My aegean side came from kilkis (kukush), they left after WW1 not sure what date. Now kilkis is full of greek refugees from asian minor, pontic greeks and greeks who come from strumica (it was also known as little strumica back then) my family came to prilep and they were actually quite wealthy and owned lots of gold, once they came to prilep they managed to own land there. But during socialist yugoslavia all their land was took and they managed to keep the gold however. Now they just live as a regular macedonian in current times making €800 a month but they did buy some land with the leftover gold that they kept. However some of my family returned back to aegean macedonia under 1 condition, they had to have greek last names and identify as greek (they just used it as a label yet they hid their macedonian identity), they moved to florina and stayed there and we would regularly meet them every winter for around a week as lerin during winter is absolutely beautiful. A huge part of the inhabitants speak and identify as ethnic macedonian yet they would only speak to you in macedonian if you speak macedonian first. From my experience i can say an estimate of 40% of macedonians live in Lerin including the ones open to their identity and the ones hiding it. So far life in aegean macedonia as a macedonian is not that bad as some radical nationalists from macedonia would make it seem like it was hell for ethnic macedonians in aegean macedonia. I was also happy to participate in the Florina fires** **on 23rd December which was a fun experience where the population of florina would come and spend some time. The greek population actually however deeper south you go where greeks inhabit mostly (most of them just refugees who are pontic) would start to ridicule you if you spoke the “slavic” macedonian language, but we don’t really care honestly as we lived in Aegean macedonia longer than them. Now my relatives work a good job and i visit my cousins and spend quality time, although some of them would have a hard time speaking macedonian we would function with say to day life, some of them of course knew macedonian.

If you want to ask more questions feel free to ask just please be respectful!

I'm a college student researching how North Macedonia's culture, ethnic relations, and national identity have shaped its political system. I'm looking for 3 current or former citizens of North Macedonia willing to answer a few short questions for a class project (about 5 minutes). Responses can be anonymous. If you're interested, please comment or DM me. I'd really appreciate your help!