MACEDONIAN DIPLOMATIC BULLETIN No. 62 - missions.gov.mk

landscape ever since. Over time, nature has shaped master pieces
out of them, protected by the agency of natural curiosities at the
Ministry of Environment. There is a similar phenomenon only in
Serbia, at Djavolja Varos.
The local population says that every 5 or 6 years, both in the
Upper and the Lower Neighborhood, two locations divided by a
hill, a new figure emerges. Most impressive are the bride and the
groom escorted by the best man and the maid of honor. They are
the largest, looking into each others’ eyes. The stone dolls in this
area are a natural phenomenon created through centuries of erosion
of volcanic rocks of different erodibility: ignimbrite, andesite and
tuffs. The stronger, more compact rocks (ignimbrite and andesite)
erode slowly, protecting the soft tuff underneath. Thus protected, the
tuffs together with the sturdier rocks above stand out in the relief
in the form of spikes and pillars, or earth pyramids. Atmospheric
events, such as rain, temperature rises and falls and wind, have
all left their mark, shaping and molding them, giving them their
peculiar forms. These processes that began some ten thousand years
ago continue today. The earth pyramids are constantly changing
their form, and while some gradually become destroyed, others
are created. The process, however, is slow and its results are not
visible in a month or year. The phenomenon of earth pyramids
or stone dolls, the creation of which requires specific geological,
geomorphologic, climatic and vegetative conditions, is quite rare
globally, and therefore the locality of Kuklica has been protected
as a natural curiosity.
No. 62 – 2012 MACEDONIAN DIPLOMATIC BULLETIN 9