We always hear of the Lerin viallges but no one mentions any villages of other cities like Solun, Serres & Drama. What is the Macedonian situation like there? By the little mentioned of these places I get the feeling that it is non existant.

I was in Solun for 1 day and finding a Macedonian was like trying to find Wally in Wheres Wally. (By the way I didn't find Wally)

EVERYWHERE in occupied Greece, Greek is the language used UNLESS they know exactly who you are. Many taxi drivers will speak Makedonski to you because money is involved .. is that fare?

They are villages in the Prespa area. Vineni is no known as Pyli, Grazden as vrontero/n and orovnik as karies.

Of the prespa villages in greece.
-R'mbi/Lemos; many families are now settled in ex-yugoslavia, with some pontic families replacing the albanians formerly present their. Still a macedonian majority though.
- German; large macedonian/albanian village. post war aromanians and some pontic greeks resettled the village after the albanians left and after the GCW. A true refugee village with over 1000 people refuging
-Vronteron/Grazden; ex macedonian/albanian village, repopulated by aromanians after the GCW, inhabitants now living in ROM or diaspora
-Strkovo/Plati; macedonian village. many leave post GCW they are replaced with pontic greeks. many of those also leave the village.
-L'ngi/Mikrolimni; small macedonian village. not much has changed
-Oshchima/Trigono; macedonian village, most leave after GCW. only a few old people present their today.
- Zhelovo/Andartiko; macedonian village, hundreds flee after GCW.
-Popli/Levkonas; albanian/macedonian village. albanians leave and are replaced by pontic greeks. many macedonians leave after GCW.
-Ahil/Agios Achilios; small macedonian village with many people leaving after the civil war. only a few old people present their today.
-Nivici/Psarades; macedonian village, many left as emigrants 1950s and 1960s. apart from the population dropping not to much happening here either.
-Bukovik/Oksia; small macedonian village. population leaves post GCW, interestingly some return. they are joined by epirote greeks
-Medovo/Miliona; former macedonian village which leaves after the civil war. repopulated with epirote aromanians but again the population left.
-Pisoder/i; aromanian village. apart from the population leaving ethnicity hasnt changed.
-Karie/s/Orovnik; ex macedonian village, resettled with pontic greeks after population leaves post GCW. today a greek village
-Rudari/Kalithea; macedonian village. many leave post GCW they are replaced with aromanians from epirus.

Dont forget the former villages in the area like Besvinja, Drenovo, saovci, drobitishta, orovo, trnovo, opaa; which were all populated by macedonian speakers. But they were generally small villages <200, which helped in their destrcution and desertion in/after the GCW.

that is basically the "prespes" area in Greece. The albanian side is 99% macedonian while the macedonian side has some albanian and turkish and macedonian muslim villages.

toska if you are interested in 1900 macedonia, village by village description. Македония. Етнография и статистика- http://www.promacedonia.org/vk/index.html is a good source.



It is both. If logic doesnt work then what will osiris. but thank you for your concern and for not calling me an athenian spy. I do believe that appropriate diaspora politics should be in place. Everyone should have an opinion on anything if they wish, i am definately not against that. When someone leaves for the diaspora they tend to be stuck in their ways and that era. Many users on this forum did not experience the blockades which greece imposed on us 94/95. they did not witness the events in tetovo 7 years ago neither have they been present for recent events in our country only coming "na odmor" in june-october.

Yet they are the first people to jump up and down when you put official names for a place in a foreign country. You really think I like it when i hear of stories in Shkup or Strugë or Tetova?. Site trebame da živeeme zaedno, the diaspora has forgotten this. The diaspora should read "between the lines" (i think that is the saying) next time they visit their homeland. I live in a reality not in a dream. We must come to terms about ourselfs before we preach to others.

Why do you never hear of them? Because they are virtually non-existant. After the treaty of neuilly thousands of people were involved in population excanges with greece and bulgaria. They were considered bulgarians and sent to Bulgaria. During population exchanges with turkey thousands of slavic muslims were classed as turkish people and sent to turkey. After the bulgarians invaded east macedonia in 1941 thousands jumped on the bulgaria bandwagon. When the bulgarians retreated in 1944 they followed them. Today there are very few speakers of Macedonian in those regions. Most of Aegean Macedonia east of the vardar has been cleared of any macedonians/bulgarians.

As for Solun itself there was never a large population of Macedonian speakers there.By 1900 there were only 10,000 (bulgarians) of a population of 118,000. The "Солунската бугарска машка гимназија "Св. Кирил и Методиј" was based their, but students came from the wider region of Macedonia. User:Suhin can tell you about some of the villages around the lagadina region where macedonian speakers can be found, but in the Thessaloniki Metropolitan region there would be virtually no native macedonian speakers (unless they migrated their). Villages such as Suho, Lagadina, Visoka, Zarovo, Barevic, Klisevi, gradobor, ayvatovo, bogorodica and novo selo spring to mind. But whether or not they identify as macedonians is another question. I better not say anymore before i annoy some users.

i say logic doesnt work because i cant think of one human right won anywhere in the world without struggle and sometimes violence, i may be wrong, feel free to show me such an instant.

its true we didnt live through the blockade but some of us actually lived through much worse, and still did not betray our identity. it seems that some of our self describens social democratic politicians are ready to give up and betray all the things that many macedonians suffered and died for, should we in the disapora sit back and say thats ok folks do what you want, it doesnt matter as long as you dont ever suffer again. its a fair enough position but certainly not a heoric or positive one. a short term gain but a tragic and eternal loss.

i think you underestimate the value of the diaspora in the maintanence of the patriotic flame. during sfry times many macedonians in sfry did not even know much about our nation and its plight, i personally met many such proud yugos totally oblivious to the plight of macedonians in egei. one such young man thanked me for teaching him what it meant to be a macedonian.

regarding the albanians i have never atacked the albanian people and i have been attacked by many macedonians as an ignoramus and a predavnik, one who has not lived with albanians and doesnt knwo them. actually i probably know more albanians on a personal level than most macedonians living in the republic. what i know is that its not just the albanians fault for the problem but ours as well, we have been as racist and ignorant as them, to tar all albanians with the terrorist idiot badge is wrong and counterprouductive. without albanians much of the republics economy would not function.

red star whats a macedonian/ bulgarian , the only people that refer to us like that are the bulgarains and greeks and some macedonian predavnitsi. there are is macedonian speakers in those areas they are a few but they exist.

I am glad to hear of your opinion.

By Macedonians/Bulgarians i meant to say that i was unsure of their identity, of how they saw themselves as ethnic macedonians or ethnic bulgarians. Many people who we would consider as ethnic macedonians believe themselves to be in fact ethnic bulgarians. I know what i am and will not waste my time questioning other people ethnicity. in life people are their own judges, they are only fooling themselfs. Yes there are a few (macedonian speakers) but unfortuneatly only a v. small group of them.

I myself have seen what the diaspora has contributed to macedonia, in and out of macedonia. I am glad for that but their are some times where the diaspora needs to take a step back and butt out. They cannot always be involved. I know that members of diaspora do a hard days work, probably even more than the average person here in macedonia and a credit is due to them. Our people have face troubles wherever they live. They have done good work in their respective countries. But it is uncalled for when they begin to behave more like dušmani of macedonian than friends. It is one thing to contribute it is another thing to attack people for running their own country the way in which they see best.

i understand you and why you do it, but hey why pander to bullshit, we must define oursleves and not bend or give one centimetre leeway anymore to bugari grtsi and their self interested international backer who would do whatever they wanted with our people our culture our history and our nation, screw the facist ideloogues of bulgaria and greece we have had enough of their oppression.

imame dosta razbrani cosmopolitani vo makedonia sega bash sega ni treba nerazbrani patrioti inaku ke izgubime toa sho e nashe i ke ostavime drugi dushmani da ne krtsta, mene ne bi treba drugo chuzhjo numko imaf numka makedonka .

Well said.

crvena.zvezda pls come clean, what's your story? Dedo will listen and then ..

why so much knowledge of Aegean villages, are you "vulgaros" or "skopian" a fugitive? pls send me your mailing address a have a gift i want to send za bozik.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg

Selanets

They're definitely in and around Solun.This time last year,our connecting flight from Prague
to Sofia was cancelled due to fog enveloping the Balkans and we were told that the only
airport open and able to take incoming flights was Solun.The usual shit took place with very
embarrassed Czech officials having to explain that only people with EU/US/CAN etc passports/visas would be allowed entry into Solun and everybody else with MK passports
would not be granted permission to enter "Greek" soil and would have to wait until the following lunchtime to fly to Sofia.

On arrival in Solun wew were told that a coach would transfer us to the border at Gevgelija
but I'd had a f**kin gut full by then and told my wife I would get a taxi for us to the border.
A Greek copper beckoned a taxi for me and spoke English to me and asked me where he was
to tell the driver to take us.OPPORTUNITY KNOCKSor what!?!

Tell him to drive us to the border with the Free state I replied.

The border with where?,he retorted.

Free state,dividing wall,border etc I replied,with my wife wishing the ground to open up and swallow me.

Your a brave man,the copper said and helped me load our cases into the taxi,then just as we were about to pull away he stuck his head in through the window and wished us all a happy new year, in yes you've guessed it, MACEDONIAN.

Not only that,it turned out that our taxi driver was also Macedonian,but he didn't start speaking Macedonian to us until we were very near the border.

Arrived at the border to await pick up from Dedo and sat getting quietly pissed in a petrol station at around 3am with smoe top blokes from Gevgelija,but that's another story.

Great story BritOvo, and there are millions like it, but unfortunately our greek members here think its all BS
BTW, welcome to the forum

What is my story?
Jas ne sum od egejska makedonija. Samo imam rabota tamu i poradi toa gi znam tie sela. Ne moraš de bidiš od nekade da znaeš za mestoto. Deka mozeš i na učilište i vo knigi da učiš za takvi mesta. Poznato e što se stori vo graǵanskata vojna vo Grcija i vo Prespanskiot kraj. Imame poteklo vo s.Draslajca., Struško ama nie sme Stružani. I za koj dedo zboruvaš ti? Koj dedo ḱe me sluša mene?

Thanks for that Birttovo and Crvena Zdvezda, according to that it still leaves large towns such as Voden and Kostur and I haven't heard much about ethnic Macedonian's there. What is it about Lerin that made it different to Kostur and Voden and to a smaller extent Solun?

bravo britovo i applaud your attitude well said.

crevena zvezda, you have an amazing knowledge of the villages in macedonia, please understand the power of words and how easy it is to be misunderstood, not only by us posters, but by the many readers. if you use such terms as maceonian/bulgarian its giving our enemies more ammunition for the arms.

our cause is a just one we are fighing for human rights, the greeks and bulgarians are fighting against human rights, and will use any argument they can be it true or false.

From the 17th,18th and to the end of the ottoman empire Solun was predominantly Jewish and Turkish. The new age greeks came in later on and settled there. The pseudo greeks where probably rubbing their hands with glee when hitler exterminated all the jews from solun - making the city "pure greek".

You should have heard more from Voden then from Kostur. In both Voden and Kostur there are prominent macedonian and macedonian speaking (grecoman) communities. Unlike lerin and voden, kostur never had a majority macedonian speaking population, but macedonian speak comprised the largest group in the area due to their strong presence in the villages. Plus many macedonians left the kostur region as refugees post GCW. The last battle of the war (mount vitsi) is in the kostur region. Lerin is located on the Pelagonia plain along with bitola and prilep, while voden and kostur are in seperate geographic regions. Lerin is also v.close to the border with ROM while kostur is closer to albania than ROM. Many of the villages in the enidze-vardar and voden regions were origally full of muslim inhabitants who were expelled in 1922. They of course were replaced by pontic greeks and in some cases armenians.

As sven said below Solun was almost purely ethnically greek after the deportation of turks and the holocaust, today cultural diversity has returned mainly due to immigration of Albanians in the 90s and 00s.

"From the 17th,18th and to the end of the ottoman empire Solun was predominantly Jewish and Turkish. The NEW age greeks came in later on and settled there. The pseudo greeks where probably rubbing their hands with glee when hitler exterminated all the jews from solun - making the city "pure greek"."



PURE GREEK ..

Its becuase in Lerin nashte copped it the hardest as compared to areas such as Kostur and Voden.....

Remember Lerin's only 12km's from the Republic of Macedonia as compared to Kostur 100+kms and Voden 70+km....the closer you were to the border the more extreme the Grci got and the more prosfygi were placed into villages...