Museum of the Macedonian Struggle for Independence — Attraction in Municipality of Centar

I don’t often write reviews, but I have to make sense of one of the strangest museum experiences I’ve ever had. Starting with some history, this museum was built as part of the controversial 2014 project, which many Macedonians described to me as a nationalist project by a conservative government seeking to put their parties mark on the city after their rejection from NATO due to the naming dispute with Greece. Many reviews describe this place as a Madame Tussaud’s of Macedonian revolutionaries, that is true and lends the place an eerie feeling, as many of the figures are only denoted with very brief plaques that seem to assume the visitor already has a decent knowledge of Macedonian history. The only actual antiques to be found are an extensive and very interesting collection of various guns, weapons, and artillery, along with many historical documents that are often not translated into English. Otherwise, the huge halls covered with massive mythologizing paintings feel reminiscent of a certain Soviet bravado, made more curious by the fact that nearly every painting I could find with a date was created in 2012. Generally the dates of the paintings are not clearly displayed, which feels like a very purposeful emission. I don’t know how to quantify this experience in a number of stars but overall I would say it is a place worth visiting not necessarily for the history but for watching an exercise in a nation-building “antiquisation”. If you’re only here for a couple days, you...

Everything inside this museum is pure nationalism and propaganda..

First of all, The huge collection of wax figures in that dark rooms is creepy.. There is a wax figure that is even hanged ...

Then almost no information is in English so I had to take a free guided tour to understand the context. The guide recited his text by heart with no emotion, like a robot, the speed of it was difficult to understand, even for a bilingual like me.

What he said was just about victimization and hatred towards the neighboring countries. Don't expect facts or historical context ! I don't know how many times he said while describing each wax figure "this Macedonian was killed for the freedom of Macedonia"" this Macedonian fought for the freedom of Macedonia" "this Macedonian was imprisoned for the freedom of Macedonia"... beautiful propaganda worthy of a communist country.

The guide was so boring that even a group of 3 people who joined us, ended up leaving after a few minutes.. When I confronted the guide on certain points, he replied "We have our own version of our history"

I must say that for a country that is supposed to join the EU and make good decisions with other EU countries, such as Greece and Bulgaria, to go to a museum that shows so much victimization and hatred towards their neighbours, is for a Frenchwoman like me, really shocking!

If you want to know about Macedonian history with more objectivity, the Macedonian museum in Skopje...

Very interesting museum about the struggles the Macedonian people went through. Info boards are both in Macedonian and English but some things are either not (maps, names, newspapers) or not fully translated (info boards with spelling mistakes or missing info)

There is an option to have a free guide which we didn't take and we advise you take one unless you have a personal guide.

The museum is beautifully built with nice set pieces and stunning paintings of famous moments.

My personal opinion (without having a real guide): The museum tries hard to raise national pride for Macedonia and is probably hiding some lesser nice things the biggest national party did. It felt a bit too coloured in favour of the vmro. A local guide might have helped painting the full picture more but we thought the info boards would suffice (which it didn't). We really started to understand the struggle the Macedonians went through and why they are so protective over their name, culture and land. I really recommend the museum to everyone.

Advise for the museum keepers: Go over your translations again to correct spelling mistakes add more info boards translate the maps showing where the fights were (we managed to decipher it on our own but it would've been faster if we had a...