• 001 - the logo.jpg
  • 002 - Hiroshima sunset.jpg
  • 003 - Auschwitz-Birkenau ramp.jpg
  • 004 - Chernobyl contamination.jpg
  • 005 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 006 - Berlin Wall madness.jpg
  • 007 - Bulgaria - monument at the bottom of Buzludzhy park hill.jpg
  • 008 - Ijen crater.jpg
  • 009 - Aralsk, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 010 - Paris catacombs.jpg
  • 011 - Krakatoa.jpg
  • 012 - Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, Hanoi.jpg
  • 013 - Uyuni.jpg
  • 014 - DMZ Vietnam.jpg
  • 015 - Colditz Kopie.jpg
  • 016 - Glasgow Necropolis.jpg
  • 017 - Hashima ghost island.jpg
  • 018 - Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 019 - Arlington.jpg
  • 020 - Karosta prison.jpg
  • 021 - Kamikaze.jpg
  • 022 - Chacabuco ghost town.jpg
  • 023 - Eagle's Nest, Obersalzberg, Berchtesgaden.jpg
  • 024 - Kursk.jpg
  • 025 - Bran castle, Carpathia, Romania.jpg
  • 026 - Bestattungsmuseum Wien.jpg
  • 027 - Pripyat near Chernobyl.jpg
  • 028 - Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 029 - Pyramida Lenin.jpg
  • 030 - Falklands.jpg
  • 031 - Majdanek.jpg
  • 032 - Soufriere volcano, Montserrat.jpg
  • 033 - moai on Easter Island.jpg
  • 034 - Sidoarjo.jpg
  • 035 - Hötensleben.jpg
  • 036 - Natzweiler.jpg
  • 037 - Polygon, Semipalatinsk test site, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 038 - Srebrenica.jpg
  • 039 - Liepaja, Latvia.jpg
  • 040 - Vemork hydroelectric power plant building, Norway.jpg
  • 041 - Enola Gay.jpg
  • 042 - Pentagon 9-11 memorial.jpg
  • 043 - Robben Island prison, South Africa.jpg
  • 044 - Tollund man.jpg
  • 045 - Marienthal tunnel.jpg
  • 046 - Aso, Japan.jpg
  • 047 - Labrador battery Singapore.jpg
  • 048 - Artyom island, Absheron, Azerbaijan.jpg
  • 049 - Treblinka.jpg
  • 050 - Titan II silo.jpg
  • 051 - dosemetering doll, Chernobyl.jpg
  • 052 - Holocaust memorial, Berlin.jpg
  • 053 - Komodo dragon.jpg
  • 054 - cemeterio general, Santiago de Chile.jpg
  • 055 - Tuol Sleng, Phnom Phen, Cambodia.jpg
  • 056 - West Virginia penitentiary.jpg
  • 057 - ovens, Dachau.jpg
  • 058 - Derry, Northern Ireland.jpg
  • 059 - Bulgaria - Buzludzha - workers of all countries unite.jpg
  • 060 - Sachsenhausen.jpg
  • 061 - Tiraspol dom sovietov.jpg
  • 062 - modern-day Pompeii - Plymouth, Montserrat.jpg
  • 063 - Pico de Fogo.jpg
  • 064 - Trinity Day.jpg
  • 065 - Zwentendorf control room.jpg
  • 066 - Wolfschanze.jpg
  • 067 - Hiroshima by night.jpg
  • 068 - mass games, North Korea.jpg
  • 069 - Harrisburg.jpg
  • 070 - Nuremberg.jpg
  • 071 - Mostar.jpg
  • 072 - Tu-22, Riga aviation museum.jpg
  • 073 - Gallipoli, Lone Pine.jpg
  • 074 - Auschwitz-Birkenau - fence.jpg
  • 075 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 076 - Atatürk Mausoleum, Ankara.jpg
  • 077 - Banda Aceh boats.jpg
  • 078 - AMARG.jpg
  • 079 - Chacabuco ruins.jpg
  • 080 - Bucharest.jpg
  • 081 - Bernauer Straße.jpg
  • 082 - Death Railway, Thailand.jpg
  • 083 - Mandor killing fields.jpg
  • 084 - Kozloduy.jpg
  • 085 - Jerusalem.jpg
  • 086 - Latin Bridge, Sarajevo.jpg
  • 087 - Panmunjom, DMZ, Korea.jpg
  • 088 - Ijen blue flames.jpg
  • 089 - Derry reconsilliation monument.jpg
  • 090 - Ebensee.jpg
  • 091 - Mödlareuth barbed wire.jpg
  • 092 - skull heaps in Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 093 - Nikel.jpg
  • 094 - Fukushima-Daiichi NPP.jpg
  • 095 - Tital launch control centre.jpg
  • 096 - Dallas Dealy Plaza and Sixth Floor Museum.jpg
  • 097 - Auschwitz I.jpg
  • 098 - Stalin and Lenin, Tirana, Albania.jpg
  • 099 - Malta, Fort St Elmo.jpg
  • 100 - Peenemünde.jpg
  • 101 - Tarrafal.jpg
  • 102 - Kilmainham prison, Dublin.jpg
  • 103 - North Korea.jpg
  • 104 - Mittelbau-Dora.jpg
  • 105 - St Helena.jpg
  • 106 - Stutthof, Poland.jpg
  • 107 - Merapi destruction.jpg
  • 108 - Chueung Ek killing fields, Cambodia.jpg
  • 109 - Marienborn former GDR border.jpg
  • 110 - Mig and star, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 111 - Nagasaki WWII tunnels.jpg
  • 112 - Hellfire Pass, Thailand.jpg
  • 113 - Kiev.jpg
  • 114 - Grutas Park, Lithuania.jpg
  • 115 - Zwentendorf reactor core.jpg
  • 116 - two occupations, Tallinn.jpg
  • 117 - Trunyan burial site.jpg
  • 118 - Ushuaia prison.jpg
  • 119 - Buchenwald.jpg
  • 120 - Marienthal with ghost.jpg
  • 121 - Murmansk harbour - with an aircraft carrier.jpg
  • 122 - Berlin Olympiastadion.JPG
  • 123 - Bastille Day, Paris.jpg
  • 124 - Spassk.jpg
  • 125 - Theresienstadt.jpg
  • 126 - B-52s.jpg
  • 127 - Bledug Kuwu.jpg
  • 128 - Friedhof der Namenlosen, Vienna.jpg
  • 129 - Auschwitz-Birkenau barracks.jpg
  • 130 - mummies, Bolivia.jpg
  • 131 - Barringer meteor crater.jpg
  • 132 - Murambi, Rwanda.jpg
  • 133 - NTS.jpg
  • 134 - Mauthausen Soviet monument.jpg
  • 135 - pullution, Kazakhstan.JPG
  • 136 - palm oil madness.jpg
  • 137 - Berlin socialist realism.jpg
  • 138 - Okawa school building ruin.jpg
  • 139 - Pawiak, Warsaw.jpg
  • 140 - flying death, military museum Dresden.JPG
  • 141 - KGB gear.JPG
  • 142 - KZ jacket.JPG
  • 143 - ex-USSR.JPG
  • 144 - Indonesia fruit bats.JPG
  • 145 - Alcatraz.JPG
  • 146 - Chernobyl Museum, Kiev, Ukraine.JPG
  • 147 - Halemaumau lava lake glow, Hawaii.JPG
  • 148 - Rosinenbomber at Tempelhof, Berlin.jpg
  • 149 - Verdun, France.JPG
  • 150 - hospital, Vukovar, Croatia.JPG
  • 151 - the original tomb of Napoleon, St Helena.JPG
  • 152 - Buchenwald, Germany.JPG
  • 153 - Bhopal.JPG
  • 154 - Groß-Rosen, Poland.jpg
  • 155 - at Monino, Russia.jpg
  • 156 - blinking Komodo.jpg
  • 157 - inside Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 158 - Mount St Helens, USA.JPG
  • 159 - Maly Trostenec, Minsk, Belarus.jpg
  • 160 - Vucedol skulls, Croatia.JPG
  • 161 - colourful WW1 shells.JPG
  • 162 - Zeljava airbase in Croatia.JPG
  • 163 - rusting wrecks, Chernobyl.JPG
  • 164 - San Bernadine alle Ossa, Milan, Italy.jpg
  • 165 - USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.JPG
  • 166 - Brest Fortress, Belarus.JPG
  • 167 - thousands of bats, Dom Rep.JPG
  • 168 - Hohenschönhausen, Berlin.JPG
  • 169 - Perm-36 gulag site.JPG
  • 170 - Jasenovac, Croatia.JPG
  • 171 - Beelitz Heilstätten.JPG
  • 172 - Kremlin, Moscow.jpg
  • 173 - old arms factory, Dubnica.JPG
  • 174 - Pervomaisc ICBM base, more  missiles, including an SS-18 Satan.jpg
  • 175 - Cellular Jail, Port Blair.jpg
  • 177 - control room, Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 178 - Podgorica, Montenegro, small arms and light weapons sculpture.jpg
  • 179 - Vught.jpg
  • 180 - Japanese cave East Timor.jpg
  • 181 - Ani.jpg
  • 182 - Indonesia wildfire.jpg
  • 183 - Chacabuco big sky.jpg
  • 184 - Bunker Valentin, Germany.JPG
  • 185 - Lest we Forget, Ypres.JPG
  • 186 - the logo again.jpg

North Macedonia

(formerly 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia')

  
A small landlocked country in the southern Balkans wedged in between Bulgaria to the east and Albania to the west, Kosovo and Serbia to the north and Greece to the south.    
 
It is one of the new states that have emerged out of the break-up of Yugoslavia, from which it became independent in 1991. This happened without the violence and war the break with Yugoslavia caused elsewhere,  especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Yet troubles ensued from ethnic clashes with Albanian insurgents in 2001.
   
What nagged the new Macedonia most, though, was the refusal of Greece to let it use that name as the country's stand-alone designation. This is because there's a region of the same name in northern Greece (bordering the disputedly named country), and Greece also claims a historical "copyright" for it. Thus the new state was forced to grudgingly adopt the official name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", abbreviated to the unfortunate-sounding FYROM. At least it's only a linguistic squabble, without leading to any kind of warfare.
 
The dispute had been going on for years until an agreement was reached with Greece in 2018 that the ex-Yugoslav Macedonia should name itself Republic of North Macedonia. And this has indeed been its official designation since February 2019, following a referendum. For simplicity's sake, however, I will in the following continue to say simply "Macedonia", also as there is no chance of confusion, given that this website lists no sites in the Greek province of Macedonia. 
 
Anyway, none of this more recent history is the reason the country gets a mention here as a dark tourism destination. Instead one reason it's mentioned here has to do with WWII history, more precisely the part of the Holocaust that reached Macedonia when the country came under the rule of the Axis powers, i.e. primarily Nazi Germany.
 
Though nowhere near as horrific in absolute terms as in other countries (esp. Poland or Hungary), the Holocaust in Macedonia still wiped out 98 % of the country's Jewish population of over 7000, who were rounded up and sent to the Treblinka death camp in 1943. In March 2011, a new Holocaust memorial museum, commemorating this dark chapter of Balkan history, was opened in the capital city Skopje.
   
Skopje also had its share of tragedy in the post-WWII Yugoslav era, namely when it was struck by a devastating earthquake in 1963. The partly collapsed former train station still serves as a memorial to the disaster.
 
 
Those two sites aside I am not aware of any other dark tourism destinations in Macedonia (some Yugoslav-era monuments aside). The country is much better known for its non-dark charms and beauty. And of these, the UNESCO World Heritage town of Ohrid is usually regarded as the prime attraction, often called "the pearl of the Balkans".
 
When I visited Ohrid, however, I soon had it confirmed that I am really not a mainstream tourist who is cut out for places like this.
 
The old town of Ohrid is undeniably picturesque – very much so in fact. It's marvellous. The setting, too, could hardly be more scenic: right on the shores of Lake Ohrid, one of Europe's oldest and deepest lakes (with a unique fauna), ringed by mountains that remain snow-capped well into the year. It's all prime picture postcard material.
 
But there are all the hallmarks of mass tourism too – scores of fast-food joints, countless tacky souvenir stalls, hawkers hassling passers-by to buy anything from ice cream to overpriced "water taxi" rides. Moreover, even though I was there well before the high season, namely in late April (2011), the place was already swarming with tourists. I don't want to begin to imagine how horrifically crowded the place must get in the height of summer. In short, for me the experience was spoiled by how touristy Ohrid was. But who am I to pass judgement on a standard tourist place like this. Don't let me discourage you from going and seeing for yourself. Everyone else seems to like it very much.
 
Getting around Macedonia is fairly easy – buses are the main means of public transport. And I found them modern, efficient and cheap. Skopje's bus station often gets lots of praise for being very foreign-tourist-friendly and nowhere near as grotty as these places usually are in other countries.
 
In culinary terms, Macedonia is basically the same as the other Balkan countries. Meat eaters will be spoiled for choice of grilled animal body parts (though minced up appears to be especially popular); fish is also widely available, especially in Ohrid, as you would expect given the lakeside location – although I've read that the Ohrid trout you can find on many menus is imported from the Albanian side of the lake, as the species is actually protected and cannot be legally fished in Macedonia! However, staying vegetarian is no problem, as elsewhere in the Balkans, you can easily stick to salads, starters and a range of veg and cheese mains. Macedonian wine, going by the couple of drops I sampled, also seems to be as good as in neighbouring countries – and can be remarkably cheap too.
 
Many of the Macedonians I encountered in the few days I spent in the country spoke very good English – in fact it was only once, in the bazaar in Skopje, that one vendor didn't speak any English at all himself but instead simply fetched a colleague who did, which only took a few seconds.
 
One other thing I would like to give Macedonia particular praise for is the fact that it appears to be the only country in the Balkans that has understood the meaning of no-smoking signs. Everywhere I went you could dine in restaurants without the stinking annoyance of cigarette smoke that is so prevalent elsewhere all over the entire region and worst in neighbouring Albania. Other countries have no-smoking sections in restaurants too, but only in Macedonia does this actually translate into reality as well (so I presume it's policed). It proves that it isn't a law of nature after all that everyone in the Balkans has to smoke everywhere all the time. Congratulations Macedonia – may your shining example be followed in the rest of the Balkans as well before too long …
 
 
 
  • Macedonia 01 - the colourful land of FYROMMacedonia 01 - the colourful land of FYROM
  • Macedonia 02 - Lake OhridMacedonia 02 - Lake Ohrid
  • Macedonia 03 - picturesque old OhridMacedonia 03 - picturesque old Ohrid
  • Macedonia 04 - OhridMacedonia 04 - Ohrid
  • Macedonia 05 - empty beach resortMacedonia 05 - empty beach resort
  • Macedonia 06 - Islam is strong in FYROMMacedonia 06 - Islam is strong in FYROM
  • Macedonia 07 - and so is ChristianityMacedonia 07 - and so is Christianity
  • Macedonia 08 - stork on electricity pylonMacedonia 08 - stork on electricity pylon
  • Macedonia 09 - mountainsMacedonia 09 - mountains
  
  
  
  
  
  

© dark-tourism.com, Peter Hohenhaus 2009-2023

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