Christopher
Livesay: You might not expect big
things from the capital of a landlocked Balkan country that’s smaller than the
state of New Hampshire. But Skopje, North Macedonia, might surprise you. There
are the typical tourist sites. Like this ancient fortress. And a sprawling
Ottoman bazaar where the local specialty, Macedonian peppers are sold by the
bagful. These pale green “zeleni piperki”
are on the hot side. But what really makes Skopje special is this. And this.
And these. Hundreds of statues. And classical-looking,
but actually brand new facades on dozens of buildings in the city center.
Christopher
Livesay: What’s the name of the
square here?
Nikola
Srbov: Macedonia.
Christopher
Livesay: Macedonia Square.
Nikola
Srbov: Yes.
Christopher
Livesay: Nikola Srbov, a historian and advisor to the state archives says
this was all built by the government just a few years ago, a project called
Skopje 2014. The idea was to give a facelift to this formerly communist city,
boost national pride and attract tourists too.
Nikola
Srbov: In a way the city has grown into something more beautiful than it
used to be.
Christopher
Livesay: Museums and government
buildings boast “columns” and “marble-look-alike facades” that are meant to
look hundreds of years old, but are less than 10.
There’s also a Triumphal Arch. And two new bridges across the Varda River that have on them about 30 statues each. Not
everyone has been impressed. The New York Times called the remodeled city one
of the “kitschiest” capitals on the planet. Tourists we met seemed bemused.
Tourist: It’s amazing. We never, we’ve been in more than
36 countries. We never seen this number of statues everywhere.
Zoran
Zaev: Somebody mentioned that this monument, Disneyland
monuments.
Christopher
Livesay: Disneyland monuments?
Zoran
Zaev: Yes. A lot of comments happen.
Christopher
Livesay: Zoran Zaev is the head of North Macedonia’s ruling party. He was
Prime Minister up until recently. He resigned last month after the country
failed to win membership in the European Union. He says the building project,
which was launched by the country’s previous right-wing nationalist government
is partly to blame for setting the country back.
Zoran
Zaev: I don’t want to comment, the style, but I always comment, to spend
one billion euros.
Christopher
Livesay: One billion euros?
Zoran
Zaev: Yes, for that monuments and museums in the center of our capital,
it’s really stupid. It’s very wrong for developing
country where is a lot of poor people.
Christopher
Livesay: In fact, while tourism
numbers are up in the last several years, it is still a very small percentage
of the country’s economy. The average net income here is only about 450 dollars
a month.
Christopher
Livesay: When you walk to the back
of the building you see well it’s not exactly what it seems.
Christopher
Livesay: Peeking behind the
neoclassical facades gives a glimpse of the reality of how people live.
Insulation in most apartments and homes is so bad, heating can cost up to half
an average salary. In just one hour south of Skopje, the issue isn’t fake
facades.
Goce Pavlovski: Cultural heritage to all of us and it should be
something that unites us, not divides us.
Christopher
Livesay: Archeologist Goce Pavlovski is working on
research and protection of the ancient city of Stobi.
Here artifacts like these church mosaics date back to 400 AD.
Goce Pavlovski: The games would start in the morning.
Christopher
Livesay: Even older is this Roman
theater. And older still, ruins of structures dating to the time of Alexander
the Great. For Pavlovski it’s all part of a bigger
picture. Archaeology, he says, shows how
people in the region share a single heritage. Modern borders are a kind of
political mirage.
Christopher
Livesay: Who gets to claim this?
Who gets to say this is my history?
Goce Pavlovski: Humanity. I would say humanity. You don’t claim
history. History is there. History is not the property of certain nations. It’s
the property of the territory where people live. So
the rulers get changed. The countries can change. Their borders can change and the history stays there. As for all the statues
in Skopje, well they’re subject to history, too.
Zoran
Zaev: Part of our citizens are in favor to take out these monuments.
Christopher
Livesay: Sounds controversial.
Zoran
Zaev: To take them out. To put it in other places. That cost money also.
It’s not easier to that. Every dollar, every dinar for us is very precious to
find solutions to everyday problems. Every what money what we have it we must
put in our health system, in our education system, new jobs for our young
people. That is the high discussion in our society.
Christopher
Livesay: Zaev
hopes if his pro-western party wins in upcoming elections this spring it will
help renew the chances the country will be admitted to the EU. Building
friendships, he says, is more important than building monuments to the
past.
##
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER
THIRD |
1 |
1:08 |
NIKOLA SRBOV HISTORIAN |
2 |
2:27 |
ZORAN ZAEV FORMER PRIME MINISTER |
3 |
3:54 |
GOCE PAVLOVSKI ARCHAEOLOGIST |