The prehistoric trout from Macedonia's Lake Ohrid, Europe's oldest and perhaps deepest lake, was so big it took two hours to cook. My five Dutch dinner companions, ex-military men who've combated mayhem from Lebanon to Rwanda, lost count of the wine bottles that passed the time. When the fish swam to the table with the kitchen's apologies and more bottles, I dove into the delicious pink flesh as if my survival depended on it. During cigars afterwards, we returned the favor with wine for restaurant staff that stayed past closing for us. This was, after all, an exercise in nation building.

There are many avenues to the heart of a country. The most satisfying I've trod is the road to democracy in a young nation with two million people that not long prior was on the verge of civil war. Some 850 international observers were in Macedonia for the last September 15th parliamentary election, the largest deployment by the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, indicating how seriously this Balkan blasting cap is taken. The nerves of this former southern tip of Yugoslavia, bordered by Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria and Greece, are wired to the region's tensions - ethnic, territorial, political, religious, historical. Macedonia meltdown is the last thing anyone needs.

Lake Ohrid, also bordered by Albania, sits close to Greece. Its mountain rimmed, spring fed waters, with 21.5 meters of visibility, have many "living fossil" species, like the famed trout. Perhaps Nessie has cousins here. The lakeside resort Deserat, empty now but for the couple hundred volunteers being trained for their regional assignments, was less than hardship duty. And simply observing elections is a less abrasive task than supervising them, particularly when supervising countries with attitude. Here, observers were mostly welcome, at least by citizens who wouldn't mind a fair shot at regime change. Incumbents, sensing change in the wind, were quicker to blame the country's considerable woes on foreign interference.

Nearby Ohrid, known in ancient times as Lychnydos, is among the oldest human settlements in Europe. It's a time machine with charm. Swans beg with class for handouts along waterfront restaurants. Offerings include St. Pantelejmon, the most ancient Slav monastery, and the most important collection of Byzantine icons, 11th -14th century, outside Moscow. The old section has a labyrinth of winding, narrow cobbled streets that snake up the hillside from the lake. Albanian neighborhoods, their restaurant rotisseries turning slowly as they tune up appetites, seem to merge comfortably with the rest of the town.

Mostly built between the 7th and 19th centuries, houses reveal centuries of modifications and repairs. White or light gray, often stone, with red-tiled roofs, some are elegant. Others show decay that is humble yet artful. At night, the glow of random street light generates textured shadows as shifting views give the feel of walking through the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Accents of green moss border patches of wood slats where stone and stucco has fallen away.

Climb the hill, past ancient churches and basilicas, and a Roman amphitheater comes into view. Above it is a fort, 16 meters high, that, in various incarnations, served Greeks, Romans and eventually Tsar Samuil, who was crowned by the Roman Pope for his inroads into the Byzantine Empire. When his army was defeated by the emperor Vasilius in 1014, 14,000 of Samuil's soldiers were blinded, every one hundredth was left one eye. When he saw them, Samuil had a heart attack. History plays rough here.

Grappling with Macedonia's history is like peeling a giant onion. Old European civilization flourished in Macedonia between 7000 and 3500 BC. The first known Macedonian king, Caranus, lived eight centuries before Christ. Fast forward to Phillip II (382-336 BC), who unified Macedonia and defeated Greece, which is still sore about it as well as Macedonia's claim on Phillip's son, Alexander the Great, who beat the Greeks again, conquered Persia and extended the Macedonian empire from Egypt and Turkey to Afghanistan and the outer reach of India. Macedonia ruled over cities including Pella, Alexandria, Babylon, Kabul and Sumarkand. It influenced the region for three centuries, until competing generals weakened the empire and Rome rose to hammer it back to its original borders and eventually make it a province.

Payback was tough. Macedonia was sliced and diced under Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and infused with southern Slavs. Borders ebbed and flowed, shifted and overlapped. Partitions after WWI and WWII often found Macedonians stranded in new countries subjected to harsh treatment. In freedom fighting modes, as in fascist Bulgaria or in Greece's civil war, they sometimes aligned with the communists who claimed to offer greater freedom and autonomy. The US provided aid that helped turn the tide of Greece's civil war, to the chagrin of the Macedonian's involved. Such histories make a strong argument for multilateral national building.

As Yugoslavia disintegrated, in 1991, 95% of Macedonia's eligible voters chose independence in a uniquely peaceful departure. For years, Greece inflicted economic woes, enacting an embargo over Macedonia's choice of name and delaying international recognition. The impacts of overlapping cultures, such as Albanian and Serbian, continue today. It takes a detailed scorecard to follow all the tricky pressures within and around this new nation with an ancient soul.

One is 35-40% unemployment, though the "gray" economy is as difficult to gauge as it is to tax. That's fertile ground not just for political tensions but for organized crime, which uses Macedonia as a major transshipment area for Central-Asian heroin and hashish.

In Ohrid, I found a more benign product, counterfeit CD's, some from the Bulgarian mafia, which pays huge sums to spies in western recording studios and consequently markets CD's for two or three bucks, a month before they appear in the west. "I'm one of the lucky ones working, at the average wage of $150 a month," says the proprietor of a CD shop. "I'm going to pay $22 for a CD?" That, in a nutshell, is the piracy challenge. Good luck, recording industry.

After several days of lectures by ambassadors and experts on the political culture, and admonitions to avoid incidents, observers, most with considerable experience, deployed to different regions for the third parliamentary election since independence, in which 3,000 candidates competed for 120 seats.

Sixteen political parties more or less leveled out to two competing alliances. Tensions were picking up in some areas, with the assassinations of ethnic Macedonian and Albanian police offers, some temporary abductions, and grenades tossed into political party offices. In a remarkable coincidence, a journalist who had just written that the government intended to use the paramilitary force, the "Lions," to disrupt the election process, had his car blown up the same day. Clear favoritism in political coverage by state-run stations rankled the opposition, and a backlash to intimidation attempts by the Lions was brewing.

My Dutch observer partner and I were sent to Prelip, a city of 100,000. A center of the tobacco industry - in surrounding rural areas every family seems to have small tobacco plots - the area is known for its white marble, which crops out from a mountain, atop which are ruins of a 14th century prince's fort that overlooks the city and stunning valleys. Bars and restaurants are not readily distinguished and we were carefully warned against the ones frequented by the paramilitary Lions who might be spoiling for an incident. They'd already generated a conflict a few days prior when blocking and roughing up opposition party members who sought to move through the city. That effort proved a fiasco, fostering a public opinion backlash, even as the top local Lion was tossed in jail as the incumbents tried to distance themselves.

There were two main local beers. For reasons I wasn't entirely clear on, but probably having to do with restrictions by beer distributors who had differing political party preferences or influence, bars tended to serve one or the other, and hence beer choice took on political overtones. If memory serves, the incumbent beer seemed stale. It certainly wasn't favored by young folk who told me they felt discriminated against for government and teaching jobs because they weren't active in the incumbent coalition.

Aided by our interpreter, a pretty and bright student named Dragica - and by our amiable driver Tony - we scouted our six polling stations in Kavadarci, a town of 42,000 an hour or so drive over a narrow mountain pass that is to be avoided late at night due to highwaymen. Polling station committees were amiable and dedicated, though when they found out I was from the states they asked if Florida needs observers.

Kavadarci is Macedonia's main wine region, producing respectable Tikvesh wines from vineyards crisscrossed by idyllic streams punctuated by tall poplars. Dragica and Tony proved well-connected to restaurants and the local winery. Strategy sessions went smoothly. We closely observed the egalitarian making of wine, as well as a democratic soccer game on the outskirts, back-dropped by the hot golden glow of molten slag poured down a growing black hillside by a nickel mining operation. The Dutchman, who has a small orchard in Holland, found a coppersmith skilled at making stills and gave him the specs and a deadline of the close of election day.

With the exception of incumbent tempers that flared at us on the street - we sat for a coffee at an outdoor cafe too close to party headquarters - election day in Kavadaric, which began for us at 4 a.m., was heartening. Party representatives kept close but cordial watch. Offending signs were removed when we requested, party hacks hovering at polling entrances left when told. Vote counts followed procedure. Amiable voters of opposing parties flooded local bars by polling stations, imbibing the local Rakija, a smoother varietal distilled not from the usual plums or apples but from Kavadaric grapes. Most adopted the attitude of win or lose, we still booze. The still, after design modifications during election breaks, was completed. Given the pressures of the Middle East, Korea and elsewhere, it's darn lucky that the Balkans aren't now threatening eruption as well. Generally, elections went well throughout Macedonia. Two colleagues in an insulated mountain Macedonian Muslim village had to evacuate when the polling station chairman, a member of the incumbent party, refused to certify the results because of death threats from party colleagues, and angry villagers marched on the polling station in a scene I gather was reminiscent of villagers attacking the windmill where Frankenstein's monster hid. One observer asked if he'd time to radio NATO. "We go now!" was his interpreter's reply, and they scrambled down the mountain road.

But such incidents were exceptions. Macedonia had a 75% turnout that puts U.S. voters to shame. In Prelip that night, rain didn't dampen victory parties in the town square. I stepped back from my hotel window when the victors' cars and trucks paraded by, not wanting an unfortunate encounter with the celebratory gunshots.

The center-left opposition won handily. Now we'll see if, as The Who put it, the new boss is the same as the old boss. But signs are encouraging. Most Macedonians appear to reject the nationalist tides that sweep neighboring countries to tragedy, and the country aims for NATO and E.U. membership. Macedonia recently confirmed an agreement with U.S. Secretary of State Powell to ensure equal access to all worship and historic sites for all cultural groups.

Hopefully the West will provide adequate assistance for micro-credit programs and other needs, that the country won't be marginalized while the West focuses on the crisis of the moment. If the Balkans backslide, the mischief potential for destabilizing southern Europe is endless, from organized crime to terrorism to wildcard immigration flows. Crossroads where donkeys pulling grape carts stand shoulder to shoulder with Mack trucks have charm but also indicate cultural dislocation that should not be neglected.

There is an amusement ride in Prelip where riders are seated on the edge of what appears to be a colorfully lit hoop skirt of a figure of a giant buxom woman in a top hat and an American flag bustier who tilts back as she whirls. With luck, the recent exercise in democracy won't come to be viewed as another carnival ride. With luck, Macedonians won't become as cynical as neighboring Serbians, who recently failed several attempts at the 50% turnout their country requires to elect a president. Montenegro, with similar laws, also had a recent election fizzle.

I recently had a shot of homemade Rakija the coppersmith sent home with me. A filling promptly fell out, an apt beverage review. I need to warn the Dutchman, whose still apparently cleared the airport despite looking like two warheads.

For more information on Macedonia, visit on the Web at: http://directory.macedonia.org

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