This is a Bridge that may not be what it seems.
This is Камен мост (Stone bridge) in the Old Town of Macedonia’s capital Skopje. Now I haven’t nearly written enough about this enchanting and complicated little Balkan republic, but this bridge is a good starting point. You can recognize the style from some of the other bridges in the Balkans that I have shown you – in Bosnia, or in Kosovo. It is the Ottoman influence that brings it here. Like many other bridges of the sort, it was built in the 15th century and survived many trials and tribulations. Behind it, as you see, there is construction work being done on buildings that look old as well. But they are not. They are only just being built.
Macedonia hasn’t existed as an independent state ever – until 11 21 years ago (Mandy pointed out this mistake in the comments, sorry about that!!) when its independence of Yugoslavia commenced. It was always a region governed by a greater entity – Bulgaria, the Ottoman empire, or Yugoslavia. Now that the country is in fact independent, there is a struggle for identity. History is a great generator of identity, so in Skopje a lot of buildings are coming into existence that are built in styles of times past – adding to the necessity if that is the fact that large parts of the city’s historical buildings were destroyed in a severe earthquake in 1963. Macedonia is creating its own history, but they are not starting in the today. They are trying to catch up with at least a hundred years that they have missed. The bridge is one of the few things that is really old and is thus, again, a connector of time layers.
If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!
Mai 19, 2013 at 4:57 pm
Yay! Skopje! I finally made it to Bosnia and Croatia. I adored Bosnia and will definitely return but we’d like to extend our visit to Macedonia and Montenegro next time. I did not realise that Macedonia had never been a state in its own right but I see you are right – it was an area of either Serbia or Greece, a province perhaps, but never a state. Just one correction to the above, they claimed independence 21 years ago.
Mai 23, 2013 at 3:03 pm
Hey Mandy, thanks for pointing that out!! I’ll be on it. Yes, Macedonia has a very interesting history and so many things can be discovered there… Skopje is super atmospheric too and sports tons of festivals in summer. Great!!!
Mai 24, 2013 at 5:11 am
The bridge thought build recently is still something of beauty.