The Mayor of Washington DC, this year together with the Macedonians living and working in the United States, marks the Ilinden holiday. Formally, the holiday was declared last year as the Macedonian-American Heritage Day, which is regularly celebrated on August 2.

In a proclamation sent this weekend to Macedonians in the United States on the occasion, which the United Macedonian Diaspora (UMD) shared with MIA, Mayor Bowser compared Columbia County’s efforts to gain the right to become a federal state with the fight for Macedonia’s independence and self-determination.