Kickin it in KOSOVO

Now, who would have thought I´d end up going here? Certainly not me!

Life has brought me here now, and as I write this I´m sitting in a cosy bed in the Serbian part of Mitrovica, Kosovo.

Kosovska Mitrovica (pronounced: Mitrovitza) is super interesting! It is the living example of how much Albanians and Serbs hate each other  do not get along very well, chrmchrm:

The city is divided by a river and roadblacks made of rubble into the bigger northern part where the Kosovo-Albanians live, and the smaller northern enclave where about 20.000 Serbs live making North Mitrovica the largest Serb-majority town in Kosovo.

When I arrive on Sunday night, the first thing I see are big army cars and armed soldiers standing on guard in the main street. My first reaction is like “huh, wtf, didn´t expect this.” I knew Kosovo was a political trouble maker, but still…??? Turns out, it´s the KFOR on high alert since it is election day in Kosovska Mitrovica – after three failed attempts and the murder of one candidate. This time, all goes smoothly, though, and in the course of the night results show that the  Belgrade-backed Serb candidate is the new mayor of the northern part.

The next day, I´m super excited and of ready to venture out and explore this place. When I find out that the crossing of the river to the Albanian part is something that is quite uncommon for the Serbs, of course it´s the thing that I want to do. I put on my pink pants (you know, just in case, playing innocent girl card) and my passport in my jacket (once again, you never know) and walk the sunny road to the river feeling like Harry Potter who is just about to enter the forbidden seventh floor.

Ibar River Bridge - blocked by debris to prevent cars crossing the natural border of the river

I near the river and my heart is like OMGdudummdudummOMGdudumm and I try to walk as casually as possible over the bridge past Italian Carabinieri and English Police Cars. Once at the other side I´m thinking to myself, Oke, now we did this, now let´s see what this place is like.

Of course it wasn´t that different. Neither people nor houses nor shops were that stunningly different than the other part. In fact, people pay in Euro over there, get their money from Raiffaisenbank and even have Stradivari and Bershka clothes for sale in one of the shops. Still, I enjoy my walk along the Börek and Köfte and Pjeskovica places that smell deliciously like barbecued meat, and look at fake brand shops for 3-10 Euros per item. Then I go to the supermarket and buy Ajvar, plasma sprinkles and Zott joghurt (Achtung, German, haha, I just can´t escape my country can I?) and saunter happily back home.

The next day a friend agrees to drive us to the highest mountain nearby with Kopaonik Ski Resort on top. The drive uphill offers spectacular views of the sunny hills around us and the higher we go the rockier and sparser the landscape becomes when finally we set our feet in snow, look at skiing people and eat chocolate doughnuts with frozen fingers.

A little bit of history on Kosovo: Of course I can´t tell history as good as a history book can, but I can certainly do a better job than the Wikipedia article because that one doesn´t even mention the bombing of Kosovo and Serbia through the UN in 1999 with as much as a single word. It only says that through UN intervention many Albanians could return to their homes and many Serbs fled. In the times of the bombing, many Albanians also left their homes in Northern Mitrovica, and after that the Serbs erected the barriers to keep them from returning. Even now, there´s many burnt down once-Albanian homes around here, and many of the apartments still officially have Albanian owners, when really it´s only Serbs living in this part.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and officially it says everywhere that Belgrade hasn´t accepted the independence, when really it has. Still, there´s many Serbs who won´t accept the partition and are really angry – especially in Northern Kosovo which has created a de-facto extra state where no laws are truly enforced whatsoever – by which police anyway? The Kosovonian police, that is not accepted, or a Serb police that is not there?

Anyway, all this led to a state that is now ruled by underground smuggling and drug dealing (10-20% of all heroine for the Western world go through Kosovo), where cars drive without license plates and where there´s a lot of ethnic resentment. The KFOR troups that have been put here to watch public safety by the UN in 1999 are omnipresent and both scaring and unwanted – there´s “fuck KFOR” graffiti all over town and I feel weird myself when I just go down to the corner shop and pass by an army car with German or English soldiers on watch.

Nearly one week I´ve already been here now. And I have to say, I´ve come to really like this place, regardless of all the stuff that´s going on and of the fact that there is no running water after 7pm . It has a nice small-town feeling to me, and everything that happens I find more interesting than frightening or repulsive. It´s sunny most of the days, and I really enjoy walking on top of the nearby hill and watching the town from above.

Panorama view over Mitrovica. The thing on the left is a sports hall.

Tomorrow, I´m going to get on an early bus to Belgrade and then back to Berlin, and I´m sad to leave so early. I feel like this place has just started to grow on me, and even though there´s not really that much to do there´s really much more to Kosovo than meets the eye. Yes, it might be a fucked-up shithole for some people. But I still say even if it is, it´s certainly a very interesting one, and one with friendly people and great and cheap food. Thanks for the great time I had here, Mitrovica!

Note from 2016: Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures. Apparently, I had a strong filter-fetish back in the time. Whenever I still had the originals, I used those. The qualities of the originals, however, is not the best either because I still had a mini-mini smartphone back then whose camera was - as you can see - not top-noth quality. I hope you can still get an impression of Kosovo.