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Daily blog Sleep Eat Routes
8 October 2023, Prilep
Elmari Apartment 1110 den [R360]

German WWI military cemetery

Bard: "Macedonia was one of the main battlefields on the Balkan Front during World War I. The German Empire, along with its allies Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, fought against the Allies, which included Serbia, Russia, France, and Great Britain.
The German involvement in Macedonia began in 1915, when it sent troops to support Bulgaria in its attack on Serbia. The Germans quickly captured most of Macedonia, but they were unable to break through the Allied lines at Salonika. This led to a stalemate that lasted for the rest of the war.
Despite the lack of major battles in Macedonia, the Germans played an important role in the war here. They provided logistical support to the Bulgarian army and helped to build and maintain fortifications. The Germans also established a number of field hospitals in Macedonia, including one in Prilep.
The German War Cemetery in Prilep is the final resting place for over 1,800 German soldiers who died during World War I and World War II. The cemetery was established in 1916 and was expanded in the early 1930s to include the graves of soldiers from other countries, including Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, and Turkey.
The cemetery was neglected after World War II, but it was restored in the early 2000s by the German War Graves Commission. Today, the cemetery is a well-maintained memorial to the German soldiers who died in Macedonia.
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The 19-year-old son of the first president of Germany, Friedrich Ebert (1871–1925), is buried here. Heinrich Ebert, died in Prilep's military hospital in 1917.
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Atlas Obscura: "The Mound of the Unbeaten is one of the many spomeniks created by renowned architect Bogdan Bogdanović. [He also created the Monument to Fallen Miners which we saw in Kosovo.]
The Mound consists of eight marble urns vaguely reminiscent of chess pieces placed in a semi-circular formation to mirror the semi-circular mound that is the common grave of partisans from Prilep that lost their lives during World War II while fighting for the People’s Liberation Struggle. 

The mound is covered with reclined marble slabs bearing the names of the 462 partisans whose remains are buried here. Standing in the middle of the semicircle facing the marble slabs can give an oppressive feeling of being walled in, but upon turning, the eight urns stand tall (between three and five meters) against a beautiful backdrop of mountains covered with pine trees. The stark contrast of the mound and the urns stands for the partisan units that were born on the ashes of those that lost their lives for freedom."
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Spomeniks are "abstract and modernist World War II monuments built in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from roughly 1960 to 1990."
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Also seen in Prilep...
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A small river flows through Prilep in a built channel, crossed regularly by both vehicular and pedestrian bridges. What looks like public land forms a wide sidewalk on both sides of the channel. Opposite several apartment blocks, people have built garages for their cars on this land. The garages have the look and feel of a shanty town. We wondered how property rights are managed and secured...
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I had no idea what to call the river channel, so Charl asked ChatGPT and this is the response: "Here are words and phrases to describe rivers that are contained by walls:
Artificial waterways
Man-made channels
Engineered rivers
Enclosed watercourses
Controlled water channels
Conduit rivers
Constructed water passages
Regulated watercourses
Walled-in rivers
Embanked streams"
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Church of Holy Metamorphosis
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A memorial honouring North Macedonian soldiers who lost their lives in 2001 when attacked by the National Liberation Army ("ethnic Albanian militant separatist militia"). A mosque in Prilep was largely destroyed in a subsequent act of revenge.
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A statue of Alexander the Great. Both Greece and North Macedonia claim Alex as theirs. The giant statue of Alex in Skopje is called Warrior on a horse, perhaps to appease Greece.

German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
German WWI military cemetery
Mound of the Unbeaten
Mound of the Unbeaten
Mound of the Unbeaten
Mound of the Unbeaten
Mound of the Unbeaten
Mound of the Unbeaten
Garages, Prilep
Garages, Prilep
Church of the Holy Metamorphosis
Church of the Holy Metamorphosis
Prilep
Prilep
Prilep
Prilep
Prilep
Prilep
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great
Prilep
Prilep
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