The story of Stari Bar

From 13 November 1877, this hilltop town held out against a siege for more than seven weeks. Montenegrin forces under Mašo Vrbica bombarded it with four Russian guns and six Ottoman guns captured at the Battle of Nikšić, while its defender, Ibrahim Bey, refused to surrender. Much of the town was destroyed.

Then, on 5 January 1878, the Montenegrins set off a 225 kg explosive inside the Bar Aqueduct, cutting off the water supply, and Ibrahim Bey surrendered on 9 January. You are in Stari Bar, Old Bar, on Londša hill at the foot of Mount Rumija, overlooking the Adriatic, three kilometres inland from the new city of Bar. Over the centuries it passed between Byzantium, Serbian rulers, the Balšić family and Venice, and from 1571 the Ottoman Empire.

The Congress of Berlin awarded it to Montenegro. After the 1979 earthquake destroyed the aqueduct, the town was abandoned; once the aqueduct was restored, people began to return.