Like many other villages in Eastern Serbia, specifically the Timok region, Brusnik has "pivnice"/"pimnice", a separate but attached set of temporary residences, aligned in streets and with shops, but not a school, post office or medical facilities (which remain only in the village itself), located 5 km away from the village proper and used for a month or so during the grape harvesting and wine making season.
To protect their northern borders, the Bulgarians built several enormous ditches which ran throughout the whole length of the border from the Timok river to the Black Sea.
(The other two commanders of the armies of the Drina and Timok were General Ranko Alimpić and General Milojko Lešjanin respectively.)
To the south east through the peaks Ostra Chuka and Oba (2,033 m) the track reaches a saddle from where the Lom River and the Timok flow out at border stone 336.
The same year the Byzantines launched a counter-attack on Serbia, but a Bulgarian uprising was raised in the Danubian areas which made the offensive get called-off, so Duke Stefan Nemanja utilized the situation and conquered Timok with Niš and sacked Svrljig, Ravno and Koželj.
Today, Timočani can be used as an informal name for the inhabitants of the Timok region in Serbia and Bulgaria.
Timok | Timok (river) |
In the beginning due to the harsh weather and the tough terrain the Bulgarian advance was slow but despite the desperate resistance of the defenders, there was a Bulgarian breakthrough near Pirot in 10 days and the Serbs retreated to the Timok and the Bulgarian 1st Army chased them.