PLAOŠNIK HILL

Overlooking the old city to the west, this hill (Плаошник) is home to excavation sites and much maligned recent construction. The place is worth a visit for the mosaics of its early Christian basilica and for the plunging views over the lake. The hill has been inhabited since the Iron Age. At the beginning of our era, it was romanized: it was a residential area with houses, baths and temples. From the^5th century onwards, the place became a religious site with two basilicas and the seat of the first bishops of Lychnidos. In the ^9th century, St. Clement of Ohrid made Plaošnik the main center of Slavic evangelization with the construction of the prestigious Ohrid Literary School, a monastery and the church of St. Panteleimon. In the ^15th century, the latter was transformed into a mosque and provided with an imaret (hospice). A Muslim neighborhood was born, taking the name of Imaret. But since 2000, a vast real estate project tinged with nationalism has been launched: almost all traces of Islamic presence has been erased (only an Ottoman mausoleum remains). In its place were erected the modern buildings of the University of the Apostle Paul and the new church of Saints Clement and Panteleimon. These constructions have distorted the hill. They have earned Ohrid strong criticism from UNESCO, which is threatening to remove the city from the World Heritage List. In the western part, behind the bar of buildings of the university, a way passes in the forest to join the church Saint-Jean of Kaneo.