In recent years, Skopje’s architecture has been spoken of mostly pejoratively, primarily in light of the controversial buildings and monuments that, under the decisive influence of politics, are being erected on both sides of the river around Macedonia Square. This is a deep injustice to the many builders who shaped this ancient city for centuries. In its rich history, Skopje was, among other things, the capital of both the Bulgarian and Serbian Empires and the seat of the Kosovo Vilayet, always when they were at their peak, so it became an unrepentant, mythical place for small, quarreling, Balkan nations. The architectural heritage of Skopje is, admittedly, less rich than its history, because one big fire and two devastating earthquakes destroyed a lot. Fortunately, one part of the city, and the most interesting one, suffered less and was more successfully rebuilt after each disaster, so it survived our time.
Old Skopje bazaar
It is enough for a man from Makedonija Square to cross the river over the old Ottoman stone bridge, sneak along the fence of some eternal construction sites, and the ambiance changes completely. Fortunately, our generation has the privilege of still being able to feel the authentic spirit of the oriental, old Balkan bazaar. The old Skopje bazaar (or Turkish bazaar) with its winding streets and goldsmith shops, kebab shops, barber shops, tea shops, and other oriental shops, lives full of life today, almost the same as it did three hundred years ago. Ćevapčići, whose smell entices from all sides, should not be missed, and it remains a mystery how only a hundred kilometers to the north, no one knows how to make such a delicious shop salad as it is made in this place. The first greeting to the customer is often in Turkish, as in Prizren, although the Albanian language is more often used, and the Macedonian language more often. Practically everyone knows Serbian, and many also know English. In the bazaar, writing in Macedonian is extremely liberal because, on an equal footing with the official Cyrillic, Latin is often used, sometimes according to the Serbo-Croatian and sometimes according to the Albanian orthography, which is not seen in other parts of Skopje. Within the old bazaar there is also a green market called Bit pazar (flea market, in Turkish), so sometimes that term is also used for the whole old Skopje bazaar. The spontaneous urban formation of the old bazaar began in the 11th or 12th century, but its most beautiful and significant buildings date from the 15th century, and today we can consider them preserved and authentic. Among them are three caravanserais (…that is, “hotels”), two hammams (public baths), a bezistan (…well, let’s say a “department store”), mosques and Orthodox churches, objects that testify to the importance, wealth and culture of this city. But, in this text, let’s focus our attention on the old Skopje caravanserai.
Standard caravanserai architecture
A caravanserai (saraj=palace, in Persian) is a traditionally designed facility, adapted for resting people and animals, built on a network of caravan routes that stretched across three continents. They were placed about a day’s journey apart, if necessary in the desert, so that the caravan could always spend the night in a caravanserai, instead of being exposed to highwaymen. They were built across an area that included much of Asia, Southeast Europe and North Africa, and provided a significantly higher standard of service to visiting merchants than the corresponding Western European facilities of the time. The basic type of caravanserai was developed in Persia around the 10th century and quickly acquired its basic, generally accepted form, so their design was uniform and standardized throughout the entire construction area, with little variation. The base was, as a rule, square, with a large atrium in the middle where horses or camels were housed. The outer walls are fortifications, without openings, and protected against bandits. There is usually only one entrance to the caravanserai, in the middle of one of the walls. There are towers at the corners, and there are often bastions in the middle of the outer walls. Around the perimeter of the atrium are cells for passengers, typically with a ground floor and one floor. The toilets are in the towers on the corners. There is usually a porch between the cells and the atrium. In Central Asian caravanserais, in the middle of the sides, towards the inside, there were often eyvans, i.e. vaulted spaces open only on one side, towards the atrium, but this was not characteristic of Balkan caravanserais. A typical caravanserai offered water and food for people and animals, washing services, rest, protection, preparation for religious rituals, and often the possibility of trade. Instead of a long word of Persian origin, the word han was preferred in Turkey, and in that form it is also used in Serbian, and in Macedonian simply – “an”. So, in the old Skopje bazaar, there are three caravanserais and they are called: Suli an, Kapan an and Kuršumli an.
Suli an
The oldest of the three khans of Skopje is, apparently, Suli an from the first half of the 15th century. In earlier writings it is mentioned as “old”, and later it was named Suli (suli=water, in Turkish). It got its name because it was located along the river Serava, which flowed along its eastern side and flowed into the Vardar in the center of Skopje. With the later artificial arrangement of watercourses, the river bed was covered, so the water now flows below the surface of the ground, and above it is today’s Bitpazarska street.
The anonymous designer of this object, in essence, adhered to the previously described basic principles of caravanserai design, with understandable adjustments. The han was formed on an approximately square basis, the sides about 38 meters. There are no towers or bastions, and today the traditional fortification wall is surrounded on the outside by a chain of small shops, so it is not fully visible. It had two entrances, one from the main bazaar street from the west, and the other towards the river Serava from the east. It has two floors with porches and a central atrium. There were 27 rooms on the ground floor, which on the north side served as stables, and on the others as warehouses. Upstairs there were 30 rooms for passengers, each with a chimney for heating. The building is built of stone and brick, the porches have powerful arches and thick pillars. This did not save it from severe damage during both major earthquakes (1555 and 1963) and the fire of 1689, but each time it was successfully reconstructed, not exactly in its original form.
The building served as an inn until the end of the 19th century, then as a warehouse and craft center. Today it houses an art academy and is open for visits only in the morning.
Kapan An
Kapan an was built in the second half of the 15th century by order of Ise-bey Isaković. In addition to serving as an inn, it was also a place of trade, among other things, with large livestock. Apparently, there was also a large kapan (scale, scales) for measuring the weight of large cattle, after which the inn is named. This inn was also designed according to the same principles as the other Skopje inns and has many similarities with Suli an. It has a square base with a side of about 35 meters, has two floors, two oppositely oriented entrances, a porch on both floors and an atrium in the middle. It has no towers or bastions, and like Suli an, it is surrounded by shops on the outer wall.
The walls are massive, built in the Byzantine style, alternately of stone and brick, and the pillars of the porch on the first floor are wooden. There are 20 rooms for goods on the ground floor and 24 rooms on the first floor. The barns were on the east side. This inn also suffered significant damage from fires and earthquakes and had to be rebuilt each time. It performed its basic function until the Second World War, and today it houses catering facilities on the ground floor, and various associations and offices on the first floor. It is a favorite place for tourists who are rewarded with an unusual silence in the middle of the city noise in the inn’s atrium.
Kursumli an
Kurşumli an, from the 16th century, got its name from the Turkish word for lead (kurşun=lead), because it had a roof made of lead sheet. Lead has been a favorite material for covering important public buildings for centuries. It is soft, easy to shape, and by bending it with his fingers, the master roofer could more easily solve problematic details. However, the high demand for lead for ammunition production in wartime sealed the fate of lead roofs, so they were melted down one by one into “bullets”. The lead was removed from the roof of this han during the First World War and since then it has been covered with tiles.
The basic design and functional solution of Kuršumli an does not differ much from the other two Skopje hans that we present here, but it had specialized annexes that gave it a special quality. The main part of the han is two-story, with a two-story porch, without towers and bastions, built in alternating layers of stone and brick. The base is practically square with a side of about 40 meters. The roof is formed by a series of pyramidal domes, so to solve the more complicated details it was necessary to cover with lead. The entrance is on the south side, towards the center of the bazaar. In the middle of the main courtyard there is a fountain. The inn has a separate annex on the north side with stables for livestock and pack animals. There are 28 rooms on the ground floor of the main part, and 32 on the first floor. Since the animals were in a separate annex, the ground floor rooms were used only for the accommodation of goods. People’s sleeping rooms were upstairs and each had its own fireplace. Next to the inn were a mosque and a hammam, but the earthquake destroyed them.
Kursumli an was younger, bigger, more beautiful and more luxurious than the other two. For more than two centuries, it performed its basic function, and later it was a vilayet prison (nota bene: we notice that the architecture of the prison is very similar to the architecture of the caravanserai). Throughout most of the twentieth century, until today, it served as a museum, first as the Museum of South Serbia, then as the Archaeological Museum, and today as part of the Museum of Macedonia, but it seems only to house materials, because the entrance to the inn is inexorably locked.
Vakifs – endowments
When we look at today’s politicians selflessly entertaining the people by attributing to themselves the construction of significant buildings, we cannot help but notice that it has always been like this. Although Ottoman architecture flourished for several centuries, not many buildings emerged from anonymity. We do not know the names of the designers for the buildings in the old Skopje bazaar either, but only the names of the politicians who secured the financing. At first glance, in the Ottoman social system, this makes some sense, because significant public buildings were their voluntary endowments, waqfs, which they donate to the community for the common good. But, let’s not be naive, they were “strongly encouraged” to do such an act by the higher authorities and in that way they paid off their high social position. That voluntariness was only formal, and essentially represented a way of financing similar to today’s funds. In general, it was true that the more capable, educated, cold-blooded bureaucrat the Ottoman administrator of a territory was, the more construction would flourish. That’s exactly how Isak-beg (or Ishak-beg) was, the endowment (wakif) of some important buildings of the Skopje bazaar.
But his adopted son, an ethnic Serb, Isa-beg Isaković (or Ishaković), who succeeded him in the service, was much more than that. He too was a powerful politician and a skilled bureaucrat, but apart from that, he was sincerely devoted to building projects, and in this respect his influence is felt to this day. In his varied military and political career, Isa-bey founded the city of Sarajevo and determined its development with several key endowments. In a similar way, he founded the cities of Šabac and Novi Pazar, and all those cities, placed in strategic locations, still exist and are developing today. The city of Skopje is in debt with several key buildings.
At the end of this small excursion into the past, let’s try to reconstruct the time of origin and endowments for the most important secular objects of the old Skopje bazaar.