Macedonia is a former republic of Yugoslavia in the southeast of Europe. The small country is located on Balkan penisula, but has no access to the Mediterranean Sea. Macedonia borders Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania.
Until the early 1990s Macedonia was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but then became peacefully independent.
Macedonia is home to around 2.1 million people, a quarter of whom live in the capital Skopje, making it the country’s largest city. Measured in terms of land size, the Southeast European country ranks 145th worldwide.
Macedonian cuisine shares many aspects with the cuisines of other Balkan countries. It is also influenced by the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. The national dish is Tavče gravče (Macedonian: Тавче гравче), a dish made of fresh beans served in traditional earthenware.
In the 1940s the Yugoslav Communist Party implemented a plan to add the suffix -ski (feminine -ska) to all Macedonians’ surnames. This should probably reduce their sense of identity. Those who resisted were not entitled to benefits from the Republic and even had to reckon with imprisonment. The most popular surname today in Macedonia is Angelovski.
