Ilinden Memorial in Kruševo. The Battle of Sliva, fought on August 12th, 1903 occured on this very hill. It is known as the battle that freed Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire, making Kruševo the birth place of the Republic of Macedonia. This memorial commemorates the events that took place that day and represents Macedonia as the beautiful land it is. Funny story about this day, my parents and I drove 3 hours from our home town, Strumica, to come see it. When we got there, the memorial was closed because it was the first day of school for all of the children and all businesses were closed so the parents could take their kids to school. This was the main thing on my agenda for the trip to Macedonia and we had no other day to come back. Disappointed, I began to walk around the outside of the building, taking any pictures that I could. Two older men approached the monument, we noticed that they spoke our dialect from Strumica. For context, Macedonia’s various villages and cities speak different dialects of the main Macedonian language, all very distinct from one another. My parents and I began chatting these guys up, we found out that one of them was really good friends with my mom’s dad, and the other good friends with my dad’s dad. It is a very small country but the odds of this happening are so slim, totally the right place at the right time, it was really nice to talk to people that were indirectly so familiar to my family. We mentioned that we came from Strumica to see the monument, and one of them pulls out his phone. He called his daughter’s husband’s brother (I think that was the relation), who worked at the monument. He had dropped his kids off at school and met us at the monument, letting us in and giving us a super in depth history lesson about the battle and the monument. The stars really did allign that day, I still feel so lucky. The odds of this happening still seem so out of reach. Later that day we bumped into the two older men at the general store, they were buying ice cream and we were there to buy sweets, they were really great people.



























Goce Delčev, the man that lead the Battle of Sliva, one of the most important people to Macedonia.
















Saints Cyril and Methodius University, where my father studied briefly.