Veles

Veles stands on the Vardar River in central Macedonia, where the valley passes between steep hills. In the Middle Ages it belonged in turn to Byzantine, Bulgarian and Serbian rulers. During the Serbian Empire it was an estate of the nobleman Jovan Oliver and later of the Mrnjavčević family. The Ottomans took the town after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 and knew it as Köprülü, a name associated with its bridge.