Prerasts of Vratna or Vratna Gates are three natural stone bridges on the Miroč mountain, two in the vicinity of the medieval Vratna monastery, and the third farther away into the depths of the Vratna river gorge, in Bor, eastern Serbia. Stone gates of this type are rare. Similar ones can be found in Slovenia, France and in Colorado, in the United States. It has been declared a geomorphological natural monument and placed under the state protection in 1957.
Name
Prerast in Serbian means "outgrowth" or "overgrowth." In this case it is an unambiguous term by the local population for these types of natural rock bridges, vaults and gates.
Prerasts
Little Prerast is about upstream from the Vratna monastery and is long. The width of its opening is, height, while the thickness of the arch above the opening is. The Vratna rivers flows through the gate.
Big Prerast is about from the Little Prerast and its length is. The width of the opening is, height and the thickness of the arch above the opening is. The river also flows through it and the area of Big Prerast is known for its acoustics.
Dry Prerast is the least approachable. It is almost upstream from the other gates and into the gorge. Its length is, width of opening is, height and thickness of the arch above the opening. Its name comes from the fact that the Vratna river, in the summer, plunges upstream from it, but later appears and disappears again, before once again breaking out from the rock, and continues to run on the surface.
They are entered through marked hiking trails, which was through monastic property. Nowadays trailgo around monastic land and leads beneath first Vratna Gate or Little Prerast.
Geology
The Prerasts of Vratna consist of late Jurassic limestones and are of different origins. While the first two are remains of a former cave tunnel through which the river Vratna ran through, and part of the arch between them collapsed, the third resulted from the plunging of the river. Further chemical erosion and mechanical forces shaped the gates into their present look. In the vicinity of the gates are three caves, examples of karst terrain. They remain largely unexplored. The largest one is long, another one has a complex of tunnels and corridors while the third has a small lake.
Vratna Gates have been protected as the natural monuments since 1957. The wildlife includes red deer and mouflon, which were introduced in 1965 in the local hunting ground. There are also various bat and bird species. Birds are building nests in the hollows of the gates themselves. There are various medicinal herbs in the area. In the mid-2000s, severe draughts killed almost the entire fish life in the river.
Folklore
As with the rest of eastern Serbia, the local population has numerous magical myths about the gates and the nearby caves. Some of them say that they are inhabited by the vilas, which are good-hearted and like to help people. People still come to pray or to make a wish next to the gates.
