"Kratovo" a Kratovo Travel Page by Pijlmans

Kratovo is a village in the northeast of Macedonia, situated in the crater of an ancient volcano. The name of the village still reminds you of this fact.

It used to be a mining town for gold and silver. In 1689, the miners of Kratovo joined the Macedonian hero Karpos when he rose up against the Ottomans, at the side of the Austrians. Unfortunately, after taking over Kriva Palanka and Kumanovo, Karpos and 200 of his man were killed and impaled on the Stone Bridge in Skopje. A memorial plaque at the Stone Bridge still reminds of this tragic event.

The river Tabacka runs through the crater, and four stone bridges across the river date from the early Ottoman period.

The bridges are called Radin, Johciski, Carsiski and Krajniot. Radin was destroyed en repaired, but not to its original state.

Originally there were twelve defense towers in Kratovo, now only six remain. They are called Hadzi Kostava, Saat (Clock Tower), Simitceva, Krsteva, Emin-beg and Zlatkoviceva tower.

The last one that was damaged in 1929, the Hadzi Kostava tower, was rebuilt in 1957.

The towers originally did not have stairs and you could only access the higher floors with a ladder. The villagers could hide from the enemy in the upper levels of the tower, and take the ladder up with them. From there they could defend themselves against their attackers with weapons, rocks and hot oil.