Skopje

Thank you, Lucas.

I feel like I could travel to Skopje tomorrow.

You could.

And you would know exactly what to say.

"Do you know who I'm gonna approach this time?" Like, I, I doorstepped Roy Keane in Macedonia, and Roy, obviously quite a forbidding figure, but you just took a chance.

"What do you think Ro- Roy?" I got him on a good day, and he, he gave me a 40-minute interview in, in Skopje.

And I remember ringing the desk, and I said, "I have an exclusive with Roy Keane." And The Independent was broadsheet at the time, so you could really let this go.

And, uh, so probably 2,500, 3,000-word exclusive interview with Roy Keane from Macedonia the, the day before an, uh, an international.

So to get a result like that, it just brings that real feel-good factor back to the club.

And hopefully they can carry that on Thursday over in Skopje and get a positive result there as well.

And ride a little bit of the crest of a wave here.

They were...

It's quite a lot these next two weeks.

Friday, September 18th, I'll be back in Skopje, North Macedonia, and the day after I'm playing R33 in Palma de Mallorca.

Right after that, I'm traveling to New Zealand, where I'm playing the first show of the tour on Thursday the 24th at Electric Rush.

Really good to be back there, by the way.

Let's look at the broader regional board.

Alternative one for a budget city break is Skopje, the capital of neighboring North Macedonia.

From a purely financial standpoint, it is highly comparable.

Meals in Skopje are in the six to $12 range, which puts it within a 10 to 15% margin of Tirana's current inflated prices.

So if the money is basically the same, how do they compare experientially? Why pick one over the other?

Skopje does the walkable, historic, monument-dense old bazaar feel much, much better.

It has bridges, statues, and a sprawling Ottoman-era market that feels historic.

It also gives you geographic access to Lake Ohrid, which is stunning.

Okay, it's September 9, 2026, and this is Valerie Perry in Sarajevo.

And I am excited to speak with a friend and colleague in Skopje, in North Macedonia, Ivan Stefanovski.

Ivan is with the Institute for Sociological, Political, and Juridical Research at St. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje.

And I saw him a few weeks ago when he was in Sarajevo for a networking event and realized he'd be a really interesting person to talk to about not only what's going on in North Macedonia, but what's going on more broadly in terms of the region, in terms of European Union engagement in the region and enlargement, and beyond to some of the broader trends we're seeing in geopolitics around the world.

So how are you doing, Ivan? How is everything in Skopje today?

Good morning, Valerie.

Thanks a lot for the invitation.

Skopje is currently sunny, not that hot as it was in the past month.