Opanci are traditional peasant shoes worn in Southeastern Europe (specifically Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and also Romania and Albania). The attributes of the opanci (name in plural) are a construction of leather, lack of laces, durable, and various endings on toes. In Serbia, the design of the horn-like ending on toes indicates the region of origin, though this specific design is not exclusive to Serbia. The opanci are also considered as the traditional peasant footwear for people in the Balkan region. In Bulgaria they are referred to as "tsarvuli". Etymology Serbo-Croatian òpanak/о̀панак, as well as Bulgarian and Macedonian opinok/опинок, ultimately derive from Proto-Slavic word *opьnъkъ. Proto-Slavic *opьnъkъ is composed from the following parts: the preposition/prefix *o(b)- "around, on, etc." with final *b assimilated and the resulting geminated consonant cluster *pp simplified to *p *-pьn-, yielding Serbo-Croatian -pan- with strong jer *ь vocalized to /a/. *pьn- is the ablaut form of the root of the verb *pęti (from earlier *pen-ti), originally meaning "to extend, stretch, strain" (cf. modern standard Serbo-Croatian verbs conveying the same notion such as nàpēti/на̀пе̄ти, pròpēti/про̀пе̄ти, ràspēti/ра̀спе̄ти, pòpēti/по̀пе̄ти..), but subsequently coming to mean "to climb" (whence the meaning of modern standard Serbo-Croatian pȇti/пе̑ти, pènjati/пѐњати). *-ъkъ, a Slavic suffix So literally, òpanak would roughly mean "climbing footwear" or "footwear made from stretched (animal hide)". History Archeologists found footprints of leather shoes worn by Geto-Dacians dating to 2500 BC. Trajan's Column in Rome features Dacians wearing this type of leather shoes. Archeological findings show that the local population was hunting wild game: foxes, deer, badgers, wolves, bears, whose skins were later manufactured. The nobility would wear game skin shoes, the poorer ones would wear calf or swine skin. According to Wilkes, opanci were originally a leather moccasin worn by paleo-Balkan peoples as Illyrians, Dacians, Thracians, etc., and later adopted by Slavs. In the past the traditional shoes were handcrafted out of leather processed at home. The piece of leather had to be larger than the sole, with holes on the side so that a thin string of leather can be filled in and it wraps the piece of leather around the foot, giving it the form of some footwear. The puckered form gave it a sharp tip. They would be worn over wool stockings or white pieces of clothing. Nowadays they are often used as part of the traditional costume by folk dance groups and