Furka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Furka is a village in the south-eastern part of Macedonia, it is situated in the center of the imagined triangle between Bogdanci, Dojran and Valandovo, 10 km far from Dojran. Eastern of the river Vardar, Pugana and Gabroska Reka, and western of Dojran bassin it is settled on height of 21 km², on altitude above sea-level of 350 m, but the highest peak is on 456 m. All around the village there are a few little heights, composed of sandy soil and rocks of granite. On the places where it's possible people use the soil for vine growing or fruit growing, and less for other. Today in Furka are living about 1000 people, all of them Macedonians and Orthodox Chritians.
Furka is part of municipality of Dojran, which is one of the most popular touristic places in Macedonia.
[edit] The name
About the origin of the name there are a few theories. According to the legend Furka had ever had shape of the Cyrillic letter Ф (F). But, historians think different. Stjepan Antoljak says that Furka was the place where Byzantine king Vassilius in Furka had blinded of the soldier of Samuil of Bulgaria, origin of the name is the Greek word "furka", which means "place of execution". This theory is considered as incorrect. Aleksandar Stojanovski thinks that origin of the name is from Turkish word "fursat" (bad people), because villagers had never allowed Turkish people to come to live in Furka. Today, the origin of the name of Furka is still unknown.
[edit] History
According to historical sources Furka exist a long time ago, at least 1000 years. Through the history it always lived the same destiny with whole Macedonia. First mention of Furka in literature is the theory of Stjepan Antoljak. By him in Furka had been blinded the soldiers of Samuil, after were captured on the mountain Belasica. As we already said, this theory is considered as incorrect.
A lot more facts are known for the period of Turkish occupation of the country. Furka then had been settled 2.5 km north from the village of today. That was a village in condensed form, with a few hostelries and 50 families, on the road Skopje - Solun (Thessaloniki) and the road between Istanbul and Albania. This locality means that a lot of people passed through the village and stopped to spent the night in well known Furka quarters for the night.
In 1530 Furka for a first time is mentioned as a derven village. That means that except with agriculture, people were occupied with dervening - they had taken the responsibility to keep the road Valandovo - Dojran, on which Furka was settled, from Turkish rebels, characteristic fro the period of anarchy in Turkish Empire. At the derven place, one member (man) of every family had been on guard every day. Therefore, some historians have opinion that on the name Furka, for a few decades was added the name "derven".
In 1573 Furka is known as a big town with 125 families and 50 not married. It's still unknown how for such short period (only 43 years) the number of inhabitants has grown so much.
One of the most important moments of history of Furka had happened in the second half of the eighteenth century, when people started to move from old Furka and settled the new village, Furka of today, 2.5 km north of the old village. By the legend, three monks who passed through Furka stopped to spend the night in one of the hostelries, but they were brutally killed by Turkish rebels. Even the derven guard didn't do their job worse than before, people were scared of the frequently attacks and started to move on the height. Location of old Furka today is called Anishte (hostelries).
People didn't lose time and started to create conditions for normal life. They continued with agriculture. Then in 1878 was built new church Sveti Ilija (Saint Eliyah).
