Beoci
Monastery satellite—Beoci's 462 residents live in the Valley of Kings, where 12th-century monastic foundations shaped village economies for 800 years.
Beoci exists because the Ibar valley needed villages to serve monasteries—and because proximity to sacred sites shapes settlement patterns for centuries. This village of 462 in Raška municipality sits in the 'Valley of the Kings,' the stretch of the Ibar and Raška rivers where Serbian medieval statehood was born in the 12th century. The Stara Pavlica Monastery, built around the 11th–12th centuries in the Raška School style, rises from a rocky plateau just north of the village.
The Raška region's monastic density is unmatched: Studenica, founded by Stefan Nemanja; Žiča, site of seven royal coronations; Sopoćani, UNESCO-listed; Gradac, built by Queen Helen of Anjou. These foundations established a network of villages to supply food, labor, and pilgrims. Beoci was one such supply village, its economy oriented toward the spiritual infrastructure that made this valley the heart of medieval Serbia.
Today's Beoci navigates the transition from monastic satellite to tourism waypoint. The valley's UNESCO sites draw visitors; the question is whether that traffic benefits villages like Beoci or merely passes through to the monasteries themselves. By 2026, the Kopaonik ski resort to one side and Golija biosphere reserve to the other may integrate Beoci into a regional tourism economy—or leave it unchanged, a village whose medieval purpose has expired but whose location persists.