I left Ohrid in the midmorning. The sun was well and truly awake, beaming down on my neck and notifying my body of the onslaught of sweat it would soon be producing to combat the solar attack. Bound for the North Macedonian capital of Skopje, myself and two other travellers hailed a taxi to take us to the bus station. The walk to the station was short but a combination of tardiness, cheap taxi fares and the burning sun meant that a car ride was the better option. Once inside, the driver started making conversation, asking where we were heading. “Skopje,” I informed him. In response, the driver provided a very succinct and all encompassing review of his nation’s capital city, cementing our decision to travel there that morning. “Skopje,” he said, “is a shit.”
Though I’d only been in North Macedonia for three days, everyone I’d talked to - travellers, locals, hostel staff, kebab store owners, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers - had cast Skopje in a negative light. The review from the taxi driver was one of many unexcitable impressions given of Skopje. Skopje was the uninteresting, falling-apart capital, I was told. Skopje was a place with graffitied, dilapidated buildings. Skopje was not a place to stay for very long. Skopje had lots of statues and not much else. Skopje was nothing to write home about.
To an extent the reviews were right. The centre of modern Skopje was awash with oversized, overpriced statues and eager-to-impress buildings erected almost entirely for ‘Skopje 2014.’ In the early sixties a strong earthquake hit Skopje, levelling the city and destroying ninety-five percent of buildings. As a result of the tragedy occurring during Tito’s occupation, the buildings that were built after the earthquake were usually of a brutalist, communist style. So in 2010 the Macedonian government announced a multi-billion dollar plan to revitalise the capital’s centre in the subsequent four years, hence ‘Skopje 2014.’ There would be new buildings and statues. Lots of statues. There are now 294 statues in the city. As a result, a stroll through the city centre feels like a stroll through the backlot of Universal Studios.
As I stood on the actually-old Stone Bridge there were many large, made-to-look-old buildings impersonating every architectural style imaginable. The large Archaeological museum loomed over the river with tall, white columns reaching a triangular roof. It could have easily been used as a backdrop in a low-budget film situated in ancient Greece. The Museum of Macedonian Struggle For Independence had a central European look to it. The building opened up to a terrace running along the river’s edge where I wouldn’t be surprised to find Captain Von Trapp smoking a cigar on an evening, soaking up the brisk Salzburg air. The mirrored exterior of the large Skopje Holocaust Museum looked like it was designed by Elroy Jetson. The piece de resistance of ‘Skopje 2014,’ though, was the completely over-the-top and over-the-budget statue of Alexander the Great on a horse. It came complete with a large fountain underneath and copper lion statues at its base surrounding a tall, embossed marble column. As I sat and people watched under the fountain in the early evening, it felt like I was in a Las Vegas version of Trafalgar square.
A good game I invented the day I arrived in Skopje was the ‘Incomplete Or Derelict’ game. It works like this: across the city there are a series of buildings in an uninhabitable state. It’s your job to guess whether the building is still incomplete and construction was paused midway (usually due to money running out) or whether the building was completed (usually in the last ten years) but has not been maintained and has become run down with no plans of renovation anytime soon. Unfortunately there are many opportunities to play this game in the city. Next to the chapel dedicated to Mother Theresa, for example, there is a very beautiful church. Topped with gold domes, the building is made of intricately carved stone and covered in Byzantine-style mosaics. However a peak over the corrugated iron fence shows that the surrounds are overgrown and weed-infested. I correctly guessed that this building was in the late stages of construction before being paused because funds ran out. It now sits incomplete, with no clear plans of when it will be ready. This is the case for many buildings in Skopje.
To an extent, though, the reviews about Skopje were wrong. The Old Bazaar was a real, working, authentic bazaar. Sure, it attracts the small number of tourists that visit Skopje, but locals still eat in the fairly priced open air establishments. You can can get grilled meats and baked beans, chicken soup and meat stews. You can see men outside the bakery in the morning arguing and sipping yogurt, confused as to why a lanky Australian boy would want to join them. A long street of bridal and jewellery stores catered primarily to locals seeking luxury goods for special occasions. There were Ottoman-era caravanserais where merchants used to stay for a night or two, converted into restaurants selling ‘shopska salad’ - the (Bulgarian) dish composed of cucumber, tomato and shaved white cheese.
Outside the centre, the bohemian neighbourhood of Debar Maalo was alive with large restaurants, providing diners with an exciting atmosphere and live music. Skopje’s fourth annual gay pride event was on the weekend I visited, which made the ambience even more lively. Sure, on the way into the concert party goers were met by parishioners with bibles trying to convince them that they would go to hell for watching men in dresses singing show tunes, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Skopje may be accused of being an architectural Disneyland but I didn’t have to go far to find good food and atmosphere.
