Travelling to Macedonia – part I

 

We’ve unpacked and headed for the centre – on foot. Along the way I got touched by a scene of opposites. There were the newest BMW and the newest Nissan standing at the red light, but just three feet away there was a big, quite charming, in a torn blue jacket dressed Gypsy boy, with curly hair and dirty brown cheeks. He was sitting on an old cart, made out of rotten wood, tied to a bicycle his father was pedalling, searching the trash to find some reusable materials to sell in order to insure a better tomorrow. Macedonia quickly showed its real face – a lot of poverty on one side and the exaggerated wealth and bling on the other. 

The centre of Skopje has changed a lot in the past four years. New buildings of various styles have sprung out of ground like mushrooms after the rain. There are museums, statues with no meaning, bridges across the Vardar and a huge arc de triumph. And the newest and biggest bone to pick with the neighbouring Greeks is the new, 28m tall bronze statue of Alexander the Great, standing on a pedestal of a few meters. It cost 5,3 million euros and is a part of the Skopje 2014 project, was followed by a few more spending, such as the city beach along the Vardar river and the government building is also getting refurbished. 

 

Vardar and the road (just a few meters away) separate the old and the new part of Skopje. If you really want to get the real feeling of the town, you really need to walk around the old part of the town called the Old Turkish Čaršija (bazaar). Cobblestone streets lead among houses built closely to each other and the view stops at the mosques, which are not scares in these parts. People are crowding the narrow streets but their voices are overpowered by the Muslim prayers coming from the top of the towers from the mosque on the top of the hill.

 

Čaršija offers everything – from clothes, shoes, food… Men are invited to the old fashion barber shops (for a shave), where women’s foot is not allowed to enter. The terraces of bars are jam packed with people on already narrow streets. One of them is playing the guitar and a curly girl is singing a hit song that gets the youth partying. The owners invite you to visit them. A grey haired man in his 60s is inviting you to a cup of coffee, with a cigarette in his mouth in workman’s hands with dirty nails.

 

 

 

Next we go on to the market. I lose my appetite early on, when I see, through the window of the butcher’s, hanging by its legs, an open cut sheep. The market place is a special place, where you’ll get to experience many things. Above all there are many smells – from the leather of shoes, to the stench of fish, the aroma of sweet paprika that gently suits your nose. The fruit is stacked in cardboard boxes, pistachio in plastic buckets and the somewhat spoiled lettuce is being kept alive by the vendor spraying it with water. It’s nicer and above all fresher, at the top of the hill, with the remains of the fortress – Kale. The mighty defence wall still protects the remains of the castle from the rest of the city.

 

 

From the wall, with the tourist trail passing it by, you’ll get a great view of the city ad the stadium on the other side. It’s named after the father of Alexander the Great, king Philip II. Right next to the fortress is one of the most beautiful mosques in Macedonia – the mosque of Mustafa Pasha. 

You will surely not go hungry in Macedonia. It is renowned for its excellent grapes, the tasty and high quality vegetables and supreme wine. The only thing I found lacking, along with the vitamin full and colourful salads, was the pumpkin seed oil, which they don’t know about in MAcedonia. And meat lovers will also get their taste. It doesn’t matter what kind of meat and how it’s prepared, it’s all heavenly and will melt on the tip of your tongue. Hamburgers with a ton of fries, covered in tomato sauce and mayo and sprinkled with oregano are a real speciality. Not to mention barbecued chicken steaks, chicken on a stick, uštipci (a sort of meatballs), hamburger ground meat with cheese (ground into it) and čevapčiči – the ground meat sticks. A real special treat is something that looks like a burek, but they only make it when celebrating birth! It’s dough with cheese, fried in oil. We do not have such a dish back home. It tastes like a salty doughnut. The taste is just delicious and you wash it down with yogurt. For all you beer lovers, there’s the local Skopsko beer, a bit bitter, but great and won’t dry out your pocket.

 

 

Most Macedonians are Orthodox Christians. Their churches are quite different from catholic ones. We visited one outside Skopje. I was surprised to learn, they don’t have any benches, as they understand sitting down while attending liturgy to be a sign of disrespecting the god. Only the very old or sick are allowed to sit. The believers kiss the holy icons after the service, in order to their prayers to be answered. Wooden icons with golden backgrounds become alive, once the sunlite hits them from the dome.