Mavrovo

Mavrovo is an old village. It is recorded in the Ottoman tax register of 1467–68 for the district of Kalkandelen, now Tetovo, with 20 Christian households, and around 1900 it was a substantial mountain village of more than 1,200 people, bilingual in Albanian and Bulgarian according to the ethnographer Vasil Kanchov. In 1850 the church of Saint Nicholas was built in the village.

The great change came in the 20th century. Mavrovo National Park was founded in 1949, and the artificial Mavrovo Lake, part of the park since 1952 and one of the most extensive artificial lakes in the country, was created beside the village. In 1953 the rising water submerged the church of Saint Nicholas, but droughts in the 21st century have left it largely standing clear of the water.

Today Mavrovo is a tourist resort. The Zare Lazarevski ski resort on Mount Bistra, looking down onto the lake, is one of the country's top ski areas, and in 2006 a new church of Saint Nicholas, with a detached bell tower, was built above the shore. The village had 212 residents at the 2021 census, up from 166 in 2002.

Mavrovo belongs to the country of the Mijaks, a group of Macedonians from the villages in and around the region, known historically as master builders and craftsmen whose skill shows in the traditional houses and churches of their villages. The great showcase of that culture is the Galičnik Wedding Festival, held over the weekend nearest Saint Peter and Paul's Day, 12 July, in the nearby village of Galičnik, when a chosen couple marries in the traditional ceremony, now a cultural and tourist attraction.

The area's churches are its other inheritance. Beyond the drowned church of Saint Nicholas, the lakeshore village of Leunovo has a large church built in 1840 on a much older site, and the Saint Jovan Bigorski Monastery, founded according to tradition in 1020, is one of the most important spiritual places for Macedonians; its iconostasis, carved by Petre Filipov-Garkata between 1829 and 1835, is a celebrated example of traditional Macedonian woodcarving.

Several Mijak villages in the park, such as Rosoki, are now largely depopulated but come back to life in the summer months and at holidays, when families return.

About 210 people lived in Mavrovo at the 2021 census, almost all of them Macedonians. It lies in the Mavrovo and Rostuše municipality, a large and thinly populated mountain district whose seat is the village of Rostuše, and the whole municipality had only 5,042 residents in 2021. Its villages are spread across valleys and lakeshores that are far apart by road.

Life in the village follows the tourist seasons. In winter the ski resort, with its chairlifts and drag lifts, draws visitors to Mount Bistra; in summer the lake is used for swimming, boating and trout fishing, and walkers come for the national park's peaks, canyons and waterfalls, among them Korab, at 2,764 m the highest mountain in the country.

The park around the village is divided into strict nature reserves, managed reserves and a tourist zone, and it is one of the three remaining habitats of the Balkan lynx.

Mountain food here is built on dairy and meat. The area is known for Trebište cheese, which can be tried at a local dairy near the lake. Selsko meso, beef, pork and lamb with mushrooms, white wine and yellow cheese, usually cooked in a clay pot, is a hearty Macedonian dish, and some restaurants in the park present themselves as ethno restaurants serving traditional food.

The rest of the menu is that of the country. Tavče gravče, made with beans and baked and served in an unglazed earthenware pot, is the national dish; ajvar, a spread of roasted red peppers that can be sweet, piquant or very hot, is eaten on bread or as a side dish; and zelnik, layers of thin dough filled with cheese, eggs, leeks or meat, is a baked pie. Šopska salad is often eaten as a starter with rakija.

To drink, there is rakija, and mastika, considered the national drink, and wines from the country's vineyards, above all the red Vranec, after a day on the slopes.