Vice President Biden visited Kosovo this week. I was lucky enough to be in a position to be at the airport when Air Force Two landed and Vice President Biden arrived. His departure from the airport was by UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter to where he made a speech at the Kosovo Assembly. I am still working on the set (linked below), but some pictures are up and I think this is the best of the set.
On the 17th, Kosovo celebrated it’s first year of independence. These are the fireworks pictures from Pristina. Weather kept me at home, but many others were out on the street in the snow and cold.
As usual, Pristina celebrated the coming of the New Year not with one massive display of fireworks, like we would in the U.S., but instead with many displays all across the town. The combined display tends to be quite impressive, but also nearly impossible to capture on camera. I had some extra difficulty this year in that the street light across the street from my balcony was on and bright as could be. Most of the pictures have a lens flare across them because of this.
On Saturday we took a trip to the Visoki Dečani Monastery in western Kosovo just south of Peja (Peč). The Monastery is part of the Serbian Orthodox Church and was built between 1327 and 1335. The monks are very friendly (though make sure you show up show up during visiting hours or you won’t be let in). The Monastery’s church, like most Orthodox churches, is covered with frescos inside. It’s worth the visit.
Peja is on the western side of Kosovo, not far from the Montenegrin and Serbian borders. It is the major town on the way to the scenic Rugova Gorge. Of the many things in the gorge is the beautiful waterfall (pictured below). The source is from inside the mountain and has been partially diverted into an aquaduct (also pictured below).
New Year celebrations in Pristina were not what I expected. Kosovars set-off fireworks for many occasions. I frequently hear and see them at the end of local football (that’d be Soccer for the US) games. Given this, I was expecting some coordinated show over some major buildings. There was no such thing. Instead, it seemed everyone around was using whatever fireworks they had on hand, from large professional sized ones to smaller “normal” ones. The entire city skyline was covered in individuals’ fireworks.
A group of artists came up with the idea for the NEWBORN sculpture and implemented it in time to unveil on the night of the declaration. It was setup and still sits in downtown Pristina in front of a shopping mall on one of the main streets.
Because of my job, I’ve had a rare opportunity. I’ve been in a country when it came into existance… Kosovo declared Independence on February 17th, 2008. These are some of the highlights of the fireworks pictures I took that night. Unfortunately, I was unable to go downtown to take pictures of the people celebrating.
The Turkish Baths in Prizren are one of the few surviving in Kosovo. There used to be many, but they were destroyed through the years of violence and war.
A couple of weekends ago I went down to Prizren. One of the stops was the League or Prizren Museum which actually consist of a museum, an ethnological museum, a library, a mosque, and a very nice courtyard. The complex is located near the river in Prizren and is well worth the visit. The League of Prizren has played an important role in Kosovo’s past from the 1800s when the Ottoman Empire had control over Kosovo, through World War I and II, through to the present.
Their library is impressive, but in need of help to properly care for and store the very old books within. The U.S. Ambassador’s fund allowed them to restore it to it’s current condition.
