14 days in Kosovo (and one day in Skopje)

There is Kosovo (and the Balkans) beyond social media. This is not new, but, nevertheless, it needs to be reminded with stories from everyday life. Notes from Rogova e Hasit, Novobërda, Budriga e Poshtme (and Skopje)

1.

“Around the World in 80 Days” is the title of the famous novel by the French writer Jules Verne. The American Phileas Fogg makes a bet with his friends: if he fails to travel around the world in 80 days, then he will be willing to lose his fortune. The deepest message of the novel is this: luck favors the brave. Fogg successfully completes his mission. At the end of the 19th century, this became possible thanks to the development of technology. The combination of human will and the advantages of technology catapulted Phileas Fogg from Europe to Asia and from there back to Europe. In the 21st century, you can travel around the world in a few hours, by plane. For those with less ambition: from Zurich to Pristina, the plane of the Swiss airline Edelweiss brings you from Kloten (the village where Zurich airport is located) to Sllatina (the village where Pristina airport is located) in less than two hours.

2.

In Pristina, visitors are greeted by fog and polluted air, and a good atmosphere with music, lots of laughter and plenty of alcoholic beverages for the “93-percent-Muslim” population. The spectacle takes place in George W. Bush Square, in front of the Pristina Cathedral. Ibrahim Rugova is also there, placed in the courtyard of the Cathedral, gilded with gold. A bad monument and a weak attempt to honor a man, a scholar and an important politician of Kosovo. Rugova in front of the Cathedral looks like a member of a musical band that in the 70s or 80s sang in restaurants near “INA” or “Jugopetrol” gas stations. When religious dignitaries lose their way, they get involved in politics, challenge laws and urban order. Thus, an Albanian national figure is reduced to a “shepherd of the flock” and a “religious activist” (which he never was). The only thing missing from the Cathedral courtyard are the lambs that the Islamic Community buys for Eid al-Fitr to do a little business. It would be a union of the same mentalities with ambitions of peddlers where a few quotes from the Quran and the Bible and a lot of euros are mixed. Such absurdity would not even have occurred to Samuel Beckett to write and stage. At least Anton Çetta had worthy successors who protected him from the misuse of his figure, which has a place in the heart of every Albanian: they did not allow the placement of Anton Çetta's monument in the Cathedral courtyard.

3.

While Pristina celebrated on New Year's Eve, other cities in Kosovo (especially those in Anamorava) were often shrouded in darkness. There is no electricity. The government is to blame, say the watchdog critics. The previous governments are to blame, the authorities respond, citing the sale of the network for a few million. There is no serious debate on how to solve this major problem in Kosovo. There is no discussion of what can be done with the large coal reserves that Kosovo has. There are no convincing ideas for major investments in the energy sector. If a country does not have electricity, even the worst investor will stop halfway. If the government constantly warns that there may be attacks from Serbia during the holidays (without providing any convincing data), then the impression is automatically created that even with delicate security issues, an electoral campaign is being conducted. Just as an extreme campaign is being conducted by some "public figures" (self-proclaimed), who compare the situation in northern Kosovo with the situation in Kosovo in the 90s under Serbian occupation. A greater mockery of the suffering of the people of Kosovo and a more scandalous minimization of the crimes of the Belgrade regime have never happened in Kosovo. The situation in the north is not ideal and in the medium term the solution is not just the presence of the police. The solution is interethnic dialogue and the transfer of local power into the hands of politicians from the population that is the majority in that part of the country.

4.

In Kosovo, almost no work is done without a car. You go from city to city - by car. You go from neighborhood to neighborhood within the city - by car. Kosovo's roads are often congested. This can be experienced (if that's the right word) on the bus from Pristina to Gjakova, which (like Peja) has remained a dead end in terms of road infrastructure (as has Gjilan and all of Anamorava). The 80-kilometer route from Pristina to Gjakova (at least on December 28) was covered in two and a half hours (due to long queues). For comparison: the train from Bern to Zurich covers almost 100 kilometers of railway in just 56 minutes. The 80 kilometers between Pristina and Gjakova would be covered by a high-speed train in about 40 minutes. Patience on the bus was worth it: the evening continued in Rogovë i Hasit, surrounded by good people and good songs. While the polarization, insults, cries and screams of Kosovar politics and “mediocracy” touched the sky, it was impressive to see members or sympathizers of different parties gathered in the village cafe, all singing beautiful Albanian songs together and teasing each other without any hassle, without malice.

5.

Much has been written, researched and reported about illegal or semi-legal constructions in Brezovica. Another Brezovica of Kosovo is hidden behind the village of Llabjan, on the way to Gjilan. Between the municipality of Novobërda (Neuberg, as the Germans called it, Artanë as the Albanians recently called it) and the municipality of Gjilan, thousands of villas and dozens of “tourist” villages have sprung up, most of them unqualified constructions, placed like Lego bricks behind the play of Zevzek children. This is one side. The other side: here and there there are really beautiful houses (as far as they can be judged from their appearance) and good restaurants, I am highlighting two: Acorn (investment of an Albanian from Zurich, whom I knew little from Switzerland and did not know about his investment) and Lura Agroturizëm. Of course, there are other places worth visiting, and this is also the purpose I am mentioning: supporting local businesses. These people had an idea, then invested and took risks, created jobs and thus supported many families. This is the greatest patriotic contribution today: business development prevents people from fleeing to Germany and elsewhere. This is about Novo Brdo: 700 years ago it was a mining metropolis with an international reputation. 30 tons of silver were extracted from the mines located 6 kilometers from Pristina every year. Miners also came from German-speaking regions. The word ore comes from the German: Zeche.

6.

The view from the window on the morning of January 1, 2025 is not promising. The terrain is shrouded in fog, the ground is covered in frost, the frosty air is mixed with the dust of fireworks. The best idea seems to be to surrender graciously to the burning stove.

But there is a better idea: to go from Gjilan to the village of Budrigë e Poshtme, inhabited by members of the Serbian community. The almost 40-year-old Mercedes of my 80-year-old uncle worked like a Swiss watch, including the heating. It took four eyes, a slow walk and maximum concentration to penetrate the dense fog. Once a sign appeared showing the way to the village of Zhegër. Before Zhegër is Budrigë e Poshtme. The house of Gradimir, whom my uncle called Dragomir, is located on a street at the entrance to which stood a mirror mounted on an electric pole. This is the original Balkan way of orientation: the mirror on the electric pole - that's where you should turn. Gradimir, whose name in Albanian means peacemaker, is a valuable farmer, a seller of pickles, raki and other products that come from the fertile land of Kosovo. For years I have seen some of these vendors in Gjilan, on what everyone calls “Pristina Street”. They put a few bottles of rasoj on the sidewalk, jars of ajvar, village eggs and pickles, the Serbs call them “zimnica”, in a word they sell all kinds of pickles that are eaten during the winter. I don’t know how many products these people manage to sell when they come to Gjilan from the Serb-inhabited villages of Anamorava.

One thing is certain: their problems are similar to those of Albanians. The standard of living is low or very low. The future of children is not so bright. At the local level, in interpersonal relations, high politics is far away. Far away are the Albanian politicians of Pristina, who do not dare to show their muscles even when it is totally unnecessary, much further away are the politicians of Belgrade, whom the Serbs of Kosovo use and misuse for internal political squabbles.

It is not easy to be a minority in the Balkans. The public attention of the majority is not oriented towards minorities and their concerns, often legitimate. In the case of Kosovo Albanians, the indifference towards almost every Kosovo Serb is also a consequence of the refusal of the authorities in Serbia to agree, even indirectly, with Kosovo's statehood. But this is only part of the explanation. In the vast sea of ​​Albanian majority (over 95 percent) Serbs and other minorities are almost invisible.
Can Kosovo Serbs become a little more visible? For this, we need Albanian politicians who are not complexed about the otherness of the other, who turns out to be quite similar when comparing daily problems. There must also be political leaders of Kosovo Serbs who are emancipated from the manipulative agendas of the current government in Belgrade.

I saw that a comedy festival (“Stand-Up Comedy”) was held in Gjilan in recent days and suddenly this question flashed through my mind: is there a Serbian comedian in Anamorava? Why not welcome him on the stage of the Gjilan Theater? Wouldn't such a potential invitation endanger the organizers, who would be accused by the caring patriots of “collaborating with Serbs”?

What politics, culture, or civil society don't do, ordinary people with the few opportunities they have do. Gradimir from Budriga e Poshtme, when he found out that I live in Zurich, told me that his pickles are being sold far away, in Switzerland. How is this possible? - I asked him. I know someone in Kamenica, said Gradimir, he is buying my pickles and sending them for sale in Switzerland. Gradimir seemed satisfied with this business. Maybe his business partner from Kamenica is Albanian, maybe Serbian (it's unlikely), but Gradimir didn't make any connection between ethnicity and pickles. I, meanwhile, found it completely inappropriate to ask: is the exporter of pickles to Switzerland Albanian or Serbian? Because pickles are pickles, they have no ethnicity. 

Sometimes they do: in the competition between the peoples of the Balkans as to who is doing the biggest stupidity, the Serbs often lead. I remember, for example, the headlines in the Belgrade media a few years ago: “Albanian tomatoes in Serbian salad”, “Every second tomato in salad is Albanian”, “Tomatoes from Albania in the middle of Belgrade”, “Albanian tomatoes on Serbian tables”. The tone of these headlines was threatening: be careful, Albanian tomatoes have entered the Serbian salad, this is a great danger for us! Tomatoes can be grown on Albanian soil and then exported to Serbia, but there are no Albanian tomatoes in the ethnic sense, just as there is no Serbian snow covering the Serbian mountains. The tomato is a plant and is known by its Latin name: Solanum lycopersicum.

We didn't buy pickles in Budriga i Poshtme, because transporting them by plane to Switzerland is delicate (including being told epic anecdotes in the style of "exile and pickles"), but a bottle of raki, made by Gradimir, will go to Zurich as a gift for Swiss friends. Maybe two.
Come to Graçanica on Friday (3.1.), by that day I will find another bottle of quince brandy, said Gradimir. Connoisseurs of brandy making say that quince brandy is not found everywhere, that it takes many kilograms of quince to make one liter, that often the brandy that is sold as quince has only the aroma of this yellow, lumpy fruit. On Fridays, Gradimir comes with his car from Budriga e Poshtme to Graçanica in the hope of selling something from his products. Of course, when Friday came, Gradimir kept his promise.

7.

One does not know what kitsch, sentimentality, sloppiness and pseudo-neoclassicism are without seeing (for the umpteenth time) Skopje designed by the government of Nikola Gruevski of the VMRO/DPMNE party. In all this architectural chaos, a multitude of monuments abound. Heroes made of bronze (or some cheap material) stand in a row, ready, sitting at tables, on pedestals or on horseback - it seems that everyone is worried, not about the fate of North Macedonia, but about urban megalomania. I also noticed two Albanians in this forest of monuments: Adem Gajtanin, a poet born in Podujevo, who died in Skopje, and Nexhat Agolli, a politician of the Albanians of Macedonia, who was eliminated after World War II. (Perhaps there are other monuments to Albanians in the center of Skopje, some of them had no names).
As for Albanians: the current debate in this country is about the Albanian language and its use. Some of the new Albanian rulers say: the Albanian language is not official (although there are Albanian ministers in the government, who when, in 2018, the law - albeit flawed - on the use of the Albanian language was approved, had praised it). The opposition from the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) insists that the Albanian language has been made official and is now endangered by the new government dominated by VMRO/DPMNE. Who is right? The law was not perfect, but it was a step forward. If this law is repealed, without any plan for how the use of the Albanian language in North Macedonia will be regulated in the future, then Albanian could be degraded in this country. Because from VMRO/DPMNE, which despite its many scandals, was almost completely amnestied by the Macedonian electorate in the last elections, no progress can be expected regarding the use of the Albanian language in official communications. The situation was not ideal even after the adoption of the law in 2018: to avoid mentioning the Albanian language, the law specified that the official language is the language of the community over 20 percent (it was clear that it was about Albanians). At the core of the refusal to mention Albanian still lies the germ of anti-Albanian racism of a large part of the Macedonian electorate and political elite. Albanian parties participating in Macedonian governments in the last three decades have often made rotten compromises - and as a reward have continued to stay in power (including participating in the harvest-threshing of corruption). Not to excuse the Albanian parties, but this bad habit of theirs of corruption looks like collecting money under the table compared to the distribution of resources among Macedonian interest groups. A few days ago, Macedonian media published a video showing former secret service chief Sasho Mijalkov getting out of a Ferrari in Monte Carlo and entering the Le Louis XV hotel, where a night's stay costs between 1000 and 1500 euros. Mijalkov is a "product" of the system that has been built in Skopje in recent decades - often with the participation of Albanian political parties. The division within the Albanian political camp has made it easier for VMRO/DPMNE. The group of Albanian parties that now participate in the government is heterogeneous, so their primary interest is staying in power (this desire holds them together) and attending a wedding or party in Kosovo. Most ministers give the impression of being subservient to Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, who looks like a caricature of the Serbian populist president. 

Let's go back to the Albanian language: it is also preserved by using Albanians in everyday life. No one stops them from doing this. In a corridor of gold and silver shops in the center of Skopje, most of the owners are Albanian, but there is no Albanian letter on the doors and windows of the shops, Zefi is Зеф and Simoni is Симон. In the Old Bazaar of Skopje, the pictures are different, the problem is similar: most of the shops selling gold and silver jewelry are just “Zlatara”, while the owners are clearly Albanian, if we base our surnames on that. No one stops these men from using the Albanian language either.