Crna Trava (Serbian Cyrillic: Црна Трава, pronounced [tsr̩̂ːnaː trǎːʋa]) is a village and municipality located in the Jablanica District of southern Serbia.

Romans occupied the region in the 2nd century BC and exploited the ores in the vicinity, mining for gold, iron and clay.

Remains include altar section, walls and several objects surrounding the central church, in what was apparently a vast religious complex.

Though achieving a municipal status already in 1876 and being famous for its construction workers, Crna Trava gained a notoriety of being the most depopulated part of Serbia for decades.

[6] The ethnic composition of the municipality: The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity (as of 2022):[11] Crna Trava is famous for its construction workers.

For decades they travelled through Serbia and Yugoslavia, worked on the construction sites and the male variant of the demonym, Crnotravac (plural Crnotravci), became a synonym for a good builder.

In the first half of the 19th century, the Ottoman allowed the Serbs to restore damaged and build new churches so the builders from Crna Trava began to migrate and work on construction sites.

Originally, they spread in the surrounding, southern region (Vlasotince, Leskovac, Niš, Aleksinac), but then they began to move to central and northern part of Serbia (Paraćin, Kragujevac, Belgrade), but also worked in Romania and Bulgaria.

[12] State decided to utilize the already existing craftsmanship of the population, so it organized annual building-stonecutting course in Crna Trava, from 1920 to 1926.

The courses, headed by the professors and engineers from Belgrade, later grew into the State Construction-Artisan School which was operation until World War II.

The 2.25 m (7 ft 5 in) tall sculpture on the stone pedestal represents nameless "Crna Trava builder" (Crnotravac neimar).

[5][12] Some of the numerous object built by the Crnotravci are:[5][12] Tourism is not developed, even though Crna Trava is only 10 km (6.2 mi) away from the Lake Vlasina.

The average altitude of the surrounding area is 1,300 m (4,300 ft) and combined with the climate, produces a clean, fresh air and the growth of the still wild grown strawberries, raspberries and blueberries so as mushrooms and herbal plants.

[6][14] Crnotravka In order to mark the devotion of the wives of the Crnotravac builders, who stayed at home and took care of children and households, a monument was erected.

Work of Sava Halugin, officially named Zahvalnost ("gratitude"), it is colloquially often referred to as Crnotravka, the female demonym.

The monument is located at the confluence of the Čemerčica river into the Vlasina, in front of the "Vilin Lug" hotel, and was dedicated on 4 July 1983.