PRISTINA
Took the bus from Belgrade to Pristina, which took just under six hours and cost less than E20. There are a couple of control points during the journey, so it was good to have the ID and passport handy. While Serbia still considers Kosovo as part of their territory, Kosovo is recognized by over 90 countries and the UN as its own nation. As part of its independence, it uses the Euro as the standard currency and not the Serbian Ruble. The official languages are Albanian, English and Serbian. It seems that now most of the younger generation does not speak Serbian, but rather Albanian and English. The effects of the war and the relations with Serbia are still strained, with no end of the tensions in sight. This affects the people of Kosovo, especially those in Pristina, in myriad ways as I soon found out.
Coming into Pristina, one is confronted with massive skyscraper construction sites. They seem to be springing up literally everywhere. While there are still some of the older smaller red roof tiled buildings, they are now dwarfed by the huge structures surrounding them. I have no clue where the money is coming from for all the construction, but clearly someone is spending, and someone making, a lot of money. Yet, Pristina is by far the cheapest/least costly European city I have visited. For example, an ice cream with cappuccino in a nice restaurant cost E2.50, a Caesar Salad for dinner E3.90. For comparison, in Stockholm I paid E22 for the same salad order.
I came to Pristina to see the Neolithic artifacts at the museum and to go to the Gračanica Monastery and was glad I did. Both were well worth the trip. As it was too late for the museum or monastery by the time the bus arrived, I walked from the hotel over to the Cathedral of St. Mother Teresa. This Roman Catholic Church was started in 2007 and consecrated in 2010 and was somewhat controversial as there isn’t a large Roman Catholic population in the city. It is a striking structure and much starker than other churches from this denomination. It is actually quite reminiscent of a large Lutheran church rather than a Roman Catholic one. The only color comes from the narrow stained glass windows. Color, however, was to be found in glory the next morning at the late medieval Gračanica Monastery in the Church of the Holy Virgin Mother.
There is no public transportation from Pristina to Gračanica because it is in the “Serbian territory” even though it is less than 10 km away, so I took a taxi there. There is now ‘only’ the one church to visit, but it is truly remarkable. There are over 2000 individual faces in the frescoes that tell the story of Christ, of the Virgin Mother Mary to whom the church is dedicated, and the church doctrine along with the church leaders and political supporters, i.e., the Prince who commissioned the building and his family tree. The frescoes were recently cleaned after 500+ years of candle soot, and many of them are now quite vibrant. The painting of the Last Judgment with its dark side for hell and lighter white side for heaven is especially interesting from a theological perspective as it doesn’t send people to hell forever, the souls will be reborn into a different body. There is also a fresco of Christ as an angel. I tried to get some photos, but there are signs saying no photography, so after just a couple, I stopped. Instead, I bought the guidebook and in the photo gallery have posted a photo of the Last Judgment from the book. The architecture of the building is also interesting as it is one of the last in Serbian-Byzantine style with waves of domes reaching to the central dome towards heaven. The general layout has four smaller domes around the central one, with the domes laid out along the lines of a Lateran cross.
The guidebook was helpful to recognize and understand some of the intricate levels and symbolic meanings behind the positioning of the frescoes, but it also used a term that I wasn’t familiar with in conjunction with the local area. The book repeated mentioned Kosovo and Metohija. I didn’t know what the latter was so I asked the young woman at the hotel. She informed me that it is a derogatory term used by the Serbs for Albanian Kosovans. She also let me know that she and all other Albanian speaking citizens of Kosovo are not allowed in the monasteries as they are on “Serbian territory.” All the monasteries “belong” to Serbia, not Kosovo. Everyone else can go in, including everyone with a Serbian rather than Kosovo passport, but those from the country itself aren’t allowed into some of the most magnificent sites in their nation’s geographical boundaries. This explained why when I asked the taxi driver, who was waiting for me, to come into the site as well rather than simply wait outside, he refused. He simply wasn’t permitted to go into a UNESCO World Heritage Site in his own country. It is one of the many political issues that I find quite unfathomable.
From the Monastery, the taxi driver took the back roads to the center of Pristina to avoid the extensive traffic. It was the end of May and people’s gardens were in bloom, making the ride filled with color.
The Kosovo Museum has two floors, the bottom dedicated to the Neolithic to Classical periods and the second dedicated to the history of Kosovo. The second floor was closed for cleaning when I was there and wasn’t going to be open until the following Saturday. The first floor isn’t large, but has a very good collection of Neolithic figurines that complement those I found in Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania. A number of them look like they could have been the model for ET. It takes about a 5-7 minute walk from this museum to the Ethnographic Museum. The Ethnographic Museum is also small; it has two houses. One, the oldest in Pristina, is 300 years old and the other a 19th C house. The complex also has a former guard house that was hosting an American art exhibit, which was really a series of posters. The 300 year old house was the only one that was open, but the curator of the museum was kind enough to provide a tour through it. There were private quarters for the family with kitchen, bedrooms and a miniature living room, and a proportionally large guest room complete with shower and central heating from what looked like a tiled chimney with pipes and vents throughout the house. There was also a veranda with shutters that could regulate sunlight. The 19th C house was just renovated and they are still in the process of putting the exhibit together, so it was closed. As these were the only two public museums, I finished the day walking around Pristina.
I was far from the only one doing this as the cafes and restaurants were all filled with people chatting, eating ice cream, drinking coffee, enjoying a glass of wine, and having a good time. It is a lively upbeat city with very friendly helpful people.
The ties to Albania remain strong as do the ties to America and the EU, in stark contrast to the ties with Serbia, which traditionally has close relations with Russia. The Kosovo War from February 1998 to June 1999 was not that long ago, and the Serbs haven’t recognized Kosovo as a country though it has been a partially recognized nation since 2008. The war damaged both countries, but both now seem to be doing well almost in spite of – or to spite - each other. Even if the people of Kosovo are noticeably still suffering from its effects.
