On Villages and Cities

It is difficult to overestimate the insignificance of the settlements in the ancestral homeland of the Hunzas. If the insignificance is joined by the other characteristics that `decorate` the cities (futility, isolation, deadness and ugliness) - then a complete picture would be obtained for which no suitable word can be found in the any dictionary. An interesting thing is myths. One of those myths that has been constantly dragged like a hose through the years is that the city of Skopje is a metropolis, a center, an important place. Maybe... although unfortunately only within a certain territory that covers 25,713 km2 according to the latest measurements and in which there are supposedly 1,784,000 holders of a corporate declaration of ownership (passport, ID card, birth certificate) according to long-outdated counts.

Outside that small and sad territory, the significance of Skopje is equal to that of Nis, Tirana, Pristina, Plovdiv, Banja Luka... a comparison with Thessaloniki, Sofia, Belgrade (although Belgrade is `inevitably` on its way to becoming Pripizdina despite mitigating circumstances such as bombings and stuff) and even Sarajevo or Split is to the great detriment of Skopje from any aspect. Regionally, continentally and globally, the significance of Skopje is more than modest. If at the regional level, it can still be caught on the radar with great difficulty, at the continental level - any significance of Skopje is non-existent. Non-existent to the extent that Debar, Prilep, Ohrid, Bitola, Kriva Palanka `do not exist` continentally...

The undeniable conclusion follows that on a global scale, Skopje is equal to Kocani.

Ohrid and Bitola, for example, are heavy fuckers. The difference with Skopje is that they are small shite holes and Skopje is a relatively large and dystopian shite hole. Relatively, because in India there are cities with five million inhabitants that no one has heard of. Purely a difference in the number of inhabitants and the cumulative influence that this brings. Something like the difference between Ohrid and Kosel or Bitola and Novaci. The mentality is a petty-bourgeois-retrocommunist amalgam, seasoned with the distinct charm of a dilapidated Ottoman town and the kleptocratic Styrofoam aesthetics.

There is probably no populated place in which there is no `whining` for the `good old days` when good old citizens and good old citizens flourished, guilds of raja, honesty and respect. Of course, this is a universal phenomenon and is not limited to these regions. The difference again is only in the number of raja and the intensity of the whining. Apart from the number of people, there is almost no difference between the mentioned places. From Kosel to Skopje, there is almost no qualitative difference. If Novaci is multiplied 30 times, you will get Bitola. And if Bitola is multiplied 10 times, you will get Skopje.

(Roger Mortis, 080)