Ohrid, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
28 - 31 August 2003

About ...

THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Macedonia is a small country settled in the south part of the Balkan Peninsula. Due to her natural and cultural riches, she's been called by many "The Balkan Pearl." It is a biblical country, the crossroads to many cultures, a bridge between east and west. Here, in the spiritual 'riznica' of Christianity, was born the literacy of all Slavic peoples.
The Republic of Macedonia is an undying spring that regenerates its own cultural and national tradition. Though its long and rich history, the Macedonian nation and the other ethnic communities that have lived and still live here have created a great cultural wealth out which even today the young generations draw a feeling of identity, love and respect toward their roots and traditional values.

It is exactly her cultural variety that represents Macedonia's treasure and advantage, since the different cultural traditions have a great creative and artistic potential and, at the same time, present an instrument of common understanding and respect.

OHRID

One of the greatest truths about Macedonia is Ohrid, the eternal city, which, with its iconic pulsing, connects the new with the old. Ohrid is Macedonia's cultural history writ small: the Episcopal centre in ancient times; later the centre of the Ohrid Archepiscopy; the cradle of Slavic literacy from the beginning of the X century; educational home to Klement and Nahum (through the activities of St. Klement of Ohrid and the first All-Slavic university in Europe); the capital of the first Macedonian-Slavic state in the beginning of the XI century; place of re-birth of Macedonia in the XIXth century. Ohrid today is the cultural, spiritual and tourist centre of Macedonia.

Ohrid and the Ohrid Lake, with their cultural and natural wealth, are under the protection of UNESCO since 1980. As such, they have become a part of the cultural and natural inheritance of the world.