Krusar
Ćuprija village (~1,546 pop.) in Pomoravlje District; part of failed 1980s Yugoslav conurbation plan; agricultural supplier to Great Morava industrial towns; 2026 continues gradual urban-rural integration.
Krušar exists because the Great Morava valley's agricultural productivity supported village networks around emerging industrial towns. The village sits in Ćuprija municipality within the Pomoravlje District, part of the planned 1980s Jagodina-Paraćin-Ćuprija conurbation that would have created Yugoslavia's first deliberately integrated city-region. That plan collapsed with the country; the villages remain.
Ćuprija municipality hosts approximately fifteen villages including Krušar, with its population of roughly 1,546 (2002 census). The toponym appears multiple times across Serbia—in Aleksinac municipality and as a Belgrade neighborhood in Voždovac—suggesting a common feature (possibly pear trees, from 'kruška') that settlers repeatedly identified. The Ćuprija version is the largest, located near the villages of Vlaška and Glogovac.
The Great Morava valley lacks ores or minerals unlike the West and South Morava regions, but contains vast coal deposits near Kostolac and cement marl near Paraćin. This geological endowment shaped industrial development: Ćuprija became a regional manufacturing center rather than an extraction zone. Villages like Krušar supplied labor and agricultural products to urban industries.
In 2026, Krušar's trajectory follows the Pomoravlje pattern: stable population relative to depopulating mountain villages, gradual integration into Ćuprija's urban-rural continuum, continued agricultural production alongside commuter households. The failed conurbation plan represents a road not taken—had Yugoslavia survived and implemented the Morava valley integration, Krušar might be a suburb rather than a village. Instead, it remains administrative unit, agricultural producer, and labor reserve for industries it will never host.