In the Heart of the Balkans

The night, I slept rather poorly, as I was constantly in a state of falling asleep on the couch, waking up to change for the bed, falling asleep there, waking up again to get myself a wet towel to put on my legs, and falling asleep again, just to wake up 2hrs later to wet the towel once more. After that, I felt unsurprisingly awful, but no time as the present. So I picked myself up, eating the sandwich from yesterday as breakfast, and spontaneously decide to join the Free Walking Tour at 10 am anyway. I hurried, and found a parking lot nearby. Unfortunately, I was only allowed to park there for 2 hrs. Fortunately though, I'm pretty creative, so I just took a photo of the QR code and hoped that my phone would spit out the link later, so that I could "re-park" my car there (spoiler: It worked brilliantly, I've extended it three times without a problem - and it was cheap as well: 65 cents per hour). I hustled myself to the starting point of the tour and got there just in time. Dean, our guide, welcomed me, so did a ginger named Seth from Texas, studying History in Istanbul, later on his way to the Painted Mosque and Tirana, who I randomly stood next to. As you've probably figured, we got a bit into talking later during the tour.
Macedonia has a very rich history, beginning with its name. At the moment, it is officially called The Republic of Northern Macedonia, but the citizens just say Macedonia. Why is it officially Northern? Because the Greek have protested the name of Macedonia, as this was a whole region back in ancient times, when the Greek were still mighty. So, as Macedonia is situated in the North of Greece, the Greek suggested as kind of a compromise that the Macedonians should call themselves Northern Macedonia from 2019 onwards. Stupid, said Dean, as Macedonia is one of the most southern countries of the Balkans and the Greek have lost their power many centuries ago. But due to the political power Greece had with being a part of the EU, they were overruled. A pretty similar thing went down with the Macedonian flag. Nowadays, it is a rather abstract yellow sun on a red background, symbolizing the shed blood and the sun - duh. Before that, they've had a similar flag with a real sun as a symbol but yet again, the Greeks had to intervene. It was a Greek symbol, they stated, and won yet again. The Macedonians don't really care, though, they often use both flags as a kind of rebellious act. Patriotism...
These two rather unimportant problems "solved", the regime of the country thought, everything was sorted. After all, Macedonia has left the former Yugoslavia unharmed and without any battle, gaining their independence on September 8th, 1991. However, Dean has shared quite a few pros to the former socialist government, as there being free health care and education, very well-established political relationships between Tito (the one-man-show behind the unity and Socialism in Yugoslavia basically - I'd actually like to read his autobiography, he seems like a proper character, saying "No" to Stalin and coming out alive as one of the fewest people) and therefore better opportunities for going abroad.
Nowadays, the citizens have to pay for every bit, and you see many homeless people that didn't exist before in Yugoslavian times. But, at least you can protest the corrupt government now. Dean told us that he's been going to protests himself since he was 18 years old (now his about 45), and never once saw any change. What a catastrophic mirror he holds up for any democratic country out there (talking to you Germany...).
There are lots of big statues all around Skopje and Dean explained us just how to make out from which period of time they come from. When they include half naked, Adonis-like men, and made of white stone/marble, they are most likely representing the Ancient history of Macedonia. They are not coming from this time, but you get the gist. The next period, was the Ottoman rule (1371–1913) which produced many men with moustaches and beards, as this was the normal masculine attire back then. Last but not least, if you ever see clean shaved, stern looking men - congratulations, you've found yourself a statue from the Yugoslavian time.
If, however, you see an old lady with a hood on, it's most definitely a statue of Mother Theresa. She was born in Skopje, but left when she turned 18. She went to Ireland, as she was learning English there to bring Christianity into the world properly. After a few years, she moved to India, where her world-famous work with orphans was mostly done. She only visited her home country a few times after that. Once was in 1963, after the horrible Earthquake has shaken the city to its grounds at exactly 5:17 am on July 26th. How do I know the time so exactly? Well, everyone can know it. Just look at the old main station clock. The building is still there, and with it (as a reminder for everyone) the clock, that stopped when the Earthquake hit its hometown and never continued working since. Honestly, the building of the train station doesn't look interesting at all, but knowing this fact actually sends a shiver down my spine I look at it now.
As many of the buildings (and lives for that matter) were destroyed in 1963, the country wanted to build new things for the city. That was the start of Project 2014 (beginning in 2010), which saw 136 new buildings and statues built to give Skopje a new glow and tourist attractions. As you can imagine, this cost a ton of money. About 500 million to be precise. In a country with lots of people without proper work or enough money, this project has literally split the nation and was hardly criticized. If I may add my opinion: I think it is an utter waste of money to build statues from people nobody asked for, or buildings that are way more pompous as anyone would ever need them to be. How many lives could have been changed for the better with this amount of money? Instead, fragile (I guess male) egos have been fed yet again and the citizens of Macedonia have lots of unnecessary stuff standing around now that they can protest in front of now. At least they have a new background for their unheard critique.
One of the new statues is rather interesting, though. It depicts two saints: Kyrill and his religious brother Methodius. They have invented the first Slavic alphabet in the 9th century - Glagoliza. Before that, there hasn't been any kind of written language for Slavic. The letters look a lot like hieroglyphs to me, tbh. Kyrill has invented Glagoliza so to spread the Orthodox beliefs easier - of course. A long time after that, the Cyrillic language has been invented by students of him, naming it in honour of their mentor. Cyrillic is based on the Greek letters, and has bits and bops of Glagoliza in it as well. As a language enthusiast, I thought that statue was rather fascinating - but for an actual understanding of the history to these figures, an explanatory sign in front of the statue itself would have been great. Otherwise, who actually looks at the name tags of these and, if they don't know them, looks up why they could possibly have earned themselves a statue? Right, only the über-Nerds (not to say that I haven't been one of them before, just that I usually don't take the time for it).
Next to the rather new old-looking buildings, there are also actual old buildings in Skopje. For example, there are the old Hans that have been used as accommodation for the traders. They came with all their caravans and animals, closed the huge doors and shut themselves inside it to rest. They used to be free to use for up to 3 nights, nowadays, they are used as restaurant location or girls' school. One of them has actually been a hotspot for Techno freaks, as they've staged lots of Techno parties in them until Covid came around. As they are located in the centre of the Old Bazaar, where nobody lives at, it was the perfect location for loud buzzing music. Speaking of Old Bazaar: You can treat yourself to literally anything there. Formerly divided in guild streets (like jewellery, which is the only one still kind of existing, weavers, blacksmiths, etc.), they house anything nowadays. For example, some very nice restaurants where you can get some traditional Macedonian food. The national dish is Tavce Gravce, made from beans and 100% vegan. You can add something like potatoes or sausages and un-vegan it, however. It's mostly eaten during winter, but you'll definitely find it on the menu in the Old Bazaar restaurants.
Our last stop on the tour was the very peaceful Sveti Spas which has a wooden tower and an altar that has been lowered into the ground. The tower isn't very high, either. Why? Because there is the Mustafa Pascha Mosque and its minaret was supposed to be the highest of the town. For centuries, it had been, but now there are obviously skyscrapers around. Good effort, though.
And with that, Dean said his dearest goodbyes and made sure we all knew his contact details if we'd have any other question regarding Macedonia during our stay. A really great tour guide, honestly. I thoroughly enjoyed it.もっと詳しく