Kosovar Food

There's really nothing quite like flija.  We racked our brains trying to find an apt comparison for the dish, which is -without a doubt- the most Kosovar food.  It comes from traditional Albanian cuisine, but has taken on an iconic status in the mountains of Kosovo and an almost mythic one in the land down below.  Merlin already described the process, which includes 5 hours of batter ladling next to an open flame.  The big pie dish never goes over the heat itself.  Instead, a saç (a metal cover) is heated over the woodfire and then placed atop the flija, cooking it from above.  It is fitting that this incomparably hospitable country would name a dish that takes so much time, energy and attention as their most prized.  When our homestay mother made it for us, neighbors came by to visit.

A few diamond cuts of flija circle this platter of food at Besimi Beska family restaurant in Prizren.  If you look closely, you can see that from the side, it sort of resembles potato au gratin (not that there is potato or cheese in flija).  This wasn't the real deal - they simply didn't have a mountain setting, a fire out back or a quarter of a day's attention - but it was still very tasty.  Besimi Beska was a very popular, very good restaurant.  Its inclusion of flija at all showed their worth.  This is all very quintessentially Kosovar - the french fires, the meat, the kebabs, the server who stops to pose for a picture.  The presentation of food in Kosovo was always a curated pile of a hundred different things.  A trout would be served as the valley in a mountain range of rice, roasted veggies, french fires, cabbage salad. Even at our homestay, the mixed salad platter was arranged like an advertisement for one of those veggie shaving, shaping, curling tool sets.

Sometimes you search out authentic food experiences and sometimes they are handed to you.  In the case of boza (which is technically a drink, but should qualify as a food - I'll get to that), the taste was part of an impromptu sight-seeing tour.  Faik, the man from the filigree workshop in Prizren, had invited us for coffee the following morning.  That turned into over an hour of walking around, a wonderful insider's look at the city.  At the end of the route, he brought us to this hole in the wall for a drink.  "This is special to here, no other place has this."  That's not exactly true, but it doesn't matter.  Boza is a fermented drink made of corn, wheat flour, sugar and water.  The young man who ran the family shop conceded that boza does exist also exist in Turkey, but there is is a winter thing - served warm with cinnamon and chickpeas.  He also told us that it is great for blood pressure and weight gain.  Just what I like to here after I've ordered a refill.  There are over 1,000 calories in a liter of boza. Tart, starchy, sweet, thick, it is half smoothie, half protein shake.  It is a meal and a unique delicacy. 

Corn can be consumed in a multitude of ways in Kosovo.  Boza, grilled corn stands, popcorn vendor, leqenik (corn bread, which we also were lucky to have with our Rugova family).  The other frontrunner for most popular vegetable in Kosovo is pepper, spec.  If this were the winter, we probably would have encountered it stuffed, as sarma.  Autumn is ajvar season, and the red pepper paste would have been on the top of everyone's mind.  But in summer, when the peppers are out in the markets nice and fresh, roasting them whole is the Kosovar way.  They are often placed in a bowl of warm cream as a soup, but usually they just hold their own.  On our walk home from the Stone Castle winery in Rahovec, a group of men invited us over to their furniture store for some fresh well water and apricots.  "See a traditional Kosovar lunch!" they laughed and pointed in at their lunch room, where one man still munched away.  On a round tray was the remnants of scrambled eggs, cheese, cabbage salad and a mound of roast peppers.

The cheese (djathë) of Kosovo was varied and delicious.  At even a simple hotel breakfast, we would be given a different cheese each morning.  A cheese and pepper spread may be served before a meal; you better believe some is gonna show up in a salad.  All of the cheese was new, young, not cured or fussed with that much.  Everpresent.  Above, a man sells his rounds on the sidewalk.  I thought that it was dough until the stench hit my nose and gave the product's identity away.  Sitting alongside is a scale.  When we inquired about it with the man standing outside the hotel next door, he ran into the kitchen and procured a bite.  We think it was sheep - and it tasted like a softer parmigiano.  As we were waiting for the bus just yesterday, a man opened his wooden barrel at the station and began to divvy out portions into cheese cloth. 

Running into food artisans is always a great feeling.  Like when you walk by bakery after bakery after bakery and then all of a sudden spot a bakery unlike the rest.  That was the case in Rahovec when we happened upon this shop.  Most of the bread that had appeared in baskets and at markets was pretty generic (but fresh).  However, at every qebaptore in Kosovo, the most widespread and popular type of eatery, these round breads are set out on the grill alongside the meat that goes into them.  It is common to see women and men carrying plastic bags absolutely stuffed with these pita like rounds.  We bought two, piping hot to the touch, and found them to be much different than pitas.  They are less full of air inside, not at all dried out,  chewy.  Once they cool down, they are downright elastic (which makes watching children gnaw away at them really entertaining).

We filled our bread with some cheese from across the street, but this is what usually gets stashed in.  A shoulder to shoulder line-up of minced meat sausages.  Kofta or  'burger fingers' as I've come to call them.  This is Turkish influence at its most basic and popular.  We'd see people eating kofta at 10am, at lunch, any time they were buying food out.  'Hamburgers' were on every menu.  Lamb and beef are both prevalent in Kosovar food, in fast food and slow food.  There are countless roasts and tavas, clay pot meals, made with veal and lamb.  There are also countless grills to be had.  Meat wasn't nearly inescapable.  Trout from the lakes and rivers of Kosovo are widely available, as well as the larger fish from the nearby Albanian coast. 

And there is always, always pizza.  The line between cafe and restaurant is tough to distinguish in Kosovo.  People usually just get soft drinks and coffee. So, it's hard to know if asking for a menu will be fruitless or not.  It never is.  There is always salad and pizza - and if that establishment doesn't have a kitchen, they get it from someone else down the street.  The pizza in Kosovo is totally passable across the board.  Wood-stoves are common and the customer is given a choice between small and medium.  It may not be seen as the most traditional Kosovar food, but new countries are creating new traditions every day, right?  I would venture to say that in a few years, the machiatos and pizzas of Kosovo will be more embraced as a part of their identity.  They already approach both with good taste and pride. So, why not?

A Hero's Welcome

"You should love your country the way Kosovars love America" - some professor in France.

Our guide at Pristina's Ethnographic Museum relayed this quote to us and laughed at the exuberance with which his fellow countrymen adore the United States.  We just arrived a day earlier and were taken aback by the welcome we'd received.  Every answer to "where are you from?" visibly shook people, roused them to their feet for a handshake.  It was strange, surprising, slightly uncomfortable - like a celebrity we hadn't earned, nor asked for.  This is why we mentioned it to our guide at the museum.  While he joked about it with us, he was also sure to make us realize the root.  "Without America, there would be no Kosovo."  We fell silent at that even more powerful quote, said casually and in earnest.

"Europe turned its back, but America came.  America! To this little country" - guy in Rahovec.

It was one of the many history lessons we were given in casual, two or three minute conversation.  Sometimes people really just put things so perfectly, convey exactly what they mean even with a language barrier.  The idea that America, in all of its late 20th century infallible glory, even knew what was happening in this corner of former Yugoslavia felt magical to Kosovars.  The fact that the USA swooped in to protect it felt miraculous.  At the helm was Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton.  A national hero so revered people have begun to name their children after him. Not just 'Bill' but 'Bill Clinton.'  Hi, my name is Bill Clinton Bajrami.

We'd laughed when coming across a big, bronze statue of Clinton.  It's just so strange to see a modern figure - especially one that would never be described as "statuesque" -  rendered in bronze, two stories tall.  But there he was on Bill Clinton Boulevard in all of his pre-heart surgery pro-McDonalds glory, classic open-mouthed grin and round nose.   He stood holding a tablet with 24 March 1999 etched into it, the date NATO began its bombing of Serbian posts in Kosovo.   In America, there was some criticism of Clinton for exaggerating the number of Kosovar Albanian casualties when defining the situation as genocide - but, hey, he always bent the truth a little bit, right?  Here, he is an almost mythic figure - and we, as a result, were greeted as heroes.  Saying we were American gave us carte blanche, handshakes and hugs.  Lengthy conversations that were thoughtful, insightful and cherished by both parties. 

During our time in Eastern Europe, a number of countries have shown a particular interest in/infatuation with American culture, music, movies, television, style, personalities.  This was different.  Instead of Lakers jerseys, Yankee caps or t-shirts with Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie & Fitch emblazoned across them, red, white and blue patterned hats and our flag covered the clothing of Kosovars wherever we went.  There was no sense that anyone wanted to be American, that our nationality held the allure of a status symbol.  Instead, there was an overwhelming sense of gratitude to America for letting them be themselves.  In those other countries, there's the element of American being a refuge, an oasis.  Move there and everything will be perfect!  Unlike in a number of those other countries, Kosovar citizens have been able to emigrate to the states.

Directly following the war of '99, as many as 20,000 Albanian Kosovars refugees arrived in Fort Dix, NJ.  Over and over, we'd be told that someone's father, husband, brother was in the Bronx, which has the largest ethnic Albanian community in the US.  An exact number of how many of those Albanians are Kosovar hasn't been figured out, but it is sizable.  If our conversations are any barometer, there's a mini Kosovo in the Bronx.  They say that about 15% of Kosovo's GNP comes from its diaspora, most of which live and work in Germany and Switzerland (Kosovars actually take the third place slot as largest immigrant population in Switzerland).  So, America isn't the holy grail here. It's not even the best place you can leave to go work!  But it is their liberator, their hero, the first people to recognize them as their own state, which is vastly more important to the citizens of this young nation.  Throughout the country, our flag flew right there next to the the blue Kosovar and red Albanian.

We were here during 4th of July, which you sort of forget isn't the name of the holiday until you say it to a foreigner and they look at you as if you've just proclaimed it Monday!  People kept telling us that the American Independence Day was celebrated in Kosovo and we were looking forward to seeing what that actually meant.  We wound up being up in Rekë e Allagës on the 4th, where fireworks (and the talk of grilling hamburgers) would have spooked the cows.  Still, this July 4th felt like the most patriotic of my life.   America is only 232 years older than the Republic of Kosovo - which is a blip in the history of other European countries.  (We always joke that our nation is younger than a lot of houses we've been in here in Europe).  I couldn't help but marvel at how our little clump of colonies' declaration of independence went on to affect the world.  It's hard not to feel the whole 'proud to be an American' thing while in Kosovo. 

The Minarets and Steeples of Blackbird Field

We walked up the valley from Decan, heading for a cleft in the mountains.  After a while, we came to a military checkpoint - sandbags, concrete-roadblocks, a Humvee, an armed guard.  He waved us on, but ten minutes later we came to another checkpoint.  Here, they took our passports and gave us a visitor's tag.  We were there to see Decani Monastery, one of the most beautiful and heavily guarded sites in Kosovo.

To reduce any conflict to a battle between religions is reductionist and silly.  In Kosovo, it's just as silly.  The conflict here isn't between Islam and Christianity, or between the Orthodox church and the Sunni faith.  But, of course, it can certainly feel that way.  Decani is one of the few important christian sites in Kosovo that Albanian muslims are even allowed to visit.  

Everyone in Kosovo will tell you that religion isn't a problem.  "We all get along," is a common phrase, repeated to us many times.  "Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox."  If the Kosovar wants to elaborate, he or she will probably mention Mitrovica, a divided city in the north that has the most inter-ethnic tension.  "Maybe there," they will say, with a sad look.  "Maybe there there are problems.  Because of Serbia."
Kosovo is over ninety percent Muslim now, after most of the Serbian residents fled in the wake of the 1999 conflict.  In the beautiful city of Prizren, there are 26 mosques and the call to prayer echoes across the river valley in half a dozen voices.  The central Sinan Pasha Mosque is a fixture of the skyline, sitting serenely beside the banks of the Bistrica.

The thing is, Kosovo isn't a very religious place.  The government is staunchly secular, most people don't attend a mosque regularly, the call to prayer which is blasted over every town goes almost unheeded.  While there are some women in headscarves, many more wear short skirts and high heels.  Fundamentalism is very rare.  One can see plenty of people drinking alcohol in cafes.
But still, there are scores of destroyed churches here, as well as burnt-down Islamic schools and libraries.  Why, in a war between such unreligious countries, did these religious things get destroyed?  Serb Kosovars will tell you that it's because of Islamic extremism, Muslims trying to wipe out christianity in Europe.  Albanian Kosovars see it differently, as washing away what was wrongly forced on them.

The name Kosovo comes from the word for blackbird - in 1389, a conflict between Serbs and Ottomans essentially uprooted the Slavic people of the region and pushed them north.  It was a monumental battle, and it shaped the history of the Balkans more than almost any other medieval event. It occurred at a place called "Blackbird's Field," and the name has stuck ever since.  To simplify several centuries, the region became predominantly Albanian and was generally under Albanian control until the second world war.  The new Yugoslavia broke off the territory from its southern neighbor, however, and Albania isolated itself to a huge degree.  When Yugoslavia broke up, Serbia claimed Kosovo, which pleased almost nobody here.
The 1999 conflict wasn't fought on religious grounds - it just happened that nearly all of the combatants on one side were Muslim and almost all those on the other were Orthodox Christian.  Ethnic Serbs here were fighting to retain what they considered their historic homeland. Ethnic Albanians were fighting to hold onto their homeland too, the place they had lived for six hundred years.  Neither one wanted to leave a trace of the other.

Brother Damascan, an Orthodox monk at Decani monastery, pointed out the image of Christ holding a sword.  "The only painting of Christ with a sword in the world," he said.  It was fitting, in this walled off, UN protected place - a tiny enclave in a recent warzone.

Visoki Dečani, as the Serbs call it, is a marvel.  There are over a thousand portraits in fresco, all completed between 1335 and 1350, just before the area was taken by the Ottomans.  Every inch is painted, the images are as fresh and vibrant as one can imagine.  A lot of the icons are done in "Byzantium blue" dye, which was literally more valuable, by weight, than gold. The artwork is extremely well done, painted and carved by masters. Decani is famous as one of the best preserved examples of Byzantine fresco, and there was a lot of worry that it wouldn't survive the conflict.

The monastery has been protected by Italian troops since just after the conflict began, and is now being spruced up with UNESCO funds.  Visiting is an interesting experience, much more serene than one would think.  Beyond the checkpoints, inside the walls, it's very quiet.  A few bearded monks gave Rebecca a laughing admonishment for wearing a short skirt, but said she should go in anyway.  "Next time," brother Damascan said jovially, "you can come with your legs covered."  He was more than welcoming, and even gave us a book about Decani for free, though it was supposed to be ten euros.  He delighted in talking about the building and the frescoes, but also about the woodworking, distilling, cheesemaking and painting, snowball fights and gardening that the monks did.  They live a very small life, hemmed in there, but it seemed very pleasant.  In fact, some say that the monastery survived Albanian reprisals not because of the troop presence, but because everyone liked the brotherhood so much.  A woman we met in nearby Dranoc said she loved going to take the water at Decani, even though she had lost all her brothers when the Serbs attacked.

Nearby the main, 15th century mosque in Rahovec is a destroyed, almost empty neighborhood of Serbian houses.  There are 23 mosques in town and no working churches.  This is, sadly, typical of Kosovo.
In the 1990's, the Serbian government encouraged ethnic Serbs to settle in Kosovo, and created a system of marginalizing Kosovar Albanians and muslim culture.  For example, Serbia listed "over forty churches built between the 1930s and the 1990s" among 210 Serbian Orthodox churches protected as historical monuments.  On the other hand, of 600 mosques in the country, only 15 were given the same protection.  When fighting commenced, the Serbs targeted buildings that were seen as "Albanian," including 207 mosques (ten were destroyed in tiny Rahovec alone), Albanian language libraries, Muslim schools and over 500 kullas.  These cultural buildings weren't incidentally harmed - the Serbs targeted them specifically, even when no other buildings around were damaged.  Why libraries?  Today, there are almost no Albanian-language books left in public institutions in Kosovo.  No Serbian-language libraries were bombed.  When Albanian refugees returned after the conflict, Kosovo's Serbian communities had seen very little damage.  That changed quickly.

Prizren is one of the most evocatively Kosovar cities, and has a number of beautiful mosques.  High up in a prominent spot on the hillside above town is a relatively new Saint Savior church.  From below, it looks impressive.  Up close, one finds it roofless and derelict, wrapped in protective concertina wire.  Around it on the hillside are broken and destroyed Serbian houses - all of them survived the war, but were attacked by grieving and furious Albanians afterwards.
In essence, the conflict and its aftermath sought to wipe away traces of the other people - Serbs wanted to return Kosovo to its 14th century, slavic self, while Albanians wanted to clear away the legacy of an unjust, more recent rule.  In the way, becoming symbols not of religion but of culture, were hundreds of mosques and churches and monasteries.  It's a wonder any of them survived at all.

If, today, there are more well-preserved mosques in Kosovo, it's not because more churches were destroyed.  It's just that the Serbs haven't come back to rebuild their houses and temples. Albanians are here.  They've rebuilt.  The whole situation is sad and complicated, no one is happy.
In Kosovo, we hear the call to prayer several times a day, projected out over the rooftops.  It competes with the music at cafes and with church bells, where they ring.  It's become a very familiar sound to us, as it has before in Azerbaijan, Turkey, North Cyprus and parts of Albania.  We took a few videos of it, so that you can hear what it sounds like to be in Kosovo.

A Night in a Kulla: A Castle of Our Own

I pushed aside the pretty, little, white curtain that flapped in the evening wind and shouted out to Merlin about what I'd found.  A steel bar stretched across the small peaked window and a hornets net sat right at the top.  We'd rented this kulla in Dranoc for the night - a unique opportunity to stay in one of these historic family fortresses built in the Albanian tradition.  Seeing that hornets nest made me realize that the phrase "king of your castle" gives a false impression of life in these sort of defensive structures.  It's the same castle-over, no matter how magnificent they may be, the people living inside were still there out of a necessity to protect themselves from attack.  The scenario is dramatic, but far from glamorous.  Them against the outside world.

Kulla means tower in Albanian and is derived from kule, the Turkish word for tower, citadel, fort and fortress.  These structures are not always towers, but they are always designed for defensive purposes.  Strongholds.  Above, you can see our kulla.  That staircase was the women's entrance, leading to the kitchen and living quarters. All other entrants could bypass all that to get to the top floor for men and guests.  More comfortable homes were built alongside and the kulla was only lived in during violent times, when security was key.  For Albanians, the protection a family sought was mostly from a blood feud, any attack that would entrench their family in generations of retribution.  A lot of the kullas were built in Western Kosovo for this purpose, but a great number also sprang up during the instability of the 18th century, when revolts against the Ottoman Empire were staged often and quashed violently. 

In the Deçan Municipality, of which Dranoc is part, 263 kullas stood until 1999, when 233 of them were destroyed or badly damaged.  These buildings were specifically targeted by the Serbian army during the war, because they represented Albanian culture and tradition.  Just like many castle ruins we've visited, the centuries-old historic buildings were destroyed as a statement.  On a walk through town, we met a women named Merita. She led along a wisp of a daughter, waist-high and stained purple from picking black mulberries all afternoon.  Merita's family's kulla still stands, renovated and open to visitors with the help of Cultural Heritage Without Borders.  She told us about it proudly and we weren't quite sure if it was the one we were staying in.  Anyway, hers was one of few that survived the conflict of  '99.  Her four brothers, she added, had not been so lucky. 

Dranoc's historic quarter feels Medieval even though its building were built nearly 500 years later.  There's a certain vibe that's similar, of life amidst death.  One look at the side wall of our kulla and you can sense the battle cry .  Windows were sized for shooting rather than sunlight.   Preservation was the overwhelming factor, not comfort or aesthetics. Still, a curtain could hang from a wall, a black mulberry tree could grow tall in the yard.  Unlike other fortifications, there was no worry about remaining hidden or out of sight.  Every family had one, towns were made up of them -  and everyone hoped for a good, long stretch of time before they'd have to move back in.

What these kullas lack in aesthetics and comfort, they make up for with unparalleled insulation.  The walls' stones are all locally acquired and beautiful, as are the tree trunks used for the ceilings.  The meter thick walls keep the interior cool in the summer, warm in the winter and hold a steady temperature between from day into night.  Honestly, it wouldn't hurt a few modern houses to be built in this way.  We slept like babies, during a heatwave, without an air conditioner, fan or open window (because of that darn hornets nest).   We recognized a lot of this design from our time in Albania, specifically in Gjirokaster.  It felt more amazing to have it all to ourselves, to spend the night in a house/fort, a sort of comfortable prison in some regards. 

The bottom floor was traditionally used as a barn.  In our kulla, remnants of a big tourist conference lay around.  Brochures about cultural programs and diagrams illustrating kulla restoration were piled up. These initiatives are keeping the kullas of Kosovo from falling into complete disrepair, preserving a few examples of something unique and special.  Still, it's hard to detach the structures' war mentality, so to speak, from its identity.  While I have no problem just accepting it all as a part of the Albanian-Kosovar complicated, fascinating cultural identity, it must be a strange thing to deal with as an organization.  Blood feuds still go on today in Albania and, to a lesser extent, Kosovo.  It's an odd dilemma to recognize the significance and celebrate the beauty of something like a kulla without romanticizing its purpose.

On the top floor, in the Men's Room, we had dinner.  A number of low, round tables were piled against the wall and we rolled one over to the fireplace.  On the high, wall-spanning shelf were a few empty wine bottles, all from vineyards in Rahovec,  We added our own, thinking it was an odd thing in such a Muslim-inspired setting, plus a few full bottles we've been carrying around.  Accumulated gifts.  I thought about sneaking into the Men's Room as I was - about how separation of genders rubs me the wrong way.  But then I remembered the scenario most of the men sitting here were in.  This room welcomed a fraternity of kings, all saddened or resigned to the burden of their castle.

The Most Untrammeled Doorstep

We walked the last hour or so up to Rekë e Allagës.  The taxi driver had gotten fed up with the rough roads and a little lost - on foot, we followed a stream and a dirt track upwards, hoping that it was the way.  When we came up out of the pine forest, we asked at the first house - "Mustafa and Fetija?"
"Po, po," the man said, meaning yes, and sent us off with young children as guides.
When we stay at homestays, we always hope that it will be something like this - an idyllic setting, a unique culture, a world apart.  This is Kosovo at its most untouched.

We stayed on a dairy farm in Rekë e Allagës, a steep hamlet in the remote Rugova Valley.  Every morning, our hosts would pour their fresh milk into a pantry's worth of different pails and pans - some for kos (yogurt), some for djath (cheese) and some for mazė, (clotted cream).  Fetija, our hostess, cooked whole milk in low pans on the woodstove, letting the liquid slowly evaporate.  The mazė arrived on the table a chunky, shining mess of curds, very soft, to be used with everything.

Mustafa (second from right) had grown up on that very spot.  His uncle (far right) and father had been raised in a centuries-old stone house there, but the building was destroyed by a Serbian bomb.  "Boom" the uncle said, flattening his hands* out over the table and shaking his head.  "Nothing."
Fetija is also from the Rugova, but a different part - she talked quickly to us in Albanian, nodding to see if we understood, not caring that we didn't.  They talked about how cold it is in the winter, about snowshoes and several meters of snow.  Now, the family leaves between November and March, staying with Mustafa's parents in Peja.  The Rugova is beautiful in July, too hard in January.
*The uncle does have two hands, it's just that the picture is deceiving.

Mustafa had a rare energy and an amazing amount of hospitality.  He loved to talk with us, with hand gestures, some German, laughs and whistles.  In the Rugova, the people speak with lots of emphatic noises, a kind of separate language at the end of a sentence.  They make a swooshing sound to mean a long distance, or a semi-growl to express that something was incorrect.  At first, we thought that it was just part of the language barrier - but Mustafa and his friends used the signals in conversation amongst themselves, and Fetija would end her quick phrases to her husband the same way.

We spent a whole day hiking, making a long circuit around one wing of the valley, passing from meadow to forest to open fields.  We returned on the front edge of a thunderstorm, and found that Fetija had been busy all afternoon with something special.
If there were only one dish that Kosovar people claimed as their own, it would be flija.  We'll talk about it as a dish in more detail later, but the process seems like a separate, unique thing.
Flija is cooked from above, using heavy, metal covers that are heated up over wood coals.  Fetija spent almost five hours by the outdoor fire, laboring over the dish.  To be over-reductive, I'll describe flija as an integrated stack of dozens of crepes, cooked one layer at a time with butter and milk solids in-between.  It's exhausting and delicious. One can't find the true delicacy in stores or bakeries because it takes too long - the process is really one of waiting and burning wood.  Mustafa, Rebecca and I sat with her for the last hour, drinking beer and listening to the cows low in the barn.

Hiking here is an adventure of waterfalls and grazing cows, springs and - right now - millions of butterflies.  From his kitchen, Mustafa would point in one direction for Albania, to Valbona, and in another direction for Montengro.  In fact, he said that you could walk to the border with Montenegro - just three hours up the hill.  It's at places like this that one can remember how intricate the world of Europe is, where one alpine hillside can have its own traditions and people.   We heard of tours that passed through, walking from Albania to Montenegro to Kosovo, passing over peaks and sleeping in villages - we thought about what an adventure each new valley must seem, a new culture.
Some say that the Rugova Valley is the heartland of Kosovo, where all things uniquely Kosovar come from - but, really, Kosovo has just adopted the most evocative imagery from Rugova.  To call these people Kosovar is to call texans "North American."  It may be true, but it doesn't say much about the whole or the part.

And to say that we feasted isn't doing the food - or the portions - justice.  It's funny, but we hadn't found much "traditional" Kosovar food before we came here.  That partly has to do with Kosovo's taste for the international and the cuisines that have swept in from the wider world.  But it's also partly because "Kosovar" food is difficult to make, with recipes born in the mountains and given little thought in the lowlands.
Here is our supper the first night: a salad of sauerkraut, tomatoes and cucumbers; fresh bread; big tranches of homemade cheese; speca memaz, basically a pepper and cream soup; cups of fresh, cheesy yogurt; and leqenik, a dense, buttery cornbread.  All of the dairy - in four different forms - had come from the family cows.  It's heavy food, good for cool nights at elevation.

Staying in the Rugova, looking out at dark mountains and wild forest, one feels very far away from the KFOR-troop jeeps and supermarkets lower down.  There are no cafes or clothing boutiques, hardly any cars.  Men go to work with cow-twitches and chainsaws.  Mustafa told us that he doesn't want a car - he patted his legs and grinned, "very good," he said.
The truth is, it's not that far to Peja, one of Kosovo's largest cities.  The trip (when you can get a taxi to go all the way) only lasts about forty-five minutes.  The entry to the Rugova is just outside of Peja, though, and as soon as the canyon walls surround the road, one begins to feel far away.  The drive becomes twistier and rougher as it goes, with waterfalls and craggy spires alongside.  Turning up into the woods and towards Rekë e Allagës, all direction and distance is jumbled.  When a traveler emerges into the high meadows, there is nothing left of what they found below.

Under their porch, Mustafa and Fetija keep wooden barrels of cheese, wrapped in gauzy cloth and kept cool in the dark.  Mustafa talked proudly of the Italians that would come to buy cheese and mazė, of the traditions that he was part of.  He had lived for a few years in Switzerland, he has a brother in the Bronx, he knows about the outside world - but he also loves his home, and we could see the happiness he had there, in the hot and verdant days of early July.  On our first evening, we sat outside on the balcony and listened to his children play in the neighbors field - a gaggle of village kids rolled a tire down through the wildflowers over and over, shrieking and running.
When we try our hardest to reach into the ether of the unknown - try to make it to the furthest point, the most untrammeled doorstep - we always hope it will be something like this.  On our last night in Rekë e Allagës, we sat out on the balcony again with cups of turkish tea and the smoke of our hosts' cigarettes.  A full moon rose above the Prokletija Alps and we sat wondering where we were and how we had found our way there - it felt too distant to be real.

The Strange Case of Cigarettes in Kosovo

Kosovo isn't even that smoky a country - but, for a few reasons, there are lots of cigarettes around.  Here, on one of the busy market streets in the heart of Pristina, a man sells cartons of cigarettes, some legal, some probably contraband, some possibly counterfeit.  The bars and restaurants of this capital don't have the tobacco-smog problem that places like Belgrade or Bucharest do (much less St. Petersburg, Andorra la Vella or Minsk), but that hasn't stopped a strangely frantic culture of lawbreaking around tobacco.
There is smuggling into and out of Kosovo, counterfeiting, tax dodging and a whole flurry of other activity.

The most unusual part of cigarette selling in Kosovo are the men who wander from cafe table to table with boxes of cigarettes, offering them to late-nigh patrons.  They move quickly and smoothly, stopping barely a moment or two to complete a sale.  They are always men or, in some cases, boys.  They bear almost no resemblance to the "cigarette girl" Americana image.  In Pristina, there are dozens of them.  In smaller cities, like Prizren, the four or five cigarette men make smaller tours, appearing every hour or so.  Many of them also sell phone cards.
The cigarettes these men sell are often contraband, smuggled in from outside Kosovo.  Often, they cost significantly more than ones bought at a newsstand.  Why would anyone buy cigarettes from outside the country if tobacco is so cheap here?

Kosovo's neighbors have trouble with cigarettes smuggled out of the country.  Two years ago, a Serbian Diplomat was arrested in Austria on charges that he had smuggled 25,000 cartons from Kosovo to Western Europe.  Although the taxes have risen recently, Kosovo's prices have historically been below those of Serbia's, Macedonia's, and Montenegro's (and way below those of more wealthy countries) making smuggling basically profitable.  Serbia, in particular, is plagued by organized-crime smuggling from its southern neighbor.  Often, the wholesale sellers at markets are providing small-scale smugglers or trying to lure smoke-tourists.  It's only an hour by bus between Skopje and Pristina; why not stock up on one side of the border and pay lower taxes?
But that doesn't explain why anyone would smuggle tobacco into Kosovo.

The answer is somewhat amusing.  According to balkaninsight.com, the cigarettes that are sold legally in Kosovo are of lower quality than those sold in EU countries - so people pay more for contraband smokes than they might at legal, tax-paying stores selling Kosovo-spec products.  Apparently, because of health concerns, "safer" EU smokes go for a few Euros more than in-country products.
This hasn't stopped smuggling in the other direction, of course - wherever there's a significant difference in price between two countries, there will be illegal trade.  A now-famous 1994 example, showed that, when Kosovo raised its excise tax on kilograms of cigarettes from €2 to €17, imports decreased by more than 50%.  Of course, nobody smoked less - smuggling just increased.  And, because Kosovars, in general, have less money and lower product-safety thresholds than other Europeans, the higher excise tax has also resulted in lower-quality cigarettes flooding the market at cheaper prices.

There's also counterfeiting, believe it or not.  Fake, name-brand cigarettes are apparently very common, part of a widespread problem in Southern and Easter Europe.  In 2003, as part of a crackdown, Police found and destroyed more than 20 million counterfeit cigarettes - or about half a pack for every resident of this little country.
On one corner of Pristina's bazaar district, five small vendors compete with each other based on some metric of price and quality.  It's hard for an outsider (who doesn't smoke) to distinguish what the parameters of this little market are, why a customer might chose one wooden box over another on a late, humid night.

It's always a concern of ours when we enter a new country - what will the smoking laws be like?  Will we be able to enjoy ourselves indoors or get forced, bleary eyed and coughing, out of every bar or restaurant we visit?  Smoking is generally permitted indoors in Kosovo, which is bad.  People don't smoke that much, though, which is good.  We've come to like the cigarette men, moving so smoothly through the darkness, and the fantastic displays of cartons and boxes that appear in every market.  Kosovo isn't a visibly corrupt or crime-ridden country, so it's sort of thrilling to know that so much of this activity is illegal - it's exciting and comforting to feel like you're in a lawless place with such low stakes.

Euro Cup Runneth Over

We don't often whittle an explanation down to our nationality.  Especially having spent about seven times as much time in Europe than home in the last two years, it has gotten harder and harder to think of things - and people, really - in such certain and separate terms.  However, whenever anyone asks us why we don't watch football, we always respond, "we're American." Sometimes, Merlin can't help himself from working the word "soccer" into his answer.  We both grew up playing soccer, as most Americans do. But watching it? A live televised event with little to no opportunity for commercial breaks? Not our country's style.   So, we actually didn't know Euro 2012 was even happening until we read a news article about violence between Polish and Russian fans.  Once we knew, we made a concerted effort take part in the experience. 

Our viewership began during the last quarter-final match, shown on the ginormous screen at Beer Fest in Pristina.  It was between England and Italy and went into overtime, then double overtime.  Excuse me if these are not the correct terms.  The scheduled 11pm musical performance began to play over the broadcast and we assumed it would end as a draw.  The fact that that can happen is one of the few things I do know about soccer, having been in New York during the 2012 World Cup, when the Post famously printed the headline: "USA Wins 1-1."  As we walked past 91, an English pub just down the street, a television screen alerted us to the much more exciting outcome.  Penalty kicks!  The crowd inside was much less mellow - a group of British expats at the ends of their bar stools (and the ends of their wits).  The mood alternated so extremely between tension and jubilation that beer actually went temporarily untouched.  Eventually, Italy won.

The best thing about watching soccer in Europe, especially in the summer, is that it's an outdoor activity.  Unlike American football, which shuts people into living rooms and neon sportsbars midday no matter how beautiful the weather, soccer brings people out onto the streets.  This is especially true in places like Kosovo, where there aren't too many businesses that can afford a big screen television or ten.  Instead, projection screens are set up where they can be. When all else fails, the side of a building becomes a big screen.  You can walk around all day long and not have any idea where sports theaters will magically pop up after dark. There's usually a bit of finicking with the system.  Getting the picture to line up, synching the sound, a few switches to a blank screen and the words "Lost Feed," "Data Unavailable" or something "Interrupted" and then you're ready to go! 

Then, once it's up and ready, you get to enjoy the summer air while taking in the game.  Sure, there may be competing DJs or call-to-prayers through the broadcast, but it's a little like a drive through movie.  Something special. I can't imagine how well this would work other places.  In Pristina, Rahovec and Prizren, there was never a backlash against waiters or a loss of patience if the sound cut out or a play was missed due to technical difficulties.  The crowds were as far from rowdy as you get. People are laid back here, understanding, mostly sober.  Plus, it's not their own team's pride on the line.   Kosovo cannot take part in the Euro Championship, as they have not been allowed to join the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). 

I'm sure if Albania or even Turkey had been one of the 16 teams who qualified for Euro 2012, they would have been the clear choice for default favorite.  Without them, it was interesting to wonder who people favored to win.  In the case of the final - it was clearly Italy.  The fact that Spain (like UEFA) doesn't recognize Kosovo as an independent country, may have had something to do with it.  For that Sunday night final in Prizren, cars clamored for parking spaces and high-heeled young women searched for a seat (or just a sliver standing room) at a cafe.  There was definitely an atmosphere of festivity, of a big event, but it just doesn't pack the same punch when you don't have a team in the running.  We were just like everyone else, watching a championship our nation had no stake in - but enjoying the heck out of it.

It also doesn't pack the same punch when the match is a blow out.  By the end of the 4-0 final, the bars were almost completely cleared out.  Places kicked up their stereos a little more, people began to make their way back to their cars.  Spain was victorious once again, for the second time in a row.  It will be another four years before anyone gets to strip them of their crown and we will most likely be back in America with more knowledge about the relatively inconsequential NFL summer off-season than this large-scale competition.  Way before then, though, is the London Olympics and I plan on watching the soccer events a little more closely.  I've got some history under my belt now, I know some names and faces.  Super Mario and such.