0544 MACEDONIA - Young women in old traditional dress

Because today, March 8, is the International Women's Day, firstly I want to wish to all the representatives of the fair sex who follow this blog to have many happy years. For the same reason, today I will post four postcards depicting women from four continents. The first one is from Europe, more accurate from Macedonia, and show young women in beautiful traditional costumes. The national costumes in Macedonia (created over a long period of time), preserved the traces of old cultural influences, and in their way of development fit the elements of old Balkan, Slav and Oriental culture.

0293 MACEDONIA (Polog) - Galičnik Wedding Festival

Located on the slopes of the Bistra Mountain, in the western part of Macedonia, Galičnik is one of the two biggest and oldest Mijak villages in the region. Mijaks are known for their ecclesiastical architecture, woodworking, icon painting, and also for the extent to which old customs are preserved in their every day life. They speak the Galičnik dialect, which is distinguished by the archaic words, and was used in many historically important literary works for the Macedonian literature. Some historians suggested that they were originally Aromanians (Vlachs) speakers, assimilated later into the South-Slavic Macedonian society, but this theory needs more research.