The Bučim mine, a few kilometres south of Radoviš, is the only active copper and gold mine in North Macedonia and one of the defining facts about the local economy. It employs around 500 people — a significant number for a town of 14,000 — and its presence shapes the town's character: Radoviš has the self-sufficiency of a place that produces something tangible and knows it.
The mine is not open to casual visitors, but it is visible from the road south of town, and it adds an industrial texture to what would otherwise be pure agricultural landscape. If you are driving south toward Strumica, the open-cast workings give a clear sense of scale. The geological context — the Plačkovica range is largely granite and marble, formed under conditions that concentrate metallic ores — also helps explain why this particular valley has been settled and worked since antiquity.