Aleksinacki Bujmir
Roman mansio turned shrinking village—Aleksinački Bujmir's 557 residents trace their road to the Via Militaris legions and Ottoman caravans.
Aleksinački Bujmir exists because the Via Militaris needed rest stations—and because Roman engineers understood that soldiers march on their stomachs. This village of 557 in Aleksinac municipality sits on the ancient military road that connected the Danube frontier to Constantinople, passing through what Romans called the province of Upper Moesia. The mansio (rest station) and mutatio (horse-changing post) established here in the 1st century AD served legions for three centuries before the empire's retreat.
The Ottoman centuries transformed the Aleksinac region into a significant trade and handicraft center. After the third Austro-Turkish War (1737–1739), caravans from across the empire and Central Europe exchanged goods here. By 1784, Aleksinac county comprised 17 villages; Aleksinački Bujmir was one of them, its identity shaped by proximity to the market town rather than independent importance.
Today, Aleksinački Bujmir is a settlement of 188 households, with an average household size of 2.96—typical of rural Serbia's demographic contraction. The 2022 census confirmed what earlier counts suggested: population declining, nearly all residents ethnic Serbs, and an economy oriented toward Niš and Aleksinac rather than local enterprise. By 2026, the village's future tracks the Via Militaris pattern: a waypoint that exists because of the road, not despite it.