All posts in Balkans

1. Packs of wild dogs roam the streets, but it’s all good.

2. The power goes off a couple times a day, but it’s all good.

3. Toilet paper, soap and clean water are privileges, but it’s all good.

4. Pavement is optional, but it’s all good.

Lying awake in bed last night, I was wrestling with what to say about this infant of a country. I’d been here for a few days soaking it all in — and up, in the case of raki — without really dwelling on that much of this country remains in a Dickensian condition, with a healthy international military presence to keep a lid on ethnic violence between Albanians and Serbs. 

Indeed, this is all true, yet something more compelling going on: This place, Pristina in particular, is blossoming into a civil society that has largely broken free from the siege mentality that permeated everything and everyone during my short visit in 2006 when Kosovo was still a UN-administered province of Serbia.

A city once dark, depressing and desolate now bustles with life as people crowd streets lined with cafes, bars, restaurants and shops with little acknowledgement of the prevalent muck and decay. Conversations that seemed to dwell on war now take on aspirant qualities with talk of better futures, starting businesses, getting advanced degrees, and making music and art.

Dardan, a former Kosovo Liberation Army member who resembles Jon Lovitz and identifies himself as a Jew at heart, gracefully made the transition from guerilla fighter to real-estate investor, and now works for Phillip Morris International.  Talking in a dark café — whose air was thick with smoke likely thanks in good part to Phillip Morris — over copious amounts of Peja lager and raki, Dardan said it was difficult initially to balance the ideals of a freedom fighter of those of capitalism; I offered that perhaps becoming an entrepreneur represented part of the freedom for which he fought.

My man of action, Bashkim, and some of his compatriots still maintain that this struggling, tiny nation is a “shithole, but my shithole”) moving at a slovenly pace toward European integration.  Shithole, perhaps, but a special shithole with a brighter future.

Dragan, an official in Kosovo’s European transition agency, shared similar sentiments when we talked today in his central Pristina office, which included coffee service. As a Macedonian who has traveled to and from Kosovo frequently during the past five or six years, he said the progress is “remarkable,” acknowledging the many challenges in a country full of red tape and bureaucratic corruption. There is also the little matter of the global recession, which he said government has yet to acknowledge.

Another teensy problem: Negligible participation from Kosovo’s largest minority, the Serbs, who largely view as illegitimate Kosovo’s declaration of independence. But I will take that up later after making a longer trip to Mitrovica, the northern city divided between Serbs and Albanians that has been the site of recent clashes. We did a quick visit today and were not attacked, which happened to Bashkim when he was reporting there a few years ago.