skopje the great(ish)

[kool maudit]

skopje, macedonia is an interesting city. if you are in kosovo, it's kind of the local metropolis -- a place that pristina folks look up to for things like shopping and the presence of a mcdonald's (we only have "kolonat" -- a pale imitation -- because of some gangstery stuff that's too complicated to fully get into here).

we were expecting something a little more metropolitan when we went to skopje, but the reasons why this wasn't the case may actually have proved a little more interesting than a few more square blocks of 1800s wedding cakery.

skopje was flattened by an earthquake in the '60s, and by tito-era planning in general. this has left us with three distinct towns: a garishly monumental central square area, a touristy old town, and an outer warsaw-esque belt that actually comprises about 80% of the total area.

the central square is sort of ludicrous, but the tacky, ill-proportioned statues (the centrepiece is alexander the great, of course) and the "vegas neoclassical" buildings along the river don't really cancel out the essentially functional, 19th century european model: this stuff works. big square, ornate surrounding buildings, pompous monument in the centre. it's a recognizable vernacular. people know what to do with it.

unfortunately, this component of the city is cut off from the remainder by a wall of '70s complexes and project-y apartments. all of those avenues you see radiating from the central fountain are like three blocks long. beyond that, it's wide boulevards and socialist planning. across the river is the old town, which is very much like prizren or old pristina -- ottoman balkan. it's neat, but very touristy.

anyway - here's skopje.

[Ex-Ithacan]

Wow, what an interesting looking city. I've heard of it, but don't remember ever seeing it before. Looks like the pedestrians have the upper hand. And what a wide variety of structures. Thanks for the tour kool maudit.

[gatt]

very nice.

[Omaharocks]

Nice photos! Skopje was raining the entire 3 days I was there, and my impressions were the same as yours.

A couple places you might want to check out in Macedonia - Bitola (definitely off the tourist track, most interesting place I went to in Macedonia) and Ohrid (definitely ON the tourist track, but spectacular nonetheless).

But yeah, you really have some spectacular places nearby - check out the Montenegro coast.

For cities, I find Tirana and Sarajevo to be the most interesting - but you should really spend time in Albania in general.

[kool maudit]

we'll be in kotor next weekend, but haven't been down to ohrid or albania yet.

[MolsonExport]

thanks for the wonderful tour. I like the main square with the mandatory man on horseback statue. and the skeleton violinist. Are those minarets part of a mosque?

[Centropolis]

yay!

[sznter]

What they're doing to the city centre is absolutely disgraceful and tacky. I don't think ever has a European capital been humiliated like that by its own governing elite. To turn your own city to a cheap Las Vegas style kitsch exhibition.. not to mention that all these projects and numerous equestrian statues (completely lacking proportions and coherence) are purely politically motivated. Surely with all that money they're pouring into Skopje trying to make it look like an ancient Greek city they could've hired some actual architects and built a city centre worth showing off.

[Kingofthehill]

Damn humans. It's like Europe, but "not really Europe". The Slavs can always be expected to hold it down when it comes to all things tacky and garish.

[SignalHillHiker]

Love "wedding cakery", awesome description. Check out Ferhadija and Strosmajerova in Sarajevo if you get to there. The Austro-Hungarians treated Sarajevo like an overseas colony - protected the Ottoman districts and spend a fortune building a Central European district around it to one-up it, tested everything they wanted for Vienna on Sarajevo first, like electric trams. Point being the things they built were the finest in Central European wedding cakery, hahaha.

The Skopje carsija is second in size only to the Bascarsija in Sarajevo, I believe. But it seems much smaller in scale, grandeur, etc. Still, Skopje's is lovely.

The newer areas of Skopje seem... there's something up there. I half expect the interiors of all the buildings to be unfinished. And tacky... so tacky. A lot of Balkan capitals - Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo, etc. they've managed to avoid the worst of this tackiness but Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria seem to jump in with both feet.

[pallo]

Good photos. How was that skopko beer you had? was it nice?

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by pallo

Good photos. How was that skopko beer you had? was it nice?

Funny tidbit of info: In much of the Balkans, your choice of beer is as important as your choice of football/soccer team. Even a single city can be divided in half by two breweries, just as it would by two soccer teams.

In Slovenia, for example, Lasko and Union are the two top players.

But, in Slovenia, as in most of the Balkans, the two beers are made by the same company. lol

[kool maudit]

thanks for the comments, guys.

the beer was decent: skopsko and lasko are both a bit better than peja, in my opinion.

pro tip by the way: it's not the friendliest hotel, but they certainly have crisp white sheets:

[ColDayMan]

I'm just in awe how strikingly similar it looks to a Latin American city.

[Centropolis]

btw is this stuffed grape leaves, er...? looks like some pickled stuff in there like i get in my lebanese food, too.

[kool maudit]

that was some sort of beet salad thing. it was pretty good.

[kool maudit]

life-in-the-balkans update: semi-automatic fire from a few blocks away in vellusha, east pristina, followed by what sounded like two cars peeling out. wedding or assassination?

[SignalHillHiker]

^ Wedding.

[kool maudit]

it usually is. but the frequency was a bit off, and the cars plus the gangster-houses-near-germia bit made me wonder.

[SignalHillHiker]

^ No, you're not understand... *Friendly aggressive hand over your shoulder, noogie* It was a wedding, my friend...