A day in Prishtina: Falling in love with the city's architecture and its people

 

By Malena Bullmann

Thursday 16 June 2022*

National Library of Kosovo, Prishtina

 

As on most mornings in Prishtina, I passed the National Library of Kosovo on my way to the Newborn sign, our daily meeting point. That morning, my attention was drawn towards a tourist guide, the only one I had seen during this trip. He was standing in front of the library, asking the three tourists what the shape of the building reminds them of. They had no idea and neither did I or my friends. Turns out that the building embodies the shape of a brain, which invoked in me my personal “Aha!” moment.  Only back at home, I found out that this building, that I had been passing every day without any second thoughts, holds an even greater background story to it. The architect, in 1982, wished to reconcile with the design of the building already rising tensions between Albanian and Serb Kosovars. He did this through integrating cubes and domes, part of both Ottoman and Byzantine styles. A lot of controversies have also risen around its architecture, one of the most famous being that the domes represent the traditional Albanian hats called “plisi”. Interestingly, the National Library has also been ranked the ninth ugliest building in the world. I can for sure not second this. For me, this building had something intriguing. And for many young people, it was a central meeting spot, bringing people together.

Traditional Kosovar-Albanian hat called “Plisi”

After having eaten an omelette, we walked to the Millennium Foundation Kosovo and met with the CEO Mr. Selimi. We found ourselves in a large office on the top floor, decorated with art, nicely designed flyers and booklets, and a terrace with a beautiful view over Prishtina. The main insight that I took from this meeting is Selimi’s realistic and pessimistic view about Kosovo and it’s EU membership. His perspective on this has become increasingly despairing through time, thinking that an EU membership will not happen in any near future, meaning the next twenty years. For me, this highlights again the number of false promises offered by the EU to the citizens of Kosovo.

View from the Millennium Foundation building

During this second day in Kosovo, we also started to conduct first interviews as a group for our movie on the role of education in Kosovo for peacebuilding. While we were quite hesitant at first and did not know how to approach this task, we were quickly surprised by the warmth and openness of the people we addressed. Each interview was unique and insightful in its own way. We spoke with two primary school teachers, one parent, and a Kosovar-Albanian student couple. The interviews also enabled me for the first time during this trip, to get to know people through the context of their country’s historical background. As a result, we had the opportunity to deepen our understanding of their grievances, frustrations, as well as hopes for the future. I was also very surprised how much people did open up to us, for instance, speaking about the losses their families had experienced during the war. As I would find out later on, these interviews were no exceptions. Throughout the whole trip, people willingly engaged in conversations with us about their past and future concerns, political opinions, life stories and wishes.

 

First Interviews conducted on the streets

A major highlight of that day was meeting the Roma Versitas Kosovo organization, which is a local NGO that was founded in 2017 and is active in three cities in Kosovo (Prishtina, Prizren, and Peja). They support Kosovar Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian minority groups. According to the journalistic website Kosovo 2.0, Ashkali make up 0.9%, Egyptian 0.7%, and Roma 0.5% of the population. These communities face day-to-day social inequalities, such as direct and indirect discrimination, lack of access to social services by the state and employment opportunities. They are disproportionately affected by poverty and statelessness, which reinforces certain obstacles to basic rights and services. This shows that not only Kosovo as a country faces issues of ‘statelessness’ in the context of the non-recognition of its independence within the international community, such as by the UN or between its neighbor Serbia, but within the country itself, these communities have unique experiences due to their statelessness.

Meeting with Roma Versitas Kosovo

The organization started out by supporting students from these communities by increasing their academic capacities, performance, and graduation levels. This is being done until today through mentoring, tutoring, and scholarship opportunities. Roma Versitas Kosovo also aims for social inclusion, poverty reduction, vocational training, and facilitating the transition to employment. It has generally increased its scope to human rights work and aims for the empowerment of the respective communities within the political and public sphere.

 

The meeting took place mid-day, and we were greeted by two friendly faces, with whom we drank some homemade lemonade at a very nice café. One of the guys was a born comedian. For me, this was one of my favourite meetings, because everyone could feel that these guys were speaking their truths, they were a 100% authentic and passionate to indulge in dialogue with us. For them, combatting the prejudice and narratives created by the majority society against the Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptians is a top priority. “Everyone thinks they are uneducated”, one of the guys said. “But if you ask them, they want their children to be educated”. His words clearly show how the Roma’s marginalization from the education system is deeply rooted in social inequalities, and not in the lack of motivation of the Roma community. Another narrative he mentioned, which is drafted by the majority society, is that the Roma always live isolated from everyone. His answer to this was: “But how are you going to live together with others if you are only marginalized by them?” Important goals for the organization are thus to work against the segregation that exists and increase political participation of the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian minorities, considering that they do not feel represented by the current government.

 

I noticed during these conversations that Kosovo is not an isolated case, but that across Europe, also in my home country, similar narratives about the Roma perpetuate. Additionally, the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians find themselves in the middle of the conflict between Kosovar-Serbs and- Albanians, which is uppermost in people’s minds. This can easily lead to their needs and realities being overlooked. However, their struggles should not be disregarded.

 

All in all, this day was full of surprises, emotions, and new insights. We ended the night by exploring Prishtina’s bars, meeting new people and experiencing how great the country’s immense hospitality is.

 

*Please note that the  blogposts are not appearing in chronological order of the days of the trip. hospitality.