Garasi
Revolutionary nursery village whose leaders organized Ottoman resistance through knežina networks—now agricultural settlement preserving Šumadija's independence heritage.
Garaši sits in the Aranđelovac municipality within Šumadija, central Serbia's oak-forested heartland. The village emerged as a distinct settlement within the Kačer knežina administrative unit, a semi-autonomous district that would become the organizational nucleus of Serbian resistance against Ottoman rule.
The village's defining moment came during the First Serbian Uprising (1804-1813), when local leaders organized armed resistance from exactly these forested valleys. Garaši produced Milutin Savić (1762-1842), who rose to become obor-knez (regional mayor) of Jasenica under Prince Miloš Obrenović—the founder of modern Serbia. Like spores from an exploding puffball, revolutionary leaders dispersed from villages like Garaši across the Šumadija region, each carrying the organizational template that would ultimately liberate Serbia. The village's position within the Kačer administrative unit gave it access to communication networks and military coordination that larger, more exposed settlements lacked.
Today Garaši maintains approximately 600 residents, functioning as an agricultural settlement within the broader Aranđelovac municipality known for its mineral water springs and orchards. The village represents a fossil of the administrative structures—knežinas and oborknez hierarchies—that enabled Serbian independence. By 2026, Garaši will likely continue its gradual demographic consolidation, with younger residents commuting to Aranđelovac while maintaining family agricultural plots that preserve the village's character as a living museum of Šumadijan rural life.