Note: This is NOT an official website of the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed in this blog are my own and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State.
At 3:30am, on the
fifth day of an expedition along Macedonia’s mountainous western edge,
we traded our trekking poles for reins and mounted horses in search of
yet another peak. Headlamps spotlighted the steam from our breath mixed
with the fidgety smoke of rolled cigarettes. We left Galičnik, a village
tucked into the folds of the Bistra massif, and plodded nose to tail,
hoof to stone over seven dark kilometres and up nearly 1000 steep metres
of elevation gain to the top of Mt Medenica.
For explorers and adventure travellers who don’t know this undiscovered expanse of Macedonia,
a country on the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe, an excursion
to this dovetailing string of summits and massifs (which include the
Šar, Bistra and Jablanica Mountains) means some of the best, and most
unheralded, hiking on the continent. But even for the horseback members
of the group assembled – all of whom live in the Balkans and have spent a
significant amount of time scaling the region’s topography – this was a
treat.
Over the course of eight days, we would hike (and gallop) stages that began in northwestern Macedonia, straddle the Kosovo border, and then steer south along the Albanian
frontier. Our journey traversed a national park, and included visits to
centuries-old Orthodox churches and a monastery built by St Clement
more than 1000 years ago. We stayed in huts wedged into hillsides, and
woke with frosty morning dew clinging to our tents. We had
stove-cooked-coffee conversations with locals about a myriad of subjects
from politics to sheep shearing, and watched as those same locals
dragged thick, work-tested fingers across smudged maps and explained how
the mountains here once defined the edges of Yugoslavia. The journey
ended on the shores of the ancient, Unesco-protected, tectonic Lake Ohrid, 300m deep and stretching over 34km.
At this moment, however, we were still clip-clopping behind our guide Vasko Velickovski, the founder of Sherpa (horseriding.com.mk),
a Galičnik-based outfit specialising in horseback tours. We stopped at
the summit atop steeds growing impatient under our already sore
backsides. It was 5:30am. A clear sky was widening as a new sun cracked
the horizon and threw beams across an expanse gilded with morning dew.
To the north I could begin to trace the itinerary from the past
several days. The top half of our path had been dominated by a ridgeline
wiggling along the Šar mountain range, which has more than 30 glacial
lakes, some 200 endemic plant varieties, as well as brown bears, lynx
and chamois. The trek – also a leg of the Via Dinarica
mega-trail that runs through the Balkans from Slovenia to Macedonia –
provided a slalom course to weave between the country’s most inspiring
peaks.
Aleksandar Donev, a local who organised our trip, trotted up and
stopped his horse beside me as I stared across the maze of rippling
mountaintops and tried to make sense of where we had been. ‘The beauty
of this trail and this country is that you can pack an incredible range
of activities, culture and food into a pretty compact area,’ said Mr
Donev, whose multi-tasking, Skopje-based company Mustseedonia (facebook.com/Mustseedonia)
designs tailor-made trips, provides logistical support for projects,
produces videos and story-telling content and promotes responsible
tourism across a country about the size of Vermont. ‘This makes
Macedonia a perfect place to visit because you get both a pristine
landscape and a chance to learn about history with a trek back in time
to Europe’s old-world roots. I am glad we’re getting to see it now –
because we will have to fight to keep it this way.’
In the distance I could follow that pristine landscape up to the head
of our trail and the Šar Mountain: the pyramid-shaped, 2498m Mt
Ljuboten. There, we overnighted at Villa Ljuboten (vilaljuboten.com),
a lodge that provided a perfect starting base and where we devoured a
dinner of sausages, steaks, plump tomatoes and grilled eggplants piled
high on earthenware bowls and platters. We drank tumblers of homemade rakija
(local schnapps) and planned our eventual hike south – a trek would
take us past the 2748m Titov Vrv, the tallest point along the Šar
massif. We then left the range and scrambled to the top of the mammoth
2764m Mt Korab, the country’s highest spot, which looms like a beacon
over both Macedonia and Albania. After, the group was engulfed by more
than 730 sq km of dense, protected pine forests covering Mavrovo National Park and cradling its famously trout-filled lake.
‘One of the reasons I love hiking in this area is because you stay in
the clouds and on some of the highest summits in the Balkans,’ said
mountaineer and guide Uta Ibrahimi, the owner of the Kosovo-based
outfitter Butterfly Outdoor Adventure (butterflyoutdoor.com),
as we reached Korab’s apex. ‘You just ride the peaks that run between
three countries – at a sustained 2500m – and stay there… looking out on
the beautiful world below for days and days and days.’
As we cantered back into Sherpa’s Galičnik
ranch, the sun had shifted to the other side of the horizon. We were
worn out and dusty, but immediately buoyed by dinner. The smell of
green, red and yellow piquant peppers, cooking naked on an iron stove,
wafted above the corral. Wedges of young, white cheese sat beside pans
of a savoury pastry called burek, and waited on a rough-sawn table. We sat and clinked glasses of strong, amber-coloured rakija.
‘There’s a wealth in the simplicity here that is magnificent,’ said Thierry Joubert, the director of Green Visions (greenvisions.ba),
a Bosnian-based adventure tourism company. ‘You have just what is
needed, and that is more than enough. Perhaps the spirit and the feeling
is a product of the particular remoteness of these mountains. Perhaps
it is the nature of the people. All I know is, when you are hiking in
Macedonia you become part of it and you are truly content.’
From
my hotel room’s balcony, Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, lay before
me like a curiosity shop at the crossroads of antiquity and absurdity.
Its shelves were crammed with symbols of long-gone epochs, genuine
collectibles and dubious tchotchkes. An Eiffel Tower topped one
building. A Statue of Liberty adorned a hotel. Beyond them, authentic monuments like the crenelated Kale Fortress, with sixth-century foundations, the minimalist Museum of Contemporary Art and the domed St. Clement of Ohrid Church crowded the vista.
But
it was the city center’s new hodgepodge of mammoth monuments and
appliqué wedding-cake facades that demanded my attention. Hellenic
statues held watch over squares and streets. Macedonia’s main government
complex, recently recast as a copy-and-paste White House, complete with
square portico and tympanum, begged for recognition.
This
novel retro collection was part of a controversial urban-renewal
project, starting in 2010, called “Skopje 2014.” For some, the
undertaking, which includes statues, buildings and renovations, was an
attempt to refashion the center and attract tourism. For others, it was a
political scheme to leave an inappropriate stamp on the culture’s
legacy — with a ballooning price tag.
Photo
Posing for photos at Skopje’s Millennium Cross, built in 2002.Credit
Danielle Villasana for The New York Times
According to a database
created by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, 136 structures
were built for more than $700 million — a sizable sum for one of
Europe’s poorest countries. The strategy is a curious one for a city
with a 2,500-year history spanning the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman
empires.
“The
main conclusion of most of the tourists is that Skopje became Europe’s
new capital of kitsch,” Andrej Zernovski, the mayor of Skopje’s Center
Municipality, wrote in an email. Mr. Zernovski is a member of the
Liberal Democratic Party, which opposes the country’s ruling party. “The
consequences of changing the look of the city are changing the identity
of the city, because neoclassic and Baroque style have never been
present in Macedonian history.”
On
a crisp spring day, I headed for the center, alongside men in shirt
sleeves carrying leather man-bags (omnipresent in Southeastern Europe)
and women with oversize sunglasses and defiantly high heels. I passed
through the recently erected Arc de Triomphe-like Triumphal Arch. The
Paris-cum-Skopje monument was still meringue white, not yet the blank
canvas for protest — against growing concerns about corruption within
the ruling party — it would become a week later.
Photo
Posters adorn a wall in front
of one of the many statues in Skopje’s Macedonia Square that were built
as part of the “Skopje 2014” project.Credit
Danielle Villasana for The New York Times
In
Macedonia Square, the city’s main quad, I made my way through the
gaudy, government-sanctioned statues. A 72-foot bronze, sword-thrusting
likeness of an Alexander the Great on horseback (officially named
“Equestrian Warrior”), it was unveiled in 2011) towered above
pedestrians. Four representations of Olympias, his mother, sat at a
fountain’s edge.
At Gallery Osten,
a venue dedicated to drawings with monthly exhibitions and permanent
pieces by Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, I met Angel Sitnovski, a
local architect. We went around the corner to Gostilnica Kaj Jole, a
restaurant with traditional dishes like tas kebab, slow-cooked pork and
onions, which cost 280 denars, or about $5. In the same building as the
Macedonia Writers’ Association, the bohemian hub was established in
1963, when an earthquake rocked the city center and killed more than
1,000 people. I ordered the stew and a local pilsner called Skopsko.
“The
only good thing is they chose a small area to build all of this — about
one square kilometer,” Mr. Sitnovski said of Skopje 2014’s effect on
the city. He shook his head. “It’s really necessary for travelers to see
the old parts that haven’t been destroyed.”
Photo
A chess game at a cafe in Skopje’s old bazaar district.Credit
Danielle Villasana for The New York Times
A
list of suggestions in hand, I set out. At sunset, I crossed the Vardar
River, which bisects town, to the Ottoman-era quarter, known as
Carsija. I stood atop the Stone Bridge,
built in the 15th century on Roman footings. Behind me, the fountain
beneath Alexander was now illuminated by a kaleidoscopic light show as
Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” blasted on a loop. Looking
forward (northeast), the warrior’s father, a Brobdingnagian Philip II,
stood at the edge of Carsija with a fist raised in salute to his Day-Glo
son.
An
aha moment washed over me. To discover Skopje’s core, one must crack
its shell and dig into its neighborhoods to peel back the layers of this
unexpectedly delicious city, renowned for fresh food and venues
spotlighting Macedonia’s musicality.
I
entered the old bazaar district, the center of life during a 500-year
Ottoman rule beginning in 1392. Stone-block medieval mosques and
minarets anchored flagstone streets lined with terra cotta-roofed shops
selling jewelry, copper coffee sets and leather goods. Today, former
hammams and hans (inns) serve as galleries and museums.
Photo
A view of Skopje and parts of the Skopje 2014 construction project from the Kale Fortress.Credit
Danielle Villasana for The New York Times
I
walked up a steep alley, past tiers of bar patios, to Sveti Spas
Church, which contains a 30-foot, intricately carved iconostasis and a
17th-century fresco. Next door, I took a seat at Pivnica Star Grad, which opened in 2009, brews 10 beers and had a band playing American rock to a packed terrace. I ordered an IPA.
“I think the best place in Skopje is Carsija,” said Pane Temov, the brewery’s owner, who also directs the annual Buskerfest,
and helped re-establish the ancient neighborhood as a night life
magnet. “I see this as an asset to the city and the diversity that comes
with it.”
Two
neighboring sites, on the edge of Carsija, occupy diametrical ends of
that diversity. The Kale Fortress (free entry), Skopje’s calling card,
was built upon the city’s original settlement, likely from the Bronze
Age. The medieval ramparts one walks today, with sweeping views, were
fortified many times from the sixth century to the Ottoman Empire.
Photo
On the patio at Casa Bar in the Debar Maalo neighborhood.Credit
Danielle Villasana for The New York Times
The Museum of Contemporary Art,
which opened in 1970 behind the fortress, is perhaps Skopje’s best-kept
secret. Natural light floods the three-wing, 32,000-square-foot
exhibition space containing 3,000 pieces from 65 countries. Artists
include Alexander Calder, Picasso and the photographer Robert Adams.
In
the days that followed, nearly every conversation I had became
political. As we hiked a trail to Vodno, the 3,497-foot mountain to the
city’s southwest, my friend Aleksandar Donev, born and raised in Skopje,
spoke emphatically. “This has always been a complicated and mixed city
historically and ethnically — when you think about [territorial] issues
with Greece, Bulgaria and Albania — but right now we’re really having an
identity crisis.”
Our
path took us below the cable car ferrying families to the summit and
the 216-foot Millennium Cross, built in 2002. We stared down into the
center and the denture-white, Skopje 2014 structures surrounded by
comparatively tasteful Communist-era Brutalist architecture.
Photo
Pedestrians alongside fountains built as part of the Skopje 2014 construction project.Credit
Danielle Villasana for The New York Times
“The
main square used to have flowers and an understated kind of cool,” Mr.
Donev continued. “You have to scratch the surface of this city, because
coming here just to take pictures of that means nothing.”
Back
in town we headed to the Debar Maalo neighborhood, a 10-minute walk
from the main square, but a world away. Bistros and cafes lined leafy
streets. Tattooed parents pushed baby carriages. Friends clinked
wineglasses at streetside lounges.
We grabbed a table under a sprawling walnut tree in Casa Bar’s
patio. Opened in 2013, Casa keeps R&B playing during the day and
D.J.s spinning at night. I ordered a mojito and settled into a laid-back
Skopje rhythm — more concerned with eating and drinking than erecting
monuments. When the subject of Skopje 2014 came up, one new acquaintance
said: “It would be cool if we can use this in a good way. Maybe paint
the buildings and statues different colors.”
Photo
The city’s Museum of Contemporary Art.Credit
Danielle Villasana for The New York Times
For
dinner we walked across the main thoroughfare, Bulevar Partizanski
Odredi, to Gostilnica Toto, where locals squeeze into the taverns and
spill onto its curbside terrace. We ordered simple, hearty dishes: green
salads, roasted zucchini and red peppers, blocks of cheese, warm bread,
stuffed grape leaves, bowls of a homemade purée called pindzur (green
peppers, garlic and eggplant), and sausages, called kepabi. We drank
half liters of Zlaten Dab beer. We sipped grappa. The bill for two came
to $22.
Across
Southeastern Europe, even among hard-to-impress neighboring countries,
generalizations about Macedonia — slightly larger than Vermont,
population 2.1 million — persist. One is the landscape’s dense beauty.
Another is the diversity of its music.
“We
are in some interesting crossroads between the East and the West,”
Vlatko Stefanovski, the globally renowned guitarist and Skopje resident
told me over Skype on a break between European gigs. Mr. Stefanovski,
who mixes traditional and popular styles, was a stalwart of the Yugoslav
rock scene in the 1970s and 1980s. “We have influences from the old
Byzantine music, we have influences from the Ottoman times, and we also
have influences from the classical music of Europe. And in recent times
we have big influences of pop music and rock and jazz.”
As
my week came to a close, I put aside a day to visit two places that
highlight the city’s strengths: Matka Canyon and Sektor 909, a seminal
nightclub opened in 2003. I first headed to the canyon, 10 miles
southwest of Skopje. The gorge, cut by the Treska River, covers nearly
20 square miles. Around the river and lake, created by the Matka Dam,
trails wind through forests that act as arboretums with 77 butterfly
species. Trekking along one path, I watched climbers and a kayak
competition. I passed three monasteries, wedged into rocky nooks, built
between the 14th and 17th centuries.
By
the time I arrived back in Skopje, there were already murmurings of
marches to protest the country’s ruling party, which was under
investigation for offenses including wiretapping, blackmail and
electoral fraud. However, when I walked into Sektor 909, thoughts of protests dissolved with the beats pulsing through the mirrored space bathed in seductive red strobes.
Dancers
mixed with off-duty D.J.s checking out the competition. “When we
started, a few promoters fought for different styles of music — we were
Detroit Funk House,” the owner, Ognen Uzunovski, told me. Mr. Uzunovski
said one reason he continued to promote eclectic styles was because he
had a role “to educate young people, especially in this political
situation.”
The
Colorful Revolution, as it has become known, began the next day. Men
and women, young and old, all took to the streets. Frustration and
creativity intersected in the form of peaceful marching, plastic
whistles and, definitively, paint.
Within
a week the bedizened emblems of kitsch became vehicles for
Pollock-esque, purposeful art as protesters hurled balloons filled with
paint on government buildings, the Equestrian Warrior, the Triumphal
Arch. The symbols of corruption became the substrata for liberation. The
shell was cracked. Beneath the surface, an ancient capital on the verge
of a Renaissance was making its debut.
Meet Dr. Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan, associate
professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her
areas of research and expertise include U.S. Constitutional law and
judicial process, U.S. campaigns and elections, civic engagement and
civic education, comparative Constitutional law, and civil liberties and
civil rights in the U.S.
McLauchlan is a three-time Fulbright
Scholar. Her first appointment as a Fulbright was to Moldova in 2010. In
Spring 2017, she will travel to Macedonia as a Core Fulbright U.S.
Scholar to teach Public Law at the State University of Tetovo and at
South East European University in Tetovo.
At USFSP,
she is the founding director of the Center for Civic Engagement and she
incorporates civic engagement into every course she teaches. Among them
is a quadrennial course called "Road to the White House," which enables
students to intern in one of the presidential campaigns.
Camp on Šar Mountain, with view of Titov Vrv (2748m) © Aleksandar Donev / Lonely Planet
Horse riding on Bistra Mountain © courtesy of Novagenus
On the trail in Šar Mountain, with Vrtop pass and Kobilica (2528m) in the background © Aleksandar Donev / Lonely Planet
Traditional food in Galičnik village © Nikola Spasenoski / Lonely Planet
Karanikola glacial lake viewed from Karanikola peak (2409m) © Aleksandar Donev / Lonely Planet
Hiking on Mt Plat (2398m), with Titov Vrv in the background © Nikola Spasenoski / Lonely Planet
Sherpa ranch in Galičnik village © courtesy of Novagenus
