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Three days in Kosovo by Tomki Nemec
During the first weekend in May, St. George’s Day, a celebration of the beginning of summer is celebrated in Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia. According to one Albanian legend, as a hunter, St. George battled with a female dragon by the name of Kulshedra high in the mountains, and was of course victorious, thus saving the life of the king’s daughter. During this originally Christian holiday, which is celebrated on May 6 according to the Gregorian calendar, one can in various places in Kosovo see celebrations, remembrances of the heroic acts of fallen warriors of the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) battling against Serb occupants, fairground attractions, interchangeable with similar ones anywhere in the world, pagan rituals during the killing of sheep, Gypsy celebrations or the ever-present KFOR units. Today’s Kosovo, several years after the end of the war, is afflicted by a gradual American-European globalization with a Balkan flavour. It’s a colourful mix of the old and new, Muslim-Christian values, hatred of all things Serbian, and a boundless faith in a better future. An enclave that isn’t a member of the EU, but where the Euro is the official currency. Stray dogs, a lack of social assistance for the needy, expensive cars, new supermarkets, potholed roads, large new family homes, beautiful nature, unreserved people that admire the West, which protects them and gives them the possibility to leave in search of work...
A state within a state, UN bureaucrats, a cushy job for the liberators... An excellent Doner kebab for 1 Euro on Bill Clinton Boulevard in Prishtina.... A land aiming for their declaration of independence – a new state in Old Europe.
