About us
Tugjino Jabano — the home of Macedonians in Canada
"Tugjino jabano." Two words, one longing. Both mean the same thing: a foreign land. One is our own; the other was borrowed from far away, as if a single word could never hold all the sorrow of those who leave. It is also the name of a well-known Macedonian song, one that everyone who has ever left home knows by heart.
Since 2004, tugjinojabano.com has been the online headquarters of the Macedonian community in Canada. It was made to support Macedonians and Macedonian immigrants — to connect us and to keep us close. And it has always tried to be the opposite of that song: a place where a Macedonian in Canada is never a stranger.
We began as a simple page of useful links, made by TJ-Hosting for its own community. Over the years it grew into a meeting place. Here is the news from home, the Macedonian churches and media, the banks and the transit, and the government services every newcomer looks for in the first, hardest months: a health card, a Social Insurance Number, a driver's licence, citizenship. Today thousands of people open it every day.
But Tugjino Jabano was never just links. It is the recipes our mothers, neighbours and friends from Mississauga, Etobicoke, Brampton, Markham and Ajax sent us, signed with their names. It is Sotir and his law, which still makes us laugh at ourselves. It is the columns, the jokes, and the converter that turns Latin letters into Cyrillic, so a message to grandma is written the way it should be.
If you have just arrived — welcome. You are not alone here. Someone before you stood where you stand now, unsure which form to fill in or where to find a church for Sunday, and found the way. This page is their gift to you.
If you were born here — this is a door to the language, the faith, the table and the humour of your parents and grandparents.
And if you have lived here for decades — thank you. This place exists because of you.
A foreign land is lighter when we are together.