2022 in Kosovo (Prishtina)

On the evening of October 8, 2022, I arrived at the hotel in Skopje, [North] Macedonia; a few members of our Balkan bus tour group had an idea to take a late-night third-party excursion to Prishtina, the capital of Kosovo.

Kosovo would be my 28th unique country, if recognizing the independence of Kosovo, or if Kosovo ever gained full recognition:

Now, Kosovo is officially part of Serbia but declared independence in 2008. As its people mostly speak Albanian, it felt very distinct from Serbia. About half the member countries of the United Nations recognize Kosovo's independence but it is only a "partial" recognition as of this writing.

Visit

The excursion went by quickly: the unbranded, 15-seater van left Skopje at about 8 p.m. We would pass the border checkpoint, Hani i Elezit (or Elez Han), at about 9 p.m. Then, it took another hour and a half to get to downtown Prishtina. The Saturday night traffic also made it difficult to get into there but we somehow did.

A dozen or so of us took a picture by the Bill Clinton Statue randomly placed at the corner of "Tirana" and "Bill Klinton" streets. We slowly walked eastward and found the Katedralja Nënë Tereza (Mother Teresa Cathedral), as Mother Teresa had her Albanian origins in what became Yugoslavia and then [North] Macedonia. Next to the cathedral was another street named "Xhorxh Bush", which indeed was named after George Bush (either the first or the second).

While others used up precious time eating and drinking at a "local" bar, I went with two others to look for two meaningful places in Prishtina:

• Newborn Monument
  • instead of the city's name, seven large letters spelling "NEWBORN" inspire hope for new beginnings
• Biblioteka Kombëtare e Kosovës (National Library of Kosovo)
  • a library with other-worldly, other-timely architecture

I also saw a newly-renovated Burger King restaurant with marquee messages written in Albanian but with the chain's signature font, which gave me that "familiarity within the foreign" fix!

With what little I saw in Prishtina, I could say that I felt zero Serbian presence here. Signs were all written in either Albanian or English. They accepted the euro as currency. Albanian-speaking Kosovo to Serbia felt like what French-speaking Quebec was to English-speaking Canada, if one wanted to see "Kosovo as Serbia".

Shortly after midnight, it came time to go back to Skopje. I got back to my hotel room at nearly 3 a.m.!

This trip was really for those country-chasers who wanted to get the passport stamps and bragging rights. However, I took the initative to get the most of out what little I could get at midnight in Prishtina, Kosovo!