"Gradiste" near Drujevo

The fortress is located south of the village of Drujevo, about 900 m above sea level, on an elongated mountain ridge with a flat ridge that develops in the north-south direction. On the crest of the ridge, at a distance of 200 meters are seen remains of destroyed stone structures, which are now heavily overgrown with tree vegetation. Their character is difficult to be defined without additional archaeological researches. There are no traces of fortification structures.

A local legend connects the place with the saints Constantine and Helena - Emperor Constantine the Great (306-337) and his mother Helena. According to legend, there rose their summer palace (villa, mansion) that they visited each year. In the middle of "Gradiste" ever erected a large cross, placed on the grave of a great warrior, fallen here in battle. According to elderly people, on both sides of the ridge, two springs have sprung.

In fact, the place can not be defined as a fortress, despite its name - Gradishte. The remains indicate a complex of buildings that seem to confirm the legend of the existence of a "summer palace" in this place. Here, as well as many other places around the Iskar Gorge, people's memorie have preserved the remembers of what happened hundreds of years ago and the locals still worship the place as "sacred". An interesting fact is that the current vowed cross at the same place was erected on an even more ancient monument than the "palace of Constantine and Helena" - burial Thracian mound dated back to the first millennium BC.