QUARTIER DE STARA ČARŠIJA

With its cobblestone streets, mosques, and caravanserais, the historic "Old Sharia" district (Стара Чаршија/Stara Čaršija, Çarshia e Vjetër) is Skopje's most pleasant. Often referred to as the "old bazaar" or "Old Bazaar" in English, it occupies a large part of the eastern bank. Mostly populated by Albanians and Turks, it has many small shops, a large open-air market and most of the city's old Ottoman buildings. It is a charchia. This term comes from the Turkish çarşı, itself derived from the Persian chaharsu meaning "crossroads". It refers to an urban complex comprising one or more mosques, buildings managed by Islamic foundations, and businesses, part of the profits of which paid for the staff and maintenance of public and religious buildings. A sharia is therefore much more than a simple "bazaar". In this case, it is the largest and best preserved of the Balkans. It was created by the Ottomans from 1392, then modified and enlarged during five centuries. The location was not chosen at random, since there was an emporio here, a Byzantine trading post active since at least the ^12th century. Although the district withstood the 1963 earthquake better than the modern city, it was largely reduced in the 1960s and 1970s by the construction of the Goce-Delčev (south), Krste-Petkov-Misirkov (east) and Nikola-Karev (north) boulevards.