Why are old Macedonian villages so unique?

If you want to visit unique places in Macedonia, you can discover amazing places away from Skopje and other cities. Find out more about arranging your adventure here.

Through the ages, villages across Macedonia were the home to most of the population. In fact, the numbers living in cities were significantly smaller compared to those living in rural environments. The reason was simple - the village provided a sustainable life, including food security. People enjoyed good food and lived their lives according to centuries-old rules and traditions. 

Macedonian villages exist throughout the entire country and in all sorts of geographic terrains. There are villages along river valleys, on the plains, on hills and mountains. 

Each village enjoyed spatial distance from one another. This gave the people sustainability and a room to breathe (think: to decrease the possibility of personal and family feuds). The residents of neighboring villages convened for annual celebrations and weddings, because they usually traded brides and grooms between each other. 

Today the traditional Macedonian village is almost dead.

In the middle of the 20th century, people began to leave the village for the city. Industrialization resulted in a significant part of the population moving out, in search for a modern life and jobs. When the cities began to urbanize and add more residential areas and buildings, many villages could no longer sustain their population and became completely deserted.

In this progression of things we can find both sadness and beauty. It is precisely these empty villages that hold some sort of magic about them. When you visit a place like this and you walk between the remains of old stone houses, you feel disconnected from the chaos and pressure of civil life.

One such village is the home to Hatige, the woman who is the 'star' of the feature documentary film Honeyland, which received two academy award nominations - Best Documentary and Best Foreign Film.

It is in places such as Hatige's village where Macedonians get their therapy by spending a day in the sun, or by a stream, sitting underneath a tree.

The Village of the Honeyland Documentary in Macedonia

Visiting an old Macedonian village can be an amazing experience for the visitors who can appreciate an unconventional adventure. These nearly depopulated villages can be found throughout the country, but there are specific regions that hold a small world of stunning landscapes, and almost no people.

One of the defining features of an old and emptied Macedonian village is the original architecture. The people had used whatever materials were in abundance. In some places the houses are made with bricks made of sun-dried mud and manure, in others they had used reeds and mud, while in others the favorite construction medium was stone.

It is amazing that in many of these villages there are houses that are still standing. Their walls are usually 0.6 meters thick (as a general rule) and the insides are painted with white varnish. In the rarest examples that are still standing, the roofs have rained their original material - sheets of minerals carefully ordered to cover the surface.
Another material that was widely-used for making of the roofs was rye and wheat stalks. In some places, the advancement of modern materials has been combined with the old, sustainable methods of construction, creating a clash that isn't too pretty for the eye, but still bizarre and exciting to see.

Each home had a stone oven in the yard and a fireplace inside, even though, old people say that their houses were always warm in the winter and cool in the summers. The villages were closely-knit together. In some you can trace there is a pattern in which three or four houses are grouped together to form their own small neighborhoods.

These places, these small pieces of heaven, offer amazing sights and are a cure for the mind and the soul. They are close enough to be accessed by a car, but at the same time, distant enough from everything else. When you are in one of these magical places, you can feel that there time does not exist.

Visit an Old Macedonian Village

Visiting a place like you have never seen before is possible. You can inquire about an adventure to old villages in faraway regions where very few people remain. Your experience can be a one-day excursion or you can stay two, three or more days in a modest accommodation. We will cook and eat good food together and meet amazing people. Send me a message from the form below to inquire about an adventure that fits your preferences. Find out more about me here.