Skopje is the capital of Macedonia and is located in the valley of the Vardar River with a dramatic history that spans many thousands of years. It forms the junction of two trading routes in southeast Europe that unites both western and eastern civilisation.
The legacy of Ottoman times is omnipresent in Skopje. One of the city’s most well-preserved mosques is that of the Gazi-Isisa-Bey Djamia. In the seventeenth century it is believed that there were up to a hundred and twenty mosques in Skopje.
Between the city’s mosques is the last surviving monastery in the centre of Skopje, Sveti Spas, with a fine church and wooden bell tower. Both monastery and church were built before the time of the Ottomans and eventually they had to be reduced in size because no other religious building was allowed to be larger than a mosque.
The historic stone bridge of Kameni Most spans the river Vardar and unites two city districts and also the Muslim world with that of the Christian Orthodox. The massive two hundred and fourteen metre long stone bridge was built in the late fifteenth century under the rule of Sultan Mehmet the Second. In Ottoman times the bridge was a place of execution where rebels were executed in public.
Skopje has become a symbol of fraternity and solidarity. A prospering city at the south-eastern end of the world!