First Impressions: Pristina
Hello internet,
This post is about what I saw and how I felt during my first week of living in this new city. Spoiler: it’s not that dramatic. Even though the recent history of Kosovo is a hell of a lot more interesting then Canada’s recent history, in terms of day-to-day life, the noticeable effects of the past are slight and nuanced — at least for an ignorant foreigner like myself. Certainly the effects of Kosovo’s split from Serbia still define the region to a large degree, but this is mostly in political discourse and in the rate of educational and economic progress. I didn’t get too involved with those things during my first week here.
In general, the significance of a first impression is shaky at best. When I’m somewhere new and notice something for the first time I instinctually fabricate a back-story to rationalize of what I’ve seen. These guesses accumulate into an overall first impression, and that impression reflects as much about the observer as it does the observed. I mention this so that the reader remembers to take everything I say with a grain of salt. The first things I noticed are not necessarily the most important; in fact, they are normally the most superficial.
I’m adapting this post from a journal entry I wrote a month ago which documented my first impressions as they happened. Reviewing that entry a month later, it’s striking how what initially stood out has faded into normality, and things I thought were important I no longer notice.
Enough theory, back to real life — Rachel and I are living smack dab in the middle of the Pristina. We live adjacent to the main strip in the urban core, which is called Mother Teresa Boulevard. This focal point of the city is a section of road converted for pedestrian traffic only. It’s a 10 minute walk in length, from parliament at one end to Mother Teresa Square at the other. Because of our central location, my first impressions are in the context of this more progressive and developed part of the country. Like most cities, the centre of Pristina is more up-to-date then the surrounding areas.
Pristina is in the process of modernizing. New and old stand side by side throughout the city. However upon arriving in Pristina I couldn’t help but notice the dirty roofs, cracks running across walls, peeling paint, and split cobblestones; I noticed the things I wasn’t used to seeing in such quantity. But this is a poor refection on reality, because my eyes were drawn to what I wasn’t used to seeing. This happened several times in different situations. I would like to start this post by highlighting one specific case. One of my first experiences in Pristina was using the elevator in our apartment. I made a video to share my daily elevator ride with you, since a video can illustrate the experience much better then my words ever could.
This elevator is an analogy to Pristina as a whole. Taken by itself this elevator a relic of the past. It is old and clunky, rusted with missing buttons. As a Canadian it’s amusing, and unique enough be mentioned in a blog. But looking at the elevator in the context of the apartment building, it makes sense. Our building is partially renovated. The rooms are excellent. In fact, our apartment is really nice! Nicer than many of the apartments in which I’ve lived in Halifax. But the building still has this ancient elevator. Logically, if you were renovating a building with limited funds, would you replace a functioning elevator? No. The elevator works. The elevator doesn’t need to be pretty — what matters is that the interior of the apartments are pretty, and they are.
Pristina is similar to the apartment building. The city is in the process of modernizing, but it’s not finished. Arriving in Pristina you might notice the rundown parts, or you might notice the modern developments, but hopefully, eventually, you appreciate that you are seeing a static snapshot of a culture in dramatic flux.
As far as how the buildings look, in general, the older architecture has strong eastern European communist influence. And, in general, the new buildings have a could-be-anywhere style, although some blocky soviet hints still show up in the modern structures.
After the buildings what I noticed was the traffic. Pristina’s population has exploded in the last 20 years, and like all rapidly expanding cities the roads are not designed to meet the growing vehicle demands. The driving rulebook has been set aside for a set of local conventions. Take a look at the parking lot outside our building: double parking galore.
Another traffic example I get a chuckle out of is a one-way street nearby. This one-way street consistently has traffic going both directions on it. Two cars will be driving down the street bumper to bumper, except one will be going forward and the other backwards. Gridlock caused by a surplus of cars in non-car-designed cities is common around the world and Pristina is no exception. North Americans are spoiled with car-friendly roads. Is that good or bad?… depends who you ask. I’m thinking of getting a bike.
Related to traffic, but actually relevant to my life — how to cross a crosswalk. In Pristina, you’ll wait all day at the edge of a crosswalk if you want the cars to completely stop for you. Crossing a street in Pristina involves three parts: First you wait for a big enough hole in the traffic. Then you take three or four steps onto the crosswalk like you own it. Finally, and most importantly, you make eye contact with the driver who is about to hit you. The driver will stop. It works every time.
I actually like this system. I don’t care much for safety in general, and because I’m not hung up on the ‘dangers’ of motor vehicle accidents I’ve grown rather fond of this ritual. Every time I cross a busy street I’m putting my life in the hands of a complete stranger, and every time that stranger stops to let me live. Faith in humanity restored! Just goes to show that people are inherently good, the world does have hope, solidarity in the human race.
I’m not kidding when I say this system, although different, is equally as humane and personal as crossing the road in Halifax. Halifax is known for being pedestrian friendly (although I’ve noticed over the last few years the pressure to drop this identity - looking at you $750 jay-walking tickets). When drivers feel entitled to their road they think, “I’m a driver, don’t get in my way, I’m dangerous but it’s not my fault”. And pedestrians feel equally entitled, “I’m a pedestrian, I’m saving the planet, I’m safe on my crosswalks and I’ll cross when I please”. Then, when a pedestrian crosses the street while looking at their phone, or, when a driver drives through a crosswalk containing a pedestrian, everyone feels infringed upon. Their safety was violated! People get mad, people start lecturing, people start ranting and grumbling, people get defensive and offended - it’s hella annoying. Pristina is different because both drivers and pedestrian know that they are overstepping their rights — drivers by not yielding to pedestrians, and pedestrians by walking in front of cars. Since there is a mutual cheating going on, it forces everyone to actually pay attention to their surrounding. Furthermore, when a driver and pedestrian have a close encounter on a crosswalk it’s not a tense blame fest, but a nonchalant, “You caught me, I’ll stop for you”, and, “thanks for not hitting me, I gotta cross this road”. It sounds crazy, but I like it! I’m also an agile youth who doesn’t mind dodging cars. I can’t see Mom appreciating this system nearly as much.
The next thing which stuck out about Pristina is the quantity of small businesses. The first few days I was taken aback by the number of pop-up shops, veggie stands, cafes, etc. From what I can tell, commerce seems to mostly be funnelled through small local businesses. But are these really small businesses or just part of a larger distribution system? I don’t know. But to illustrate my impression, consider where Rachel and I get food: we go to 4 different shops to get groceries. This is not because we are trying to buy local, but because it’s the cheapest way to eat. We go to a large open air market for produce, a smaller fruit and veggie stand closer to home, a butcher shop for those tasty drum sticks you see above, and a normal grocery store for the rest. A kilo of steaks is 7 Euro at the butcher. Yum.
I find this small business reality compelling. The recent prescription for Atlantic Canada’s economic woes has been more young people and more small businesses. Kosovo has both in spades. In Atlantic Canada I’ve heard so much preaching about the dangers of an aging population and the importance of small business, and I’ve wondered what it would take for us to get there, and what we would look like if we realized that goal. Now all of the sudden I’m thrust into a city with an extremely young population (Kosovo has the youngest population in Europe, median age 28) and small businesses all over the place. My reaction was, “so this is what our economy is supposed to look like, interesting”. Of course it’s not that simple. The economy of Kosovo is getting better but it’s still not meeting the needs of over 30% of the population who are unemployed. I had a semi ah-ha moment when it hit me that “young population + small business = success” isn’t a sufficient theory. Of course I knew it wasn’t that simple, but what hit home was the importance of some things I take for granted in Canada. The two most important pieces that Canada has and Kosovo wants are a strong public education system and a relative lack of corruption in government. No doubt, both areas can be improved upon in Canada, but I’m thankful that I grew up in a country further along then many, if not most, of the other countries in the world.
Another thing that shows the lack of employment in Kosovo, and another striking feature of Pristina, is the amount of young people chilling in coffee shops. There are a ton of coffee shops around where we live (like more then you’d think). Not only are there a lot of them but they are almost always full of young people — Thursday morning at 10am, the coffee shops are full of young people — Tuesday evening at 9pm, the coffee shops are full of young people — it’s all the freaking time. The most commonly accepted explanation is that young people don’t have jobs. However they have relatives abroad (who left during the war), and these relatives working abroad send money home. If you’ve got no job but you do have some spending money, why not hang out at a coffee shop all day? Sounds about right to me. When in Rome.
I’ll finish off with some events and experiences from living in Pristina. One advantage that Rachel and I have living a stone’s throw from Mother Teresa Square is that events are regularly held there. For example, there is a big screen which is used to show soccer games. The Champions League Final and the Europa League Final are both soccer matches which exist, and I watched them. I don’t normally pay attention to soccer… I mean… football… whatever. But it’s important I start paying attention now because Euro 2016 starts today. Kosovo is ethnically Albanian, and Euro 2016 is the first time Albania qualified for this tournament. This is a big deal for sports fans and patriots alike. There are street stalls selling Albanian national team Jerseys all over the place. A colleague of Rachel’s even travelled to France to watch the Albanian matches. For you soccer… I mean football fans at home, if you remember this incident, this is an example of the Kosovo, Serbia, Albanian tension which has defined this region over the past three decades. Regardless, if you are paying any attention to Euro 2016 and don’t know who to cheer for, cheer for Albania with me — they’ve got nowhere but up to go in the standings.
Rachel and I have gone to a couple shows as well. The first night I was here we were invited to a Jazz show at a local bar, and another night we hit up a Brazilian-Kosovo-thing, which I don’t really know what it was, but it was cool. Like any moderately sized city there is plenty of diversity if you know where to look or have the right friends.
The final event I’ll divulge in this blog touches on several aspects of my experience in Kosovo thus far. Rachel and I accidentally walked into the rally of a political party. It was an overcast Saturday morning and we were walking to the market to get breakfast. We walked out onto Mother Teresa Boulevard and straight into a wave of Kosovars walking towards parliament. The mood of the people was subdued but serious. Since we were going in the direction of the mob anyways we sort of joined the crowd, strolling down the boulevard trying to guess what we were marching for. As we got closer to parliament music started to hum over the murmur of the demonstrators. At the end of the boulevard, at the parliament building, a stage was erected for the coming speeches. At this point the music was loud, I couldn’t understand the words but I could guess the music’s message. I’ll classify it as ‘patriotic rock’. It sounded nationalist, bordering on aggressive. However the music didn’t quite reflect the mood of the crowd (other then a few guys chanting at the front). The crowd was stern, patient, and overwhelmingly male.
I’m building this up as some sort of raw-raw-raw rally, and that’s what Rachel and I were expecting. There were quite a lot of people, the boulevard and plaza in-front of parliament were packed. But after waiting as polite Canadian spectators (I had a Canadian Jacket on…) for 15 minutes the music got rather annoying and we were getting hungry. We decided to go get breakfast instead of waiting any longer, even if we waited long enough for a speech we wouldn’t have understood it. Later we learnt the rally was held by the opposition parties. A political explanation post will come later, but I don’t want to get into that now.
That Saturday morning reflects my overall experience in Kosovo well. I stumbled into something I didn’t understand at all, and that something was complicated, historical, political, and emotionally charged for those involved. But it also reflects how, for me as a Canadian, if I’m just getting on with my day it doesn’t really effect me. Even though there is a lot politically going on, it’s easy for all of it to go over your head as a foreigner — it’s easy to just keep walking on to breakfast.
A similar situation happened again couple days later. I left a coffee shop on Mother Teresa Boulevard and walked straight into a herd of police officers. There were like 50 police officers patiently strolling down the street. “…This is more police then normal…” I thought to myself. Then I realized that the police were following a demonstration. Noticing a couple rainbow flags, I put two and two together. The police were protecting a gay pride parade. I followed along since the route was on my the way home. The procession pooled into Mother Teresa square, and the police fanned out around the area. I later learnt the reason for so much security was because in January at a similar rally there was a violent counter protest. Kosovo wants to be in the EU so they must show progressive values, including gay rights. The government wasn’t going to take a chance and let more violence erupt at another gay pride demonstration. I hung around the demonstration a few minutes to watch but then got hungry and went home. I’m not a very good demonstrator.
Phewf. I’m done with writing. I’ll briefly mention two more things. I found a group to play Ultimate Frisbee with once a week. Yah! The group is mostly Americans and we play super casual ‘no-stall-count’ ultimate. And swimming wise, I still haven’t got into a swimming routine because the pool situation leaves something to be desired. Dang.
Thanks for reading, I’ll be back next week with a post about our trip to Italy. Rachel took tons of awesome pictures, as she does, so that post will be a good one.
Until next Thursday (+/- 1 day),
DS
Blogs on Deck
- Blog #3: Trip to Italy
- Blog #4: Where is Kosovo
- Blog #5: What is Kosovo
- Blog #6: Dave Get’s Hit by a Car (probably)