Voćin
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Voćin is a village in western Slavonia, Croatia, located southwest of Slatina and east of Daruvar. The population of the municipality is 2,421, with 1,161 people living in Voćin itself (census 2001).
Voćin is a famous pilgrimage place in the nice and peaceful valley of the small river Voćinska Rijeka at the foot of Papuk Mountain. The village features a nice park, protected as a horticultural monument. The attractive surroundings is notable for the arboretum Lisičine (one of the three arboretums in Croatia, the other two being Trsteno (near Dubrovnik) and Opeka (near Varaždin)), the special forest vegetation reserve Sekulinačke Planine, which includes the large primaeval forest of mountain beech, and the unique geological monument of Rupnica, famous for the secretion of albite (white feldspar) riolite.
The major annual event is related to the Birth of Mary (September 8), when a number of pilgrims visit the ruins of the late Gothic Catholic church of St. Mary.
The church was destroyed during World War II and rebuilt in 1973. It was destroyed again on December 13, 1991 by Serbian paramilitaries. In the events surrounding this incident Voćin was a site of a war crime, which was later well documented. 53 Croatians were killed by Serbian irregulars.
In 1992, some Croatians from Letnica, a Slavic village with primarily Catholic inhabitants in Kosovo, were brought to Croatia by president Franjo Tudjman and settled in homes abandoned by Serbs fleeing the villages of Voćin and Varešnica in western Slavonia.
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