The restoration of the Mosque, where more than half a million euros were invested, is forgotten

After the convictions of official persons for misuse, disputes between the Municipality of Pristina and cultural heritage institutions and a tripartite memorandum, the oldest Mosque of Pristina remains an abandoned monument. Although half a million euros were invested in the Stone Mosque, it is being damaged every day. The restoration started in 2011 has not been completed. The history of what is also known as the Çarshi Mosque is one of the concrete evidences of the state's approach to cultural heritage. It is about a monument located in the center of the capital.

The last document signed for the restoration of this cultural heritage asset is the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Ministry of Culture, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and the Islamic Community of Kosovo. But since July 2018, when this document was signed, all that has been done is a procedural step. TIKA has been approved for the project by the Kosovo Institute for the Protection of Monuments.

The pending works

"The commission within IKMM has approved the project. Furthermore, according to information from the TIKA organization, the project was forwarded to Turkey during the month of June for further tendering procedures", said Vjollca Aliu, director of the Department of Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture. She has recommended that information be obtained from the Turkish agency for other details. But TIKA has never responded regarding this project. The memorandum signed between the three parties does not have any deadline for when the works will start or finish. There it is stated that TIKA has the obligation to design the project, send it to IKMM for approval and carry out the works. The role of the Ministry of Culture and BIK is completely coordinating. In the memorandum, there is no information about the amount that will be invested in this mosque.

The Municipality of Pristina did not respond either. Not even the chairman, Shpend Ahmeti. On August 11, he had a meeting with the director of this organization, Cihan Dinçer.

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"With the help of TIKA, we realized many important projects for the citizens of Pristina. We will continue the cooperation in the implementation of three big projects: the construction of the Center for Autism and Down Syndrome, and the restoration of the Çarshi Mosque and the City Hamam will be realized with the continuous support of TIKA", wrote Ahmeti on Facebook after the meeting. But several times he has not answered the questions about when the works will start in the Bazaar Mosque.

The Kosovo Institute for the Protection of Monuments has given another address to questions related to this mosque.

"Go to the information office of MKRS", is the answer of the director of IKMM, Ismet Hajrullahu, regarding the issue of this monument.

Decades of procrastination and abuse

The story of the start of the restoration of the Stone Mosque begins in 2011. That year, three versions of the project were made and IKMM, together with the Municipality, the Islamic Community of Kosovo and the Ministry of Culture, made the selection of the project. Its implementation itself cost 562 thousand euros, not including 80 thousand given for the project. Exactly 80 euros had become a bone of contention for the interruption of the works. The means were allocated by the Municipality of Pristina. And for misuse during the works, punishments have been imposed by the Basic Court of Pristina.

The former acting director of the Kosovo Institute for the Protection of Monuments, Agim Gërguri, and the architect of this institution, Gani Gashi, in 2017 were sentenced to six months in prison for abuse of official position. But the prison sentence, with the agreement of the accused, has been converted into a fine, in the amount of 3 euros for each. According to the indictment, while the Municipality of Pristina had signed a memorandum of understanding with IKMM, where it had allocated the sum of 600 thousand euros for the restoration of the Çarshi Mosque in Pristina, Gashi had found the people who would engage in the work and Gërguri had engaged them without procedures. The beneficiary in this case was the company "Arch Code" owned by Gashi's wife, Luljeta Gashi. Contracts for works were also signed with Amir Gërgur, Agim Gërgur's son, and Ard Gash, Gani Gash's son.

Example of approach to cultural heritage

For Sali Shoshin, who leads the organization "Cultural Heritage Without Borders", this situation shows a lack of seriousness towards the values ​​of cultural heritage.

"It's been so many years that two monuments in the center of Pristina continue to suffer from frivolity, neglect and corruption. For the Çarshi Mosque, we also had a court case and a court decision, which testifies to the misuse of public money. And this was not enough for the institutions to react to pay more serious attention to the monuments", said Shoshi. Reference was made to the Court's decision, where two employees of IKMM were found guilty of abuse of office. Shoshi said that it has been a year since the agreement was signed and the monument continues to be in the same condition.

"Institutions have a legal obligation to take care of cultural heritage, therefore they must be transparent with the public regarding this process. If there are delays in the implementation of the agreement, the institutions must find other ways and other funds to restore and return this monument to the public", he said. According to Shoshi, the time has come for the institutions to be more serious, otherwise they must suffer the consequences of this situation.

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In 2014, the "Ec Ma Ndryshe" organization, after the study it had done on the interruption of the restoration of the Mosque, came out with a reaction. According to this organization, at the moment when the agreement was made between the Municipality of Pristina and IKMM, the entire cost of the project had to be calculated in detail.

"First of all, the design cost, which in this case has not been calculated at all. This was also the dispute that caused the delay and interruption of works in the case of the Bazaar Mosque", was the finding of "Ec Ma Ndryshe". According to this organization, since the payment by the Municipality was made in several stages, after the acceptance of each stage, the reports had to be looked at before the acceptance of that stage, so that things flowed properly.

"In this case, there was a lack of proper communication between the institutions, in which case the problems would have been avoided. And in the meantime, in addition to the Municipality of Pristina, the works had to be forwarded by MKRS, and in the case of delays and possible problems, MKRS should react to avoid these problems", writes the organization's answers. According to "Ec Ma Ndryshe", since 2013, when the works on the Çarshi Mosque were stopped, it has been exposed to different climatic conditions, which have damaged and continue to damage the Mosque.

Only the road separates the Çarshi Mosque from the Assembly of Kosovo and the Prime Minister's Office. The old building of the Municipality of Pristina is not far away either.

The Çarshi Mosque, according to some notes, is thought to have been built in 1393 by order of Sultan Bayazit. Its feature is the stone minaret, which is the only one that has survived time for more than 500 years. It was built to commemorate the victory of the Ottoman forces and Sultan Murat in the battle of 1389. The mosque was originally located in front of the Old Bazaar, which was demolished in the 60s, which is why it is still called the Bazaar Mosque. According to the database of the Ministry of Culture, heredia.org, the Mosque is also characterized by the polygonal stone top of the minaret.

"Over time, the Mosque inside, outside and in its surroundings underwent repair interventions and transformations, which affected its visual integrity, while its minaret remained untransformed from its original form," he writes in the database. According to what is written there, in terms of functionality, architecture and history, the building has a unique structure in harmony with the transformations of time and preserves all the characteristic elements from the time of construction, for which it is ranked as a prominent construction work.

Historians have also written about this mosque. The beginning of the XNUMXth century remains as the date when it is thought that the first mosque was built in Pristina. Sultan Bayazit, who had taken power after the death of his father, Sultan Murat, a few kilometers from the place where the mosque was built, did this to honor the victory of the conquest in this part of the Balkans. All this history is well described in his book by historian Noel Malcolm in "Kosova: A short history", which was previously published in Albanian by "Botimet KOHA".

There are also arguments in the book "Cities of Kosovo during the second half of the 1389th century", by Muhamet Tërnava. While quoting K. Jireçek, who dealt with the data from the books and documents of the Ragusa archive, he says that in Pristina on the eve of the Battle of Kosovo in XNUMX, the Brankovic family ruled.

"After this battle there was a dual rule: Serbian and Turkish. In Pristina, the word comes, in 1421 the Turks are mentioned with their kadis... In Pristina, in addition to the despot's employees (Serb MT), there were also Turkish employees: the judge and the customs officer", writes Tërnava. Quoting K. Jireçek again, he says that "the Bazar mosque of today in the city was founded by Murat II".

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"From this it appears that the Turkish influence began to spread in the first half of the XNUMXth century, when the ground was being prepared or it was going in favor of all-out efforts to definitively conquer not only this center, but also other centers of today's territory Kosovo", writes Tërnava further.

(This publication was produced with the support of the European Union. The content of this publication is the responsibility of Shaban Maxharraj and in no way can be considered as the position of the European Union or BIRN and AGK).