Cheese and milk from Rakovac Monastery

Rakovac is a men’s monastery, and its monks also keep the farm, with the cows, the milk and the cheese. They make two kinds of cheese and sell fresh milk.

• Hard cheese (manastirski sir): a matured cheese with small holes. It takes a long time to mature and there is a queue of orders, so expect to wait 3 weeks to 1½ months.
• Young cheese: white and lightly salted, like a fresh rennet cheese. New batches come a couple of times a week, so it is quick to get.
• Milk straight from the cow: not skimmed and not diluted.

How to order

Cheese has to be ordered in advance:

• Father Emilijan (Otac Emilijan): +381 65 956 9959, also on Viber.
• The Viber group Манастирски сир (Manastirski sir). There is no public link: search for the group name in Viber.

Milk: Father Emilijan, or Father Sava (Otac Sava): +381 65 276 7965, also on Viber.

Please call only during the day. The monastery keeps its own rhythm: in the morning and in the evening the monks are at services.

Where to collect

Cheese is sold in a small grey single-storey pavilion to the right of the monastery, as you face it from the car park. Behind it there used to be a children’s playground (removed in October 2026), and next to it is the bus stop towards Novi Sad.

Milk is sold there too, or at the farm: take the road that climbs round the left side of the monastery. Just past the monastery wall there is a chain-link metal gate with a small parking place in front of it. If the gate is closed, nobody is there: the monks are probably at a service. If it is open, drive up the track to the dark brown cowshed and ask for Father Emilijan or Father Sava.

About the milk

The milk is sold as it comes from the cow. Many neighbours drink it raw, children included, but boiling it is the safe choice, especially for small children, pregnant women and older people.