On St. Elijah's Day that falls in early August, each year the town of Krushevo is alive in colors.  Shaggy, hand woven, crimson red blankets known as Jambolijas adorn the balconies and hang from the windows of the stone houses of this city that is the cradle of Macedonia’s freedom. The salves from a primitive handmade cannon made of cherry wood, remind the city of its fallen heroes.   

Krushevo proudly preserves the memory of the St. Elijas Uprising, when the people of Macedonia rose against the five-centuries-long Ottoman rule.  On August 2, 1903, a handful of Macedonian revolutionaries liberated the city and proclaimed the birth of the first Democratic Republic in the Balkans.

However, it lasted only ten days.  An overwhelming Ottoman force suppressed the rebellion in blood, and burned the town to the ground.
At the nearby Bear Mountain, the hilltop that was the last stand from where the revolution was defended, a monument now stands as a reminder of the town’s struggle for independence.  It is also the resting place for Nikola Karev who in August 1903 was elected the first president of a Macedonian Republic.

An attempt to freedom memorized in a stone structure that symbolizes the severed hands of the revolution and replicated in a crystal sculpture that honors fallen heroes.  

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