Skopje is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Macedonia. It lies on the upper course of the Vardar river and is located on a major north-south Balkan route between Belgrade and Athens. Skopje was founded as an Illyrian city. In the 4th century AD it became a Roman post called Scupi. It was taken by the Serbs in 1189 and by Ottoman Turks in 1392. In 1913, during the Balkan Wars, the city came under Serbian control, and in 1918 it became part of Yugoslavia.

Skopje was struck by a devistating earthquake in 1963. Some of the houses built immediately after the tragic event are shown in the forefront. Skopje was rebuilt since then and the new residential quarters bear little resemblance with old Skopje.

Many international architects participated in it reconstruction. According to the idea of the Japanese urban planner Kenzo Tanga, the center was given a "city wall" of high-rise buildings, while the banks of the Vardar were laid out as pleasant tree-lined promenades. The ancient trading quarter (charshija) has been completely renovated, but has preserved all the notable features of its original architecture. In this setting the old buildings of cultural and historical interest are seen to even better advantage. They include the Kale Fortress raised in the 6th century (its present appearance dates from the Turkish period), Daut-pasha's baths (15th c., now the Art Gallery), and Mustafa-pasha's mosque (15th c.).

The stone bridge over the Vardar gives access ...

Capital of the FYROM. The Slavic inhabitants first entered the region after the 5 century AD and currently contains a fast growing Albanian population who came into the Balkans during the Turkish occupation. The language spoken is Bulgarian dialect (falsely called "Macedonian" with NO relation to the North Western Doric Greek dialect of Greece's Macedonia famed by Alexander the Great).

Much of Skopje's history can be tied to their Bulgarian history. This includes their alliance with Adolf Hitler in WW2, thier alliance with Stalin, and their Tito communist era during the cold war.
Skopje is actively stealing Hellenic history by attempting to use the Greek term of Macedonia to link itself to the ancient Hellenic tribe and thus make false and aggressive land claims towards the Aegean sea. This steems from the communist era of thie history ruled by Tito. They renamed the YugoSLAVic Vardaska province to Macedonia to begin the process.

During WW2 Skopje's Bulgarian citizens (being a part of "Greater Bulgaria") were eager to round up all the Jews in the Balkans along with their Axis ally, Albania in order to impress Adolf Hitler. This was especially heavy in Salonica and Thrace where Jewish loses were heavy to expand the Axis Greater Bulgaria dream into Aegean Sea. The long list of Jewish victims is detailed and displayed in Holocaust museums from Israel to the USA.
During the Balkan wars of the Early 20th Century their atrocities were legendary killing hundreds of...