Finished My First Two-Day Class Today and Started the Weekend with a Walk Up to the Old Town......

.....and the first class went very well.  I had students from Turkey, Serbian and Belarus.  I wondered how the Serbian student would fit in here in Kosovo but he was a good guy--I initially trained him in Croatia in 2008--and he got along great with our Kosovo driver because they both spoke the same language.  These State Department classes have unusual mixtures--in Croatia I had a student from Bosnia and that worked out ok too.

 

After class, I changed clothes and headed up to the Old Town.

 



 

What is left here dates back to the 15th century.  Pristina was once a major trade bazaar on the route to Constantinople with a huge market featuring goods and spices from all over the known world at that time.  This market actually existed until after World War II when the Soviet Union occupied this area.   



 

Wanting to eliminate all traces of the Muslim and Ottoman Empire eras, teams of communist "volunteers" systematically dismantled the Old City which had been here since before Columbus.  To placate the locals, they built in the spot a weird, spiky tower which they labeled the "monument in the name of Yugoslav Brotherhood and Unity."  Nobody seems to know what it is supposed to represent but one of the nearby mosques put some speakers on it to call the faithful to prayer.  And in a grand capitalist scheme, somebody installed a Coke machine under it:

 

 

The Fatih Mosque is nearby, which I posted in the blog on my first day here, and the original section dates back to 1461.However in the 1999 war, Albanian Christians torched the library there and destroyed the entire collection of Ottoman records and deeds dating back more than 300 years.

 

Bits and pieces of the Old City can be found in the narrow, winding streets:

 

 

 

Despite the destruction of the ancient trade bazaar, a new city market has sprung up albeit without the charm, but a city market nevertheless:

 

 

I have seen these literally from all corners of the earth and for the life of me, I don't know why we don't embrace the idea back in the States.  I ended up buying a soccer scarf for my collection.

 

Went back to the hotel and considered ordering supper but it was still light so I walked down to the new pedestrian mall and was pleasantly surprised to find they were having a Balkan folk festival with costumed dancers from countries all around this area.

 

I really enjoy this stuff and spent over an hour listening to the music and taking pictures of the dancers.  Here are some of the varied costumes:

 

Albania

 

Croatian

Kosovo

The city of Pristina had a group of young girls that were the obvious favorites

 

The costumes were elaborate:

 

Another Turkish group was also elaborately dressed:

I'm off to a good start here and tomorrow I think I'll either take a taxi about ten miles out to the village of Gracanica, which has a very old monastery, or maybe even take a bus to the town of Prizen which is very, very old and has some beautiful churches.