It needed to be gotten down. The matter quickly slipped otherwise after the first 5 -10 minutes acclimatising back on the street. Prior to that passing-by, one reels, skitters, mutters and shakes the head. An onlooker would wonder to themselves, especially given the fine panama.
It was the gigantism first of all around the river, and then the proliferation in reduced form radiating out into the inner ring. The heroic items were the worst offenders, none more so than Big Al on his rearing steed in the centre of the main plaza. That landmark stood in gargantuan bulk, raised highest toward the clouds in the middle of a ceaseless fountain, with 3 - 4 dozen gushing spouts. Other spouts issued from seven lions arranged on the perimeter, likewise outsize.
The chocolate coating meant this could not be bronze, but some kind of amalgam.
When Frane back in Melbourne was sent a pic as a tease the man was made to wonder. Precisely the same galloping steed with the great Croat statesman / lawmaker whatnot Jelaćić mounted graced central Zagreb, according to Frane. For some reason the colouring of the red & white North Macedonian flag on a pole in the middle distance did not transmit properly in the mail.
Where are you? Where is this? Where did you get Maxim Gorki? (Sent in a follow-up pic.)
Big Al brandishing his long sword, reins comfortably in the left. Little wonder the conquest of half the known world in quick time back then, judging from this example.
The terrible earthquake that levelled Skopje occurred in 1963. God forbid should any kind of second follow; the crash of big Al on the plaza outside the Marriott Hotel alone would register on the Richter.
Father Phil stood on the other side of the Vardar, the old Stone Bridge leading directly. While not quite matching his son’s tonnage, Phil too was something.
Understandably, there was daylight between the pair of giants and the lesser other roundabout. Cyril & Methodius were approximately two-thirds size. Then fighters from the wars against the Turks, martyrs, statesman, lawgivers and lesser known notables. Some church fathers otherwise. (Some of the IDs had slipped from the pedestals and many had never been specified.)
Golly! A painter clutching three brushes against the pallet on his chest was discovered near the Archeological Museum. Unnamed. Possibly locals would know.
Maternal wonders near Phillip occupied another large fountain, one heavily pregnant. The ladies all comfortably seated was pretty clearly revisionist history, as the Macedonians were no better than the Montenegrins. It was well-known the menfolk traditionally mounted the donkeys, while the women carted the firewood, water, &etc.
Stone Bridge was the oldest river crossing, rebuilt on the same foundations numerous times over the centuries. In its centre electric young gypsies thrashed small drums that carried hundreds of metres, well past Alex on one side and into the fortress on the other. Sometimes the gypsy seniors gathered in passing and put on what appeared impromptu dances, simply taken by the rhythm.
As the days passed and further crossings were made, the fuller picture emerged. The clear hint was given on the bridges and their flanks. All along the pieces were of the precise same size, produced in the same factory at the same time, by special order. Dating from around thirty years ago was the initial guess. Mid-90s, shortly after the collapse of the Second Yugoslav Federation. (The Royalist was the first, formed at the same time as the Czechoslovak union.)
After the fragmentation and the hurried nation-building, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia and all the others were in need of new / old symbols fitted for current requirements. Along the waters of the Vardar in Skopje and over the pedestrian bridges in particular, the civic spaces were thickly filled. Copiously indeed. No stone had been left unturned.
With the decision for such numbers, the task became unique, individual expressions, character-defining gestures and postures. Here every effort was made: the contemplative chin clasp, the hand on heart, half akimbo, behind the back. The stretched oratorical arm; crossed in front; head confidently upraised; bowed. Concerns of State predominated.
Abstracted, turned aside statesman were reserved for the bridge leading to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The Archaeological Museum gathered the earlier eras, classical & Roman / Renaissance.
By some good fortune, the old Stone Bridge had been left completely unadorned. There had been some curbing there; someone of the committee had eloquently spoken and carried the day against the prevailing opinion.
The Great Al and his dad the other side could not be crowded with helots either. Again someone had insisted on the point and held out. Amidst all the rest of it that was a signal accomplishment.
The Archeological Museum & the Public Prosecutor’s Office was split by the Electrical Communication Agency, where an Adonis and his companion clutching a dove to her breast flanked the entry doors. (Foreign Affairs was one further on.) All three buildings were instant classics, commissioned and built at the same time as the statuary. Sixty-five or seventy feet the columns of the Archeological rose, closely spaced.
The other pedestrian bridge leading to the PP gathered only suits and mostly half-length coats, some removed and slung. The pieces here were more recently produced, with only faint oxidisation. All the figures on the Archeol Bridge were covered by green smears.
The dating turned out wrong; the notice on the Archeological bridge showed 2012 construction.
Returning to the Bridge of Civilizations in Macedonia, the dating turned out a year later. Either its statuary had been commissioned some time earlier, or else the patina had been added for authenticity.
On the streets stood the more common urban sculpture. A classic bearded mendicant (homeless, the tag added) could have been confused with one of the more modest church fathers. Musicians were gathered on the corner near the Art Hotel, where a room had been taken after a slog from the railway station. Included among these was a jolly drunk with raised bottle. Near the smiling shoe shine down on his stool on Makedonija a real one had set-up shop. The brash, confident gal striding with head flung back chatting to an intimate on her phone would likely become the first target of the art terrorist cell.
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