Skopje

Skopje is the capital of North Macedonia, a city rebuilt in a neoclassical style following the catastrophic 1963 earthquake that destroyed much of the previous urban fabric. The Stone Bridge across the Vardar River connects the old Ottoman bazaar district Čaršija — one of the largest bazaars in the Balkans outside Istanbul — to the modern city centre. The city's recent large-scale urban redevelopment, with neoclassical monuments and statues erected from 2010 onward, has given it a striking and contested visual identity.