According to Google Maps, Preševo has an absolutely insane number of banquet halls. You search for "restaurants" and get back a million options for where to have your wedding. Locals say they already know where to eat, and outsiders barely ever stop by, so there's not much point in messing around with maps.

Fortunately, I managed not to starve. The prices are just about lower than Belgrade in 2022, where everything got way more expensive over the last three years. I really miss those old prices in 2025. Menus are usually in Albanian, though at one place they brought one in Serbian with a curious Easter egg: they renamed the Karageorge schnitzel after Skanderbeg.

I need to explain this: schnitzel, even though it was only invented in 1959, has long since become one of the most iconic dishes of Serbian cuisine. It's named after Karageorge, who led the first Serbian uprising against the Turks. Skanderbeg is a legendary Albanian who led an uprising against the Ottomans, but he lived several centuries earlier than his neighbor and managed to accumulate way more myths and legends around himself. He's practically the founding father of the nation. In terms of historical significance, he's in the league of figures like Minin and Pozharsky, or Alexander Nevsky.

So the name swap is pretty cutting. There's an extra layer of irony to it all because Serbs actually claim Skanderbeg as Serbian. If you check the Serbian Wikipedia, it literally says:

Рођен је у породици српског порекла.
(Born into a family of Serbian descent)

Historians don't support this version, but that doesn't stop anyone from continuing to argue about his origins.