Dear visitors, we wish you a warm welcome to the website of Kasarna Hub Ohrid !
Let us give you some context about Kasarna Hub.
In many (mostly Slavic) languages, “kasarna” stands for a military barrack. As the name suggests, our little hub is located in the area of old Yugoslav military barracks in Ohrid, the “stara kasarna”. Located 2.5 km from the epicenter of Ohrid, the area features more than 20 hectares of mostly forested land along with dozens of buildings. Some of the buildings used to serve as dormitories for conscripts, others as administrative space and cantinas for the army. Fully-fledged socialist era military barracks complex.
Once mandatory conscription was over several decades ago, the army didn’t need the space any more. As elsewhere in Macedonia, the concept of the space needed to be reinvented. As in the case of military barracks elsewhere in Macedonia, the process went slowly and eventually the area became neglected. Unlike in many other towns in Macedonia, the military barracks in Ohrid remained virtually intact when it came to the growing interest of private investors to use the land for development of housing and commercial facilities. In fact, one of the old buildings was refurbished back in 2015 or so. It is in parts of the space of this former dormitory that our Kasarna is located. The fact that the Municipality had a brand new road constructed in the middle of the area in 2019 makes the whole area more accessible and convenient to use.
In 2021, a consortium made of the Municipality of Ohrid and our start-up company, Stellar Solutions Skopje (a small disclaimer here – half of founders and staff of Stellar are actually Ohrid locals :-)), won a bid for a EU funded project called Ohrid Go, which focuses on rehabilitation of the are of the former military barracks and its transformation into a recreational and technological zone. Apart from Kasarna Hub, the project will set up an adrenaline park and pump-up track in the area along with refurbishing one one of the old ruined buildings into a restaurant. These are the small steps that would ideally contribute to reinventing the area into a pleasurable place for work and leisure that would attract locals, visitors, digital nomads and businesses. Our dream is that the area will grow into a fully-fledged ICT village in the next decade.
Kasarna Hub’s vision is to become a networking space for the local digital economy, entrepreneurs and people with big ideas. Tenants will benefit from our co-working space, our mentorship program as well as from numerous education and networking events. Everybody is welcome! Let’s make Ohrid great again in terms of technological development and business that competes on the world market!
