HAEMUS is one of the official partners in the project about „Bislim canyon – tourist attraction of Kumanovo“ commissioned by North-Eastern Planning region – Macedonia. The main aim of the project is promotion of the Bislim canyon, a small gorge in the vicinity of Kumanovo, intersected with a lot of caves as a local geomorphological feature, archaeological sites and beautiful nature.
The Northeast Planning Region is one of the eight statistical regions of Macedonia. It is located in the northeastern part of the state, bordering the Skopje region and the Eastern region. Municipalities’ that belong to this region are: Kumanovo, Lipkovo, Staro Nagoricane, Kratovo, Kriva Palanka, and Rankovce.
This region is rich in cultural and, especially, in natural resources providing good base for developing of different kinds of local, as well as national, and international tourism. In order to select and organize the immense heritage of this part of the Republic of Macedonia (Macedonia), the authors of this article were hired by the governmental sector, to develop projects dealing with management of heritage on a national level, through tourist valorization.
In the period 2009 to 2014, the Northeast region of Macedonia has seen the implementation of several projects, including the creation of strategies for the development of tourism in general. These governmental projects, focused on identification and evaluation of the natural and cultural resources, were concentrated mostly around two cities, Kumanovo and Kratovo.
The first project was an evaluation study of the natural and cultural potentials for development of alternative tourism in the Bislim canyon. The project consisted of three parts: study for evaluating the natural and cultural heritage and field trips, followed by setting up of information tables. The main aim of the project was to promote the Bislim canyon located in the vicinity of Kumanovo, in order to become a potential for developing of alternative tourism in this region.
Last phase of the project: setting up wooden info boards
Bislim canyon is a small gorge, 7 km long, settled in between river Pchina, and intersected with a lot of caves as a local geomorphological feature, archaeological sites, and beautiful nature. We’ve been undertaking a lot of field trips within the two years to document this region, because there is almost no available scientific data. Well, I can say, we’ve collected enough data to publish a monograph and several books.
After the field trips, and the evaluation of the natural and cultural heritage, the implementation of the third phase of the project took couple of month of creating and printing 10 tourist-information tables, set up on 10 different locations along the gorge. The next phase, which is already taking place, is creating the footpaths with benches and wooden fence and panorama view spot.
