| About Ohrid |
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We would like to draw your attention to one of Macedonia’s greatest truths, the truth of Ohrid, an immortal town, a magical hill whose primordial pulsation links ancient and modern times forever. Ohrid has been a living town for two thousand and four hundred years. It is the legimate descendant of the shining Lychida, a town whose achievement were woven into the papestry of a powerful ancient civilization.
Ohrid was the most important official capital of the first Slav Macedonian state, of Samuel’s empire. And Ohrid was the centre of Macedonia’s nineteenth century revival. Ohrid bears the name “The Balkan Jerusalem”. Through the activity of St. Clement of Ohrid, the first pan-Slavonic university in Europe was situated here.
According to the well-known 17th century Turkish travel-writer, Evliya Celebi, the Ohrid shopping and commercial quarter then occupied quite a large area of the lower town. Here were to be found all the essential craft workshops as well as shops Celebi lists 150 shops, three free lodging-houses and three caravanserais or hostelries. There were also seven coffee-houses where the educated people would gather. The inns were situated in the hilly part of the town where the Christian population dwelt.
The majority of the dressed-stone shops in the business quarter were built in the course of the 19th century. Most of the shops which have survived were owned by Macedonian trades people as can be ascertained from the names on the upper parts of their facades. In addition to the trader’s name, the year – and sometimes even the month – when a particular shop was built, has been recorded.
www.ohrid.org.mk - Ohrid |
