Krusevo is the highest town in North Macedonia. It is a good 2 hour drive from Kocani.

In 2017 Johan and I embarked on a road trip through Southern Balkans. We left Macedonia en drove through Serbia up to Split in Croatia where we met up with 2 of our daughters for a week in the sun. From there we drove into Bosnia and Herzegovina followed by Montenegro, which we revisited after spending 2 weeks there with my brother and wife a couple of years previously. Before heading back to Macedonia we drove through Albania after which we spent a few days in Ohrid. It was an amazing trip one which made us, 30 years after backpacking around Australia feel like youthful travelers again or old hippies depending on how you looked at it of course.

Anyway, back to the story of Krusevo.

Johan had heard a lot about the town of Krusevo which was the place of the Macedonian uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1903. This is commemorated on Republic Day every year on the 2nd of August, it is a major national holiday, known also as Ilinden or St Elijah day.

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We drove to Krusevo and parked in a large and totally empty car park. We were hoping for some refreshments but the restaurant was once again deserted.

We followed the path up towards the monument and were confronted with small white pillars and at the end of kind of space-like monument rising up between the mountains. We were to be honest quite flabbergasted. 
It was only afterwards that we realised we hadn't actually taken any photo's. 

All photos are taken from Macedonia-Timeless website, where you can also find more information about the city and its monument.

The outside area is seemingly dedicated, not to the uprising against the Otteman Empire but to one of Macedonia’s most promising pop singer who tragically died in a car crash in 2007 aged 26.

The dome inside is resplendent with emptiness. The large windows could reward you with magnificent views should they be cleaned occasionally. The one stained glass window ensures a pleasant play of light when the sun shines through.

It is a place of quietness and reflection. Well it would be if it didn’t look so grubby. It was erected in 1974 and it oozed the 70’s, with thoughts of future space travel and hyper modernism, the beauty and relevance of all this is totally lost on me. We went away with more questions than we arrived.

The biggest question was ‘”what were they thinking?”