba Vangja
Bulgarian military
cemetery
Smolari waterfall
Smolari waterfall - a waterfall located on
the northern slopes of Mount Belasica, along the river Lomnica, at
an altitude of 600 m in the region of the village Smolari.
The total height of the vertical section of the Smolare Waterfall is
39.5 meters. The waterfall is tectonically predisposed with a fault
structure that lies transversely to the direction of water flow on
the Smolari River. A giant pot is formed at the bottom of the
waterfall, the length of which in the direction of the river water
flow is 5 meters, the width is 11 meters, and the depth ranges from
0.5 to 0.7 meters.
Smolari waterfall is the only permanent
waterfall in Macedonia with a water drop of 39.5 meters.
Smolari is like most villages in Macedonia, a small village
inhabited by kind and hospitable people. But this village has a
special treasure hidden in the mountain, Smolari Waterfall.
To get to the waterfall, you have to travel on a narrow, winding
road and reduce speed because tractors and harnesses are typical of
this area. The main occupation here is agriculture.
On the
way to the waterfall you will find a small market where you can buy
local products. This market was opened in January 2007 where the
local population is always there to offer you local peppers, apples,
cucumbers and many other delicious and healthy products. After a
short talk in the market, you continue climbing to the waterfall.
Koleshino/Kolešino waterfall
Kolešino waterfall - a
waterfall located in the southeastern part of the Republic of
Macedonia, on the northern slopes of Mount Belasica, in the lower
reaches of the Baba River, at an altitude of 500 m.
It is one
of the highest waterfalls in Macedonia with a height of 15 m, with a
width of about 6 m. According to its origin, it is a tectonic
waterfall, created in granite rocks. Opposite the Kolešino
waterfall, at a distance of about 100 meters there are several
smaller waterfalls arranged in a row, 2 to 4 meters high, which
belong to its central basin.
As the temperatures rise, the
number of guests who come here every day grows. On average, the
Kolešino waterfalls are visited daily by between 400 and 500
tourists, and during the weekends this number is doubled.
On
Saturdays and Sundays during the weekends that number can reach up
to 1,000 tourists, and if there were accommodation facilities it
would be much more because the guests would stay here on weekdays.
In short, the potential for tourism development already exists -
says Petar Spasov, mayor of Novo Selo.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the village had a purely
Macedonian population.
In the "Ethnography of the vilayets of
Adrianople, Monastir and Thessaloniki" in 1873, Novo Selo is listed as a
village with 90 households and 325 Macedonian inhabitants.
According to Vasil K'nchov's statistics ("Macedonia, Ethnography and
Statistics") from 1900, 1,400 Macedonian residents lived in Novo Selo.
According to the exarchate secretary Dimitar Mishev, ("La Macédoine et
sa Population Chrétienne") in 1905 there were 1,280 Macedonians in Novo
Selo, under the rule of the Bulgarian exarchate.
According to the
population census of Macedonia from 2002, the village has 2,756
inhabitants, of which 2,726 Macedonians, 3 Roma, 11 Serbs, 2 Bosniaks
and 14 others.
According to the last census of 2021, 1,967
inhabitants lived in the village, of which 1,788 Macedonians, 2
Albanians, 2 Serbs, 9 others and 166 persons without data.
The village has been the administrative center of the Municipality of
Novo Selo since 1996. Market day in the village is Thursday. In the
immediate vicinity of the village is the Novoselska reservoir. The water
supply in the village was built in 1974.
The local
self-government of the Municipality of Novo Selo is represented by the
mayor of the municipality and the Council of the Municipality, which has
15 members.
Polling station
In the village there are polling
stations no. 1785, 1786 and 1787 according to the State Electoral
Commission, located in the primary school and cultural center.
In
the 2019 presidential elections, a total of 2,599 voters were registered
at these polling stations.
There are several public institutions in the settlement, such as:
The House of Culture "Jane Sandanski" from Novo Selo was founded on
December 28, 1988, and was registered as an institution of public
interest on February 20, 1989. The building also houses the local
community of the village, offices for employees, a library, a hall with
300 seats, etc.
JP "Commune"
Special School "St. Clement of Ohrid"
"Manush Turnovski" Elementary School
Kindergarten "Children's Joy"
Police station
Border Police and the Fire Station.
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