NoMac2024

There is much to like about Skopje and most of this blog will focus on that. But like any new place, you discover what you would like to change.  1. Find Lady Bird Johnson.  This city has way too much litter and way too few barrels along the sidewalks. We need a campaign  "Keep Skopje Beautiful". 2. Hire DPW/civil engineers.   Sidewalks and stairs are challenging, full of loose or missing bricks, surprise holes, inconsistent risers in staircases, few hand rails. Do I sound like a cranky OLD lady? Yes, but I fear I will end up with a broken leg! Here's a sidewalk with random screws sticking out of the ground:  3. Sell Appliances.  We have no disposal and the dishwasher is broken. (But I actually enjoy washing dishes so this is fine.)  The washing machine is small so you can only do a small load.( That's OK, I'm wearing the same clothes for many days! )  No clothes dryer, so we hang the clothes on a rack on the balcony. (I feel like I'm back in the ...

 Looming large over the city of Skopje is a 6th century fortress in need of some archeological and structural TLC.  In some other parts of Europe, I suspect there would be some sort of museum or signage explaining the history of this massive structure, (and a much needed fee to enter).  But for reasons that escape me there is no one minding the entry and no one stopping you from going in (and poking around in an archeological treasure if you choose to). Wikipedia says i n late 2006 and early 2007, research and excavation of the Skopje Fortress funded by the  Macedonian   government finally commenced. Researchers discovered  woodwind instruments  and  clay  ornaments dating as far back as 3000 BC.   But not much else happened -- because like everything else in the Balkans,  there is a disagreement about who it belongs to:  competing claims to the area are trying to sort out if its  Christian or Muslim and Macedonian or Alb...

 We went to US embassy in Skopje for the second time today. The new (10+ year old) building is set on a hill overlooking the city. It is a big white box of a building from the exterior. It looks like a modern fortress just down the street for a REAL 6th century fortress .   When we visited last week, we arrived by taxi and were looked over by two armed security guards who directed us to a bullet proof window where we needed to present an ID. The next crew of guards kept our IDs and handed us red clip-on badges that read"guest". From there we were admitted into the room next door where we faced electronic security and more guards. We were given a key to a small locker where we were required to store our cell phones for the duration of our visit. (Unfortunately, I had put all my questions for the embassy folks in my phone, which I could no longer access).  Finally, we were greeted by a member of the diplomatic staff, , and escorted into a vast , bright, white hall thre...

  "Skopje is one of the least appreciated capitals in Europe." Misha Glenny BBC correspondent in the Balkans The city of Skopje rests in the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains. After a snowstorm the other day and a series of true blue sky days, I can see what Misha Glenny was saying. It is certainly a beautiful setting, with the Vardar River slicing through the city and mountains all around. It could be a truly beautiful city if an ea rthquake hadn't destroyed 80 percent of the buildings in in 1963. The quake leveled much of the old city, killing more than a thousand people and left 200,00 people homeless. Foreign aid poured into the country. President Kennedy sent materials to build pre-fab houses and tent villages (and a street nearby was named after him).  During the reconstruction process following the quake, some of the finest architects of that time (under the supervision of the Japanese master Kenzō Tange) were hired to give Skopje  a new, modern look. This i...

 Yesterday was Eastern Orthodox Epiphany and and to mark the day the high priests of the nearby Orthodox Church toss a crucifix into the Vardar River where folks dive in to retrieve it.  Our landlord told us about the event and we decided to check it out.  I imagined the swimmers on shore would be diving off the bridge that crosses the river in front of the Eastern Orthodox Church...and brave the rapidly flowing waters to search under water for the precious relic. But when we arrived a bit after 10am very few people where there except  Skopje's bravest -- all young men - who stood on the shores of the river dressed only in their bathing suits and T-shirts.  As the morning stretched on the crowd continued to build, with increasingly tight security all around. About an hour into the wait, some military type folks in full wet suits got on a rubber boat and laid ropes across the river downstream from where the young men were waiting. Now the crowds were ten people d...

Skopje (pronounced SKOPE-Ya) is the capital of NORTH Macedonia, a city of about a half million people. The average salary here is $500 a month, among the lowest in Europe. It was the poorest region in the former Yugoslavia. But the economy has seen steady growth over the past two decades and Skopje feels like a city on the rise. Unemployment last year went down to 12%, which is high, but that is an improvement over the previous decade where it was over 20% and has steadily declined.  Starting in 2008  the   government went on a campaign to create a tourist-friendly city center to advertise its Ancient Macedonian roots...and bolster its a national identity. I think they went a bit overboard! There are more than 200 statues in the city center at a cost estimated anywhere from 40 to 500 Euros....money that might have been better spent on critical infrastructure. A few are of animals, but most are larger-than-life  bronze images of famous Macedonians. "The Great Warrior"...

 Because the Fulbright does not allow us to leave NORTH Macedonia for more than 14 days, we decided to go a few days early, dump our big luggage in Skopje NoMac and quickly fly to Istanbul for a few days before the official start of the Fulbright on January 15.   I had been here once before, also in January, when my brother and I were evacuated from Iran in 1979.  My parents had moved there in 1978 having no clue that a revolution was brewing. My brother and I had been stuck at the Tehran airport for days and no flights were coming into a "war zone". But a few Americans noticed a PanAm plane on the tarmac. We walked out on the runway and were told by a stewardess inside the plane to grab a staircase and get on board as fast as we could. About a dozen of us got on, leaving thousands of folks still stranded in the airport. No tickets, we were dressed for what we hoped was out next destination: Bangkok. We landed in Istanbul. My recollections of Istanbul are of a cold c...