| Macedonia, concluded |
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| St Patrick's Irish Pub, Skopje, Macedonia, 23rd October Leaving Ohrid behind this morning, I managed to stay awake for the more scenic parts of the bus trip to Skopje- the hills were somewhere between gently rolling and precipitous; the woodland in its autumnal process of change from verdancy through amber, to russet. I hadn't expected a great deal from the Macedonian capital, Skopje, to be honest and had even prepared "Ohrid wasn't, but Skopje was" for use today, but a walk around the Turkish bazaar area, the Carsija, soon debarred me from using that epigram. To be fair, a friend had told me that this area would be of the greater interest, and it was here that the islamic population is evident; minarets abounding once again. Whenever I approached a mosque, I was nearly always rewarded with a beckoning smile from a guide or worshipper, inviting me to remove my shoes to enter. At the largest mosque in the city, an old man proudly told me that there are 25 mosques in Skopje, and 524 in the whole of Macedonia. Inside, whatever the din and bustle without, there seemed to be some kind of peace available on hand. Not for nothing does the word "Islam" mean "submission". Outside another, three old men sat, chuckling away in the covered fountain that often fronts mosques. Again, there was a great sense of tranquility. They happily posed for a photograph, and I thanked them and bade them goodbye in every language I could muster but their own, which I suspected was Turkish. I didn't have such luck at the Church of Sveti Spas where a guide had just started her spiel in French when some people of obviously far greater import turned up and she started pandering obseqiously to them, without so much as a "pardonnez-moi". I feel quite sure that no Moslem would have treated me like that. In the forecourt, I discovered that I had inadvertently walked over the grave of Goce Delcev, a Macedonian nationalist killed by Turkish occupiers in 1903. It served to remind us that this republic has been the scene of invasion, war and occupation as Slavs who were neither here nor there were moulded into some kind of nationhood as rulers came and went. I learnt only yesterday, for example that Ohrid was once the seat of a medieaval Bulgarian empire. |
I later found a quotation from Tito painted onto the former railway station, partly destroyed in an earthquake in 1963, just to remind us of another former regime. Now, the red and yellow flag of the (former Yugoslav) Republic of Macedonia flies over the country less uncertainly than before, but I will leave here with the thought that this country more than deserves a place in the new Europe being built. As with Bosnia, and yes, Albania and Turkey, any additon that reminds us of the Islamic impact on Europe deserves its rightful place at the table. Ulitsa Makedonija, Skopje, later the same day The barmaid at the "traditional "(that is, waitress service) Irish pub engaged me in conversation. Seeing my rucksack she asked "coming or going?" I told her that I had a ticket for the Sofia bus tonight. "And when did you arrive?" "today," I responded. She was horrified. "But I spent two nights in Orhid!" "But that's hardly enough, " she protested. I apologised that my tour was a bit of a whirlwind, and when I think about I am little better than the cruise ship tourists I derided in Dubrovnik not so long ago. I didn't dare tell her that I would only stay one night in Bulgaria and would only have a matter of hours in Athens before flying home. "Well, I don't claim to get to know everything about the country and its people- that's not the puropse of this trip, " I blathered " I was in Moldova for six months and I feel I only barely scratched the surface there." It's a legitimate criticism, I know, and in a way this odyssey is really a two-week series of day-trips, an Inter-rail on buses. Maybe I don't need to justify myself. Yes, I am prone to generalisations and hyperbole, but just because this trip is flawed doesn't make it a useless experience in my view. Anyway, you can judge for yourself. I returned to the old town, again sensitively and sympathetically lit with lanterns. Maybe I have misanthropic tendencies, but I seem to be enjoying normally busy places when there is hardly anyone there. Perhaps it gives me a chance to notice things more, and in the peace of the evening I have been able to find what I hope are tasteful presents to take home. High on the hill above the new town there is a huge illuminated cross, shining through the low-lying cloud. I had read that during the Ottoman occupation, churches could not be built any higher than mosques. Perhaps that is why it seems the latter dominate the skyline here, and it may not be happenstance that it is a cross which occupies the highest land, now that rulers have changed. Next Stop: Bulgaria |
| My new friends in Skopje |
| Part of the old town: mosque and bazaar side-by- side |
| The old train station; time stopped when the earthquake struck |