Scenes from Veles

Just off the “Alexander of Macedon” highway, not 30 minutes from Skopje, Veles is a city which we had frequently driven straight past, noting it only as a marker along the way: “Already at Veles? We’re making good progress!” But one day curiosity got the better of us, and we decided to stop off and see what this town, built across a hill along the Vardar, had to offer.

The first thing in Veles which caught our eye was the Kosturnica Memorial, just outside town. This enormous broken sphere on a...