Njeguši, The Rough Heart of Montenegrin Food

To get to Njeguši from Kotor, you have to drive about an hour.  It's funny, because you can see Kotor right from the outer limits of Njeguši - it's somewhere down below, several thousand feet in the low distance.
This is a mountain town, in a high patch of somewhat flat land just behind the precipitous rock wall that plunges to the sea.  It's not a big place - there are just a few houses in a clump, surrounded by close-cropped fields and rough stone.  But this is the heart of Montenegrin food, a place where hundreds of ham hocks and cheese rinds sit in cool cellars, safe from the summer heat.  The local pršut (which others might call prosciutto) and semi-hard cheese are gustatory experiences, the point of food travel in Montenegro.

Montenegro, like any new country, has had to define what its national foods will be.  The problem is, this is a small place with lots of influence from its neighbors, decades of rule by Serbia, and cuisine that looks... familiar.  There are lots of the same grilled squids and blitva plates that we've seen before in Croatia; bureks, which every Balkan country eats; roasted octopus; cuttlefish risotto; lamb; ajvar, which is also popular in Macedonia and Serbia; and cured meats and cheeses. Cured meats and cheese shouldn't be considered a Montenegrin specialty - more a European specialty in general.  But the pride that this country takes in Njeguši's products is immense.
The town itself is a pretty, high-up place in a mountain bowl.  Around it is the protected wilderness of Lovćen National Park, where cattle roam the steep slopes and wildflowers peek out from crags.  The road up from the coast is a long tangle of switchbacks and hairpins, with views down over the bay and out to the Adriatic.  It's a narrow lane - not really wide enough for two-way traffic.  There's lots of backing up and careful maneuvering, lots of cars stopped to take pictures, frustrated truck drivers.

At the Kotor market, far below, we had seen wheels and wheels of the cheese and bought some for ourselves.  The women who sold us our wedges pointed out different types - sheep, cow's milk, mixes, new cheeses, washed-rinds.  The most famous type of Njeguški sir ("сир" in Serbo-Croat, meaning cheese) is jarred up, sliced, in olive oil - the oil helps protect it from the awful summer heat.  We didn't buy any of that particular type, deciding to save our arteries the affront of cheese in oil, but have tasted it.  It's not bad.  Very much like most semi-firm cheeses.

During our meander through Njeguši, we were invited into one couple's smoke house.  The air was heavily smokey, the rafters were black.  Behind the hams, brown paper had been hung and grease-spotted.  It was cooler there, and the man who showed it to us was proud.  He spoke only Serbian, so we couldn't talk much, but we got the gist.
Driving in Njeguši is like a slow trip through a specialty foods store.  Signs at every house point to cheese and pršut, honey and rakija.  Men and women sit outside, in what shade they can find, and wave invitingly at passing tourists.  There are a few restaurants dishing up heavy, mountain food - lamb is popular - and lots of parked cars with foreign plates.

The cheese is good, with a flavor range that travels from mild to tangy without ever reaching strong.  It's tasty, alpine style cheese, aged only a little and tasting more of grass than barnyard. We've liked the sheep's milk cheeses the best (the one on the right was a delicious example), but the cow's milk varieties are great too - generally milder though, and softer.

The pršut is also great.  The Montenegrins like it thick-sliced and strong-flavored.  It's very smokey and woody, with salty channels of fat and a soft consistency.  This isn't the harder, tougher stuff you might find packaged in a supermarket, it's actually pretty delicate in consistency.
Montenegrin food is much like other cuisines in that the country's chefs love to stuff and smother dishes with cheese and ham.  On menus, one might find that the english translation for a specialty is such-and-such "cordon bleu," while the Montenegrin title calls the same thing "Njeguški."  Even if the cheese and ham is from the supermarket, the preparation and the sentiment is from the mountains.

Before we left Njeguši, we bought a few more things - a jar of dark honey that, when we tasted it, seemed to be flavored somehow with fruit; and a small plastic bottle (unmarked) of vile, very strong, root-flavored rakija.  The liquor tasted a lot like a headache, but was fine with some blueberries and lime.  The honey is a strange complement to coffee, but is good on toast.  Neither product would have us coming back to town anytime soon, but they're not really the point - only some jars and flasks to fill in the margins of the flesh and dairy.
There is a story, perhaps untrue, about a famous sculptor who, in the 1950's, was commissioned to create some sculptures for Lovćen National Park.  Passing Njeguši on his way up and down from the site, he fell in love with the town and its flavors.  When he negotiated his payment with the government, he asked not to be paid in money - but in Njeguški pršut and sir.

Why Don't They Have This in America?

This may well be in America soon - So, you saw it here first!  This is not just a yellow popsicle.  This is the most exciting frozen ice cream treat I've ever seen.  The sort of thing that makes me remember the first time I saw Super Mario with a bubble gum nose on the side of the ice cream man's truck.  This, my friends, is a peelable banana! As Nestlé's press release states, "Many would think that a peelable ice cream is unbelievable." Believe it. 

We first saw these in a gas station cooler in Serbia and I didn't buy one because I'd recently gone on an "avoid sugar" diet to combat culturally experiential dessert eating and the forthcoming gelato season. Since then, I've dubbed bananas "nature's ice cream cone," because any time Merlin buys ice cream, I grab a banana from a fruit stand and convince myself that it's as good as frozen, flavored dairy on a cone.  How ironic.  Anyway, it's been almost two months since Serbia and in cooler after cooler, I've searched for that banana popsicle. Does it peel? The package sure makes it look like it does. I'm not eating ice cream, but if that shows up I simply have to try. Investigative research. I'd nearly forgotten about it when it popped up in Montenegro.

The treat is called Pirulo Jungly, 'Pirulo' being one of many Nestlé brands and 'Jungly' being a terrible name.  According to the cartoon monkey on European Nestlé's website, you're supposed to peel the skin with your teeth. I used my fingers. Even if I'd known the decorum, I still would have - because the intrigue was always finding out what the heck the peel was made of. Gotta investigate with as many senses as possible. It felt like gummy bear and tasted like Jello. I'd say, it's Jello. Inside, the stick of banana flavored ice cream was delicious. Apparently, Jungly was introduced in February of 2010 as "Eskimo Monkey" in Thailand and then rolled out in Asian and then European countries in 2011. As far as I can tell, it's not yet available in America. Which begs the question - Why don't they have this in America (yet)?

Plan B (for Beautiful)

We arrived in Kotor to find that all our Montenegrin plans had been ruined.  We'd dreamed of laying out on the beach all day and going home to our rental apartment with a watermelon tucked under our arm and bags of fresh veggies in our hands.   In five days, we've made a total of one salad and not spent a minute lying out on the small pebble beach.  We've been too busy hiking around, doused in sun block and eating excellent restaurant meals, doused in olive oil.   Kotor isn't your normal Adriatic resort town.  It has neither sand nor swarms of sunbathers.  Its water is just one element of its magnificent setting and dropping yourselves into it like coins in a fountain is far from the only activity available. We feel lucky to have landed here.

As if the castle walls and ancient caravan trail zig-zagging up the mountainside weren't picturesque enough, the seaside fortifications enclose one the best preserved medieval old towns on the Adriatic.  Kotor's Stari Grad ('Old Town') is a maze of marble paved lanes and Venetian architecture. You walk down the narrow streets, which run around and into each other, feeling air conditioner breezes from boutiques and being shot in the stomach by the cupid's arrow that is 'pizza smell.'  Then, out of nowhere, your lane opens up into a piazza.  There, cafes tables are set out.  Fans twirl, fine mist wafts down from cooling systems, you sit for an ice cream or coffee with some beautiful old church or mansion looming above. And never want to leave.

A year ago today, we were in Zadar, reveling in our position outside the real 'hotspots' of the Croatian coast, ouching our way into the water along a pebble beach on the edge of romantically picturesque university city.  We've come a long way since then, but are remarkably close to that very spot now.  It feels a little like returning to old stomping grounds, something we don't get to experience very often.  A big plate of grilled squid surrounding a mound of blitva (garlicky chard and potato) greeted us like a friend last night.  Well, you haven't changed one bit!  Kotor is a lot like Zadar - an incredible spot that has the lucky misfortune of less-than-ideal swimming options.  This keeps the droves of tourists at bay.  Or, I guess in this case, out of the Bay. 

For mid-July, Kotor is remarkably not crowded.  The Old Town is deceptively large, there are enough cafe tables for everybody.  It's something you don't really notice until looking down at the labyrinth from above (from the castle).  The lanes are all swirled around like a big plate of spaghetti with red-sauce roofs.  You simply can't imagine the number of noodles under there until you feel the fullness.  Dumpster after dumpster of garbage and dozens of young women shopping around laminated photos of guest rooms for rent show just how many people can fit into Kotor, all still given the chance to feel like they have it all to themselves.

Outside the Old Town's main entrance, a daily market sells fresh produce and fish, local cheese, olives and cured ham (along with some imports from Croatia and afar). There are more apartments for rent here in Kotor than there are traditional hotel rooms, more of a chance to buy some sheep cheese (and then some cow cheese.... and then some cow/sheep mix if you're anything like us) in larger portions than just one afternoon picnic's worth.  It's one of those rare tourist destinations that invites you to feel what it's like to actual live here.  Though, the locals always have a smile at the edge of their lips that say, "I actually do get to live here.  Jealous?"  Yes, yes I am.

In some ways, we feel a little smug about our place here, too.  Most visitors to Kotor come on a day trip from Budva or for an afternoon off the cruise ship.  As I type this, Celebrity Cruise Line's "Silhouette" is blasting a horn to call all its passengers back on board.  We get to relax, shower and head back out into town with the rest of the over-nighters.  It's a different crowd, mostly families with young children and backpackers staying at some supremely well-located hostels.  We all meet up inside the walls - some of us have never left.  Sure, the clean, turquoise water one associates with 'Mediterranean' isn't really here, but everything else that word connotes sure is.  The emerald shrubs and cypress tree, the sights and sense of history, the food and wine, the casual intimacy and the way time moves.  You may have your first gelato at breakfast and go for your first dip of the day at 7pm.   Toddlers are changed out of swimmies and brought out to dinner at 10pm.  Truly Mediterranean. 

As Merlin said in his previous post, Kotor really is a part of the water, with just a sliver of usable 'inland' space before the mountains.  From every arched entrance, the sea seeps - in blue views, pink tan lines, bikini shaped wet spots on t-shirts and barefoot children.  Many of the people funneling in themselves have been out to sea on yachts and cruise-ships, delivered ashore just like the trading goods and supplies of yore.  Precious cargo, currency, foreign imports.   The tourism industry as it once existed here never really bounced back after the Yugoslav Wars.  Most development attention has been focused elsewhere, which accounts for its status as more of a day trip destination.  They say that the greatest cultural and economic decline in the town's 2,000 year old history has been taking place since the 1990s.  By the looks of it, there may be some resurgence happening.   Financially and artistically.

The Kotor Art festival is going on right now, which includes an International Children's Theatre Festival and Dan Branko's Music Days, amongst other events.  So, in the evening, the high, white buildings with their green shutters and terracotta shingles act as sound barriers, separating one performance from another.  As you wander around, lost as usual, you are left to just happen upon the next surprise.  A cartoonishly over-sized line of laundry is strong across a piazza here,  a classical youth orchestra performs for video-camera wielding parents there.  When the sun sets, never before at least 8:30pm, it all feels too magical to be true.  You turn down a lane that has a line-up of hip bars and hear the thump of a DJ.  Then, out of nowhere, a live saxophonist breaks in and begins to accompany the beat.  The two men stand side by side, woodwind and Mac, creating a breezily unique, amazingly congruous style of music.  

Castle Hunting: Kotor

Behind the last rise, the hot and arid medieval lands of the Serbs and Bosniacs stretched. Later, the Ottomans controlled this expanse of mountains and plains, running as far as old Hungary.  A caravan trail - a mule track in the dust - ran from the interior to the very edge of the sea, coming just to the point where land and water meet.  The black mountain that gives Montenegro its name rises there, at the edge, part of a long horseshoe of peaks that encloses Kotor bay.  Down its side, crossing in hundreds of switchbacks, the ancient trade route trickled down to a busy port.  Named in antiquity, this "ladder of Cattaro" is still visible in outline, there are still some paving stones in the yellow grass.  Before it, at the entrance to the Adriatic, the Venetians built one of their grandest and most ambitious castles - Cattaro (now called Kotor) was the ancient gateway that held shut the back way to Montenegro's heart.

The landscape isn't much changed - scrub and tinder-dry grass.  As we hiked in the peaks around Kotor we came across a man collecting dead wood for his fireplace.  The views are amazing, the heat was overwhelming.  The upper part of Kotor's fortifications are impressive, but not all that well preserved or interesting.  From below, they blend into the mountains, the towers having been leveled by earthquakes.  But sometimes, a castle can be evocative just because of where it is - and there are few castles we've been to with this kind of setting.
Until 1879, the "ladder" (note that it's not actually a ladder, just a very steep path) was the only way in or out of Cattaro by land - which the people of Montenegro liked.  Essentially, the shores of the Bay of Cattaro (now Kotor Bay) were like an island in the Mediterranean, cut off and sheltered from the turmoil of the mainland but readily accessible by boat.  The bay is the deepest-cut and steepest-sided of the Adriatic.  The water here is dead still, protected from the storms and winds of the wider sea - perfect for a port.  Everyone coveted it, from the Romans to the Ottomans, but it was the Venetians that ruled it for the longest in recent history, and who shaped the castle's fortifications the most.

Kotor's defenses are much more than just a keep and walls - there are two main parts, an upper castle and a lower sea fort, built mostly at the same time, during the 1430's-90's.
The real "castle" part of Kotor's fortifications is really called the Fortress of St. John, or San Giovanni, and is more than 900 feet higher than the old town (there is a myth that the castle is 1,200 meters above the sea, which would be spectacular if it were true).  It's situated perfectly on a high crag, between the bay and the slope where the ladder of Cattaro weaves its way down.  Behind it, out of sight from Kotor itself, is a steep cliff, forming a nice, natural wall between the landward side and the fortifications.  Reaching from the citadel, cascading down the rock, are two long walls that cut off any entry towards the town from behind, sealing in the slope between the fortress and the city.  The walls didn't need to be very tall, they topped nearly-sheer drops.
Originally built in the 15th century, the fortification was (somewhat humorously) re-fitted with snippets of modern defenses during communism, so there are bunkerlike chambers within the ramparts.  These parts are now crumbling more noticeably than the stone walls around them.

Venice expanded its empire hugely during the fifteenth century.  This was the early stages of gunboat warfare, and the little seafaring nation proved to be the naval superpower of its day.  The Venetians, with thousands of boats but not many men, staked out a scattered and narrow curtain of holdings around the northern shore of the Mediterranean, capturing everything from Peloponnesus to Cyprus (we already looked at a great fortress in Kyrenia, from roughly the same period, and a later example, in Nafplio, Greece).  It was a short-lived empire in the outer regions, as the Ottomans proved stronger and more determined in the East.
But closer to home, in what was called "Venetian Albania," the empire held on for longer.  Here, they had carved a catholic slice of coast from its Serbian neighbors and were able to provide the ships and guns to keep it.  The bay of Kotor was one of the last remnants of Venice's holdings because it was such a watery town.  The Ottomans had a hard time fighting at sea, despite massive fleets and overpowering forces - while land to the east became dominated by the Turks, Kotor bay remained part of the sea, and Venice held on from 1420 until 1797, when it ceded the land to the Habsburgs in a treaty.

The Ottomans did capture Kotor on two occasions, but never through direct force.  The problem with Cattaro's defenses were that they were almost too complete - it was easy to cut off supplies and lay seige.  In two instances - between 1538 – 1571 and 1657 – 1699 - the Ottomans were able to successfully take the city, during periods when their navy was in better control of that stretch of coastline.  Without supplies from the sea, Cattaro was unable to survive.  As Venice's fleet ebbed and strengthened, so did the fortunes of the fortifications.

The old Montenegrin lands, and Kotor in general, thrived because of shipping.  Venetian Albania was an important trading and shipbuilding center for the empire, but Cattaro had been a major port for centuries beforehand, despite not having much access inland.  But, if there wasn't a good overland route here, there has always been the sea - and the second main part of Kotor's defense has been primarily naval.
In an overwhelmingly Venetian way, the small triangle of land that constitutes Kotor's walled town was protected by a series of low bastions and thick walls.  Essentially, the Venetians were applying what their military did best - naval gunpowder units - to a solid framework.  This is familiar from places like Kyrenia, but on a smaller scale here.  The low walls were fronted by moats on two sides and faced outward - like a wedge - into the harbor.

Earthquakes have thrice damaged Kotor's defensed - most recently in 1979 - but the lower walls were solid and low enough to survive mostly intact.  There is little room at the end of Kotor bay for a ship to maneuver away from the fortifications which was important for one significant reason.  Because they needed to fire at very close quarters, attacking fleets were required to shoot very directly at the walls, and were unable to loft any missiles inside, to attack the town directly.  Therefore, the walls could be made in an almost ideal way for protection - blunt, thick and squat.
In essence, the idea goes like this: a more open wall, where fleets could square up at a distance, was vulnerable because it was a large and easy target - a ship some distance away was difficult to hit with old cannons, while walls weren't.  In addition, a cannon firing from distance could attack the entirety of the fortress, not just the blunt outer wall, by angling its missile to clear the wall but fall inside, which meant that a lot of seaside fortresses needed to have higher walls than they would have liked.
In an enclosed space, like the bay, the ships lost all of this advantage.  They needed to be close up, and so were just as easily bombarded as the walls.  And, because they needed to fire on a level in order to hit anything, a stout outer wall was more than enough protection.  After all, several meters of stonework holds up better than a few inches of woodwork when trading direct blows.  If Kotor's lower defenses don't look impressive, it's because they don't need to be - the bastions had only to be as high as a ship's gunnels.

Coming into Kotor from the sea or the newer, lower road, one could be forgiven for missing the upper castle in daylight.  There's a lot to see in town, the best views are out into the bay to the other mountains.  In the bright July light, the rock and scrub above town blend into hazy gray.  It's not until evening that the castle's true outline, traced in long strands of lights, stands out.
But standing on the old ladder way, the castle is tremendous.  It looks like something out of a general's fantasy, a melding of rock and cliff that seems even more massive than it is.  It's telling that Kotor's Venetian defenses were never directly overpowered, holding up against centuries of hostile neighbors and frothing sea warfare.
We got sunburned and dried out, wandering through the ruins.  Kotor is a castle of staircases, so be prepared to get out of breath.  It's also a castle of views, as though the real thing the Italian architects coveted wasn't the bay, but the vista out over it.

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.