National Library, Pristina

It’s been another busy day. We set off at 9 for a guided walk in Pristina. It’s another city of many statues and new buildings. We headed for the very unusual library, designed in a combination of Byzantine and Islamic styles by Croatian architect Andrija Mutnjaković. The many domes provide natural lighting. En route was what looked like a derelict church. In fact when it was in the process of being built, the 1998 war intervened and obviously now as it’s mainly a Muslim country it was never completed. We didn’t see the Bill Clinton Way or his statue (the guide kept referring to him as Kennedy but I suppose if you were only born on 2002 it’s hard to distinguish one ex-president from another especially in another language). We saw some graffiti which translated said something like
“The poor pay taxes for the benefit of the rich”. There were also “free Palestine” and “free Ukraine” posters.

We got picked up by our minibus and driven to the outskirts of the city to see a cordoned-off police-guarded Serbian monument to the defeat of the Ottomen by Serbian knights in the 14th C.

Next stop was to the Serbian area of Kosovo, still demanded by Serbia, to see the wonderful 14th C Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Gracanica, reputed to be one of the finest examples of Byzantine architecture (in Kosovo) and founded by King Stevan Milutin. The way the domes are constructed means that a birds’ eye view shows 2 lots of crosses. A local guide came around with us to explain about the history and the religious frescoes. A bit of black wall showed what it had been like due to all the candle burning until recently when it was restored, allegedly by the use of cotton buds by a team of young talents. No photos were allowed but they are available if you google, which also says it was bombed by NATO during the Kosova war. It’s still there. I noticed a corner of one fresco had been defaced/ vandalised with a Star of David gouged in with a knife. It must have been done since renovation. But why?

From there we drove towards the Accursed Mountains where we had a late lunch around 2.30. As usual there was nothing veggie so I had a thin soup with a fishy flavour and a nice bit of bread. We were all freezing, despite wearing puffy jackets and raincoats as we had to sit outside by the river. We had a walk to the White Drin Waterfall which was very pretty then drove to our hotel. Tedi was very impressed that it was 5 stars. 5 stars for Kosovo is quite comfortable but has inadequate lighting and small thin towels. It is on Toni Bleri Street. Apparently he’s so honoured because he persuaded NATO to bomb Serbia.

We had a short walk to look at more heroic statuary and the “bazaar” - rows of bling jewellery. Tedi pointed out some places as well as the hotel where we could eat but when we investigated they were closed so we went to the supermarket and got a bottle of wine and some snacks which should sustain us till morning.

It’s so dispiriting to compare these booming Balkan countries to tired, crumbling UK.