Staravina Village, Mariovo
In 1953, there were 741 people in the village Staravina and it was an administrative centre in the “Bitola” part from Mariovo.
In the village, there were military barracks, police station, post office, ambulance and elementary school (built in 1950) where everyday a lot of pupils were going on foot for couple of kilometres from the villages Gradeshnica, Budimirci, Grunishte and Zovikj. In 1997, the municipality of Staravina was established and it included the villages of Bitola’s Mariovo, which was later merged with the municipality of Novaci. According to thecensus from 2002, there were 22 people in the village Staravina.
On the entrance of the village, on the right, there is an object, so called “Upper church” according to the stories of the locals, there was a church built by the Serbian authorities in the First World War. The intention was the basement of the same to serve as an ossuary for the dead Serbian soldiers in this part of the Macedonian front. Still, the church was never finished because it was not accepted by the locals. The bunkers are visible right in front of the church, the remains of the front line which stretched through the village Staravina during the First World War, when the village was quite damaged.
The church in the centre of the village is Dormition of the Mother of God built in 1860 and heavily damaged during the war, later being renovated. The village’s patron saint is the Dormition ofthe Mother of God (28th August).
