Once again, I've been reminded that our ideas about a country can have absolutely nothing to do with what's actually happening on the ground. I was convinced that North Macedonia was completely Orthodox and inhabited only by Macedonians.

But it turned out that roughly a quarter of the country's population are Muslim Albanians (there are also Catholic Albanians here, but they're vanishingly rare—though at least one of them is known worldwide: Mother Teresa). And the sheer number of mosques in the western part of the country is mind-blowing. It feels like you've stepped into Bosnia or even Turkey. The Painted Mosque in Tetovo is practically one of a kind. It looks absolutely stunning.

In bunch of settlements, you suddenly see Albanian flags hanging around. Even though I definitely didn't cross any border. It's just like the Serbian and Croatian flags in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Albanians believe they're being oppressed, and this has sparked armed clashes over the years. The biggest one was in 2001, and the most recent was in 2015 (there was also an attack on parliament in 2017, but that was Macedonians and they weren't armed, so we won't count it). I honestly barely remember hearing any news about conflicts from here. Guess the Serbia-Kosovo situation just overshadows everything else.