MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF SKOPJE (ГРАД ГРАД ГРАД МУЗЕЈ)

Located just south of Macedonia Street, this museum (Музеј на Град Скопје/Muzej na Grad Skopje) is moving: since 1970, it has been housed in the former railway station dating from 1940 and heavily damaged by the earthquake of July 26, 1963. On the façade, the hands of the large clock remained frozen at 5:17 a.m., the hour when the main tremor (6.1 on the Richter scale) destroyed a large part of the city, killing 1,070 people. Alas, this museum, founded in 1949, suffers from funding problems. Works and objects are poorly presented, and the museum is sometimes closed without notice. It does, however, house an important collection of works on the history of the conurbation: archaeology, history, art history, ethnography, architecture and design. The archaeology department is particularly rich. One of its highlights is the astonishing fragment of a Neolithic statuette of the "Adam of Govrlevo" in a seated position, with his phallus still erect after 7,000 years. The permanent exhibition on town planning features the major project to rebuild the city after the 1963 earthquake. The rooms devoted to ethnology showcase the country's minorities, with beautiful Albanian, Roma, Aromanian, Serbian and Jewish costumes. In addition, the museum has several branches on the eastern bank, including the Partisan Underground Workshop Museum and the Stara Čaršija exhibition at the Suli Caravanserai.