Macedonia: Christmas Tree made from Plastic Bottles

Inspired by the example of Kaunas, Lithuania, Macedonian Twitter users made a Christmas tree from plastic bottles in Skopje City Park on December 25, to raise awareness about everyone's responsibility for the environment.

The tree and the team. Click for full size/uncut version.
Photo by Dimitar Atanasov.

Some of the action organizers used their blogs (Tamara Atanasoska, Dushica debarmaalka, Darjan Radenkovic, Jovana Tozija) as starting point for the quick social media campaign #елкамк. Elka is the Macedonian word for fir, the usual tree used for Winter Hollidays (actually, for the New Year's Celebration, and not for the local--Orthodox--Christmas, which falls on January 7, but that's another story) .


The tree remained in place during the night, and if the poor people that gather plastic for recycling from the streets and garbage dumpsters don't harvest it, the authors plan [mk] to properly dispose of it after the New Year.

Update: A photo gallery from the two days of the action. 

Macedonia, China: Comparing Air Pollution in the Capitals

Anastas Vangeli, а Macedonian studying in Beijing, compared the levels of air pollution and policy measures between that city and his hometown Skopje.

Macedonia: The Third Fruit by Ribaro

Video blogger Ribaro, who usually makes satirical mashups, published an "apolitical," "poetic," experimental film available in Macedonian and Russian. He wrote somewhat cryptically that the viewers can choose their third fruit, "under condition to eat lentil with someone else."

Macedonian blogosphere in German media: Zeit Online

This article is also available in Macedonian
- на македонски на Блогерај: Македонската блогосфера во германски медиум: Цајт Онлајн
- на македонски на Блогспот: Македонската блогосфера во германски медиум: Цајт Онлајн

The influential German magazine Zeit published an article on the Macedonian blogosphere and media situation in general. I was quoted among other sources about the development on the blogosphere.

• Hasstiraden verschmutzen die mazedonische Blogosphäre, or--as far as I can tell--Hate speech polluting the Macedonian Blogosphere.

The article contains a link towards Global Voices post on hate speech between Macedonia and Bulgaria, which incited me to revisit it and to update the Twitter link for one of the sources. This was also done in the Spanish translation by Adriana Gutiérrez. The exchange caught the eye of Vnukot, who posted a critique to some aspects of the quoted text.

So, the article generated more feedback than can be supposed by just reading its comments section.