What is nizača and why do the walls of a small Serbian village turn red in autumn?
There are lots of photos online of scarlet peppers on the walls of houses. For a couple of years I was haunted by the idea of seeing this wonder with my own eyes — and finally I did it.
So, Donja Lokošnica is a tiny village near Leskovac, about a three-hour drive from Belgrade. On the way, by the way, you can pop into Niš.
As you approach, you're greeted by fields where those very peppers grow, along with cabbage, tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, etc. Tractors scurry back and forth — in short, the season is in full swing.
The village itself is small, but everything you've seen about the red walls of the houses is true!
They really are red with peppers. And that, let me tell you, is insanely unusual and impressive!
In some places the strings hang along the entire length of the walls, in others they cover the house almost all the way around, in others they dangle from the attic.
For a tourist it's an absolutely amazing sight, but for the locals it's just an ordinary autumn. I got to chatting with a local woman, Olga, and she was very surprised that in Russia we don't dry peppers like this.
This tradition is more than 200 years old. They grow a pepper variety here called "nizača". Locals insist this pepper grows especially well in Lokošnica: there have been attempts to grow it elsewhere, but they never got the same result.
Each such "string" holds about 200–220 peppers. Judging by what we saw, the whole family takes part in the stringing. And it's truly a skill of its own — they even hold stringing speed competitions here. The record is 100 peppers in
three and a half minutes.
Generally speaking, of course, apart from looking at peppers there's not much to do in this village. There are a couple of shops and lots of empty houses.
Still, the village is very colorful. You come across real old wattle-and-daub houses, and against the red peppers it all looks slightly surreal.
And here peppers lie scattered on the ground, line the roadsides and peek out of every trash can. You literally can't take a step without a pepper.
This pepper extravaganza lasts roughly from the end of August to mid-October, and it looks especially spectacular right now — when houses and outbuildings turn into huge red drying racks.
Afterwards, the well-dried peppers mostly go into paprika — ground and crushed. Some go into ajvar and other preserves, but mostly, of course, it becomes that famous Serbian paprika.
Is it worth going, for whom and why?
It's a long drive — about three hours one way without stops — and, in my opinion, it's more for desperate adventurers, photographers and fans of all kinds of unconventional photo shoots.
Or you can simply make Lokošnica one of the stops on a big route around southern Serbia.
Honestly, I'm still under the spell of this wonderful place. And since we haven't gone anywhere in a while, I'm ready to take anyone interested there on a kind of ethno-photography trip.
The plan is simple: walk around, look at the peppers, take lots of photos and not rush anywhere.
So if there are any photographers out there, or adventurers craving cool pepper photos — write to me. We'll figure out how to pull it off.
Before the peppers turn into paprika…
Published September 23, 2026 · Open post in Telegram ↗
