The best museums Krusevo

This gallery (Галерија Мартиноски/Galerija Martinovski) was founded in 1968 in a beautiful traditional ^19th-century house. It is dedicated to the Aromanian painter from Kruševo Nikola Martinovski (1903-1973). Trained at the Grande Chaumière academy in Paris between 1927 and 1828, he is considered the founder of contemporary art in what is now North Macedonia. The two floors feature 62 works by the painter (oils, tempera, drawings, etc.), some of his personal effects and an exhibition of traditional local costumes.

Opened in 1989, this national museum (Музеј на Народно Ослободителната Војна/Muzej na Narodno Osloboditelnata Vojna) is dedicated to the region during the Second World War. Here you'll find weapons used by the partisans, as well as period documents. But the main attraction is the superb fresco by Prilep-born artist Borko Lazeski (1917-1993). His local work includes the stained glass windows of the Makedonium and a vast mural in Prilep.

The National Museum of the Ilinden Uprising and the Republic of Kruševo (Музеј на Илинденското Востание и Крушевската Република/Muzej na Ilindenskoto Vostanie i Kruševskata Republik) is housed in an attractive ^19th-century house that belonged to the Tomalevski family. It was here that the Republic of Kruševo was declared on August 4, 1903, at the start of the Ilinden uprising against the Ottoman Empire (August 2-November 25, 1903). In the weeks leading up to the uprising, the place served as a clandestine arsenal: it was here that lead was smelted to make ammunition, that the famous little wooden cannons were cobbled together, but also that hundreds of bought or stolen weapons and thousands of cartridges stolen from Ottoman garrisons were stored. Established in 1953, the museum houses an eclectic collection of weapons used by the Kruševo insurgents until the fall of the Republic on August 13, 1913: handguns, sabres, knives, old petrels and Western-made rifles. These include Mauser rifles and Smith & Wesson pistols from the Ottoman army, a pistol from the Manufacture d'armes de Saint-Étienne, a Winchester M1897 pump-action shotgun and Lebel rifles from Châtellerault. The exhibition is accompanied by period photos, maps and documents. But the highlights are the Belgian Nagant revolver and the Austro-Hungarian Steyr-Mannlicher rifle that belonged to uprising leader Nikola Karev.