Baluga
Morava valley workhorse—Baluga Ljubićka's 415 residents cultivate fertile land while demographic gravity pulls the young toward Čačak and Belgrade.
Baluga exists because the Zapadna Morava valley needed villages to work its land—and because some places prosper while others simply persist. This settlement of 415 in Čačak municipality, also known as Baluga Ljubićka, sits in the agricultural heart of the Moravica District. The Morava valley's fertile alluvium produces fruit, vegetables, and livestock; Baluga participates in this economy without dominating any part of it.
The village takes the 'Ljubićka' suffix from its proximity to Ljubić, a local toponym that distinguishes it from other Balugas in Serbia. This naming pattern reveals how villages that share names differentiate themselves—by river, by monastery, by nearby hill. The Ottoman centuries established many such settlements as part of the rayah agricultural system; they survived through sheer utility, providing labor and produce for regional markets.
Today's Baluga reflects the fate of hundreds of similar Serbian villages: population declining, young people moving to Čačak or Belgrade, agriculture increasingly mechanized and requiring fewer hands. The 2011 census captured a moment in a longer trajectory of rural depopulation. By 2026, the question for Baluga—as for most villages in the Morava basin—is whether agricultural productivity can sustain a community when the community itself keeps shrinking.