Letter From Skopje, North Macedonia

Wax revolutionary figures in the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, Skopje, North Macedonia. Photo by Matthew Stevenson.

Leaving the Visoki Dečani monastery, I decided to take back roads through central Kosovo to get to the airport and turn in my rental car. I had the option of driving to Skopje and returning it there, but crossing the frontier in a rental car involves paying for insurance in another country and other bureaucratic formalities, which didn’t seem to be worth the hassle.

During the 1999 war with Serbia...