Churches and flags

Today I visited Gračanica, a Serb enclave close to Prishtina. Not much goes on on a Sunday. The market traders that line the main Prishtina-Gjilan road on other days are nowhere to be seen. That’s a shame, as the home-grown produce sold by the local Serb peasants is worth visiting for.

I strolled in a graveyard. Most of the tombstones are in a similar big, showy black marble style, with photographs of the dearly departed. It would appear that many older graves have recently been given newer stones. Most are Christian, but one stands out for me, with a five-pointed star in place of a cross. The occupant was a man who had come of age just as the communists came to power, and had presumably risen on the revolutionary tide. In placing the star on his new-looking stone, his relatives had stayed true to his communist faith. One thing that strikes me is that on many of the stones there are two names, and two pictures, but only one giving the year of death, the other left open. I think I would find it depressing to see my name and picture on my tombstone while I am still alive.

Gračanica monastery

At the centre of Gračanica is the 14th Century Orthodox monastery. It has survived fires and the removal of its lead roofing in the Ottoman period, yet still stands, its icons worn and damaged, the eyes poked out in many cases, a typical Muslim desecration. Nowadays its entrance is guarded by a couple of Swedish soldiers, razor wire topping its walls. Standing among the saints and medieval Serbian kings, the biblical scenes, one has a sense of timelessness. Some of the participants in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, which took place not far from here, are said to have prayed in this church before the fray. It is small and intimate, enclosed, until one looks up to the small dome high above, the face of Christ looking down, as if ones attention is deliberately being drawn upwards to the heavenly.

I’ve never managed to understand the Orthodox Church. With its intense conservatism, it is an alien world. On the one hand is its rich artistic heritage, its icons and churches, its mesmerising chants that seem to connect it to a spirituality largely lost in the modern world, and consciously given up in western Christianity. On the other is the poisonous nationalism that pollutes and discredits it in the eyes of so many outsiders. In a corner of the church at Gračanica is a huge Serbian flag, wound around its wooden pole. How does the pretension to be a universal church, embodying timeless values taught by a God who is said to have created all mankind in his image sit with this narrow, chauvinistic nationalism?

I am tempted to see it as a kind of paganism, worshiping at the altar of the nation. But as I am not a part of it, I really have no idea how its adherents see their Church, their worship, their God. I have no idea what this mystical entwining of a universal faith with the body of a nation means to them. This is one of the features of religious faith. Outsiders see alien faiths largely in political terms, never properly understanding the spiritual element which is generally central for the adherents themselves. It is the same with Islam. Outsiders are scared by the massed ranks of the bowing faithful, seeing them as dangerous, threatening fanatics. Brought up as a Catholic, I am often aware that outside critics generally just don’t get what it is that Catholics are about. Without having ever experienced the simple spirituality, the heart-swelling faith in God, the hope for a better hereafter, seeing only the strange ceremonies and priestly robes, the overtly political, and sometimes discreditable role that the Church has played in history, they cannot understand that, as with other faiths, at its centre is the strange but simple belief in God. Whether or not one continues to share those beliefs, it is only those who have been on the inside who really understand them.

Serbs and bilberry juice

Today I was back in Mitrovica. It is a sad place. At each end of the famous bridge that divides the city between its Albanian south and mainly Serb north there is coiled-up barbed wire, ready to be pulled across at a moment’s notice, should there be trouble. Two NATO armoured personnel carriers sit at the northern end, with their big machine guns on top. Walking along the main road in the north, I pass a patrol of ten or so French soldiers, rifles in hand, who drop into a café on their route.

The bridge, Mitrovica

I’ve come to meet Oliver Ivanovic. He became famous in 1999 when he organised the Serb bridge watchers responsible for dividing the town. After that his image was transformed. Urbane, charming, fluent in English and Albanian, he came to be seen as a leading Kosovo Serb moderate, the favourite interlocutor for the internationals. Now a state secretary in Belgrade’s Ministry for Kosovo, he spends much of his time in the Serbian capital. He’s a busy man nowadays – I had been trying to get a meeting for weeks. Now his main battle is with the hard-line criminal elements that ran the north for years before the present government took over in mid-2008. He promises to root out corruption among the Kosovo Serbs.

Oliver is friendly, gregarious, an open smile ready on his lips. He knows who I am, and who I represent. He knows I argued for Kosovo independence years before it was declared. But he doesn’t seem to hold it against me. This is something I find strange about the Kosovo Serbs. I would expect them to hate us westerners, especially Brits and Americans. Did we not bomb them and support their Albanian enemies? Do they not see us as responsible for their misfortunes, for the loss of the territory at the centre of Serbian history and mythology? I would expect them to. Probably they do. And yet they are almost invariably friendly and hospitable towards us, welcoming us as their guests. How would I feel in their place?

I ate Prebranac (a spicy bean stew) in the restaurant I usually go to in Mitrovica. Quite tasty. I also enjoyed the homemade bilberry juice.

In a way the Kosovo Serbs’ situation is a bit like that of the whites in South Africa. Outnumbered, losing ground, a sense of siege, defensive, aware that they are widely vilified, and probably fighting a losing battle. Yet I’ve almost never found them aggressive. No doubt it would be different if I were an Albanian trying to return to north Mitrovica to reclaim my house.

Hills and rubbish

I had a Sunday afternoon walk in the hills outside Prishtina today, at Germia. It was a fine, sunny day, almost spring-like. Ahhh, for fresh air, away from the smoke of the Obilic power stations that so often chokes Prishtina, away from the dust and cheap petrol fumes of the city, away from the crow shit-spattered streets.

But one thing you cannot escape from, even in the hills, is the rubbish, the refuse with which the people of Prishtina clog up their town and even their supposed weekend beauty spots. It's everywhere in the city. Plastic bottles strewn about, trees hanging with wispy plastic bags, like some strange kind of fruit. Every scrap of green, every tree, the verges of every pavement. Dust, rubbish, crow shit, bad air, these are the things that stick in the memory about Prishtina. Crumbling stairways, general decay. Even new buildings look dilapidated almost at once.

Walking in the hills, breathing in the air, enjoying the nature, I try to avoid seeing the rubbish. The places where people sit to admire the views are invariably spoiled by cascades of plastic and paper spilling down the slopes. There is a point with a particularly fine view over planes and hills beyond. On a bright day one could see for miles and miles. It's obviously a popular spot for walkers, as one can tell by the quantities of litter thrown about.

What do these people think about when fouling their city, and even their beauty spots? It's depressing. The only mild comfort I can find is in the thought that it's not that beautiful anyway, and if they want to destroy their little patch of earth, at least they largely leave the best bits to the rest of us.

Wines and labels

Kosovo wine is returning to the UK market. According to the website of the producer, StoneCastle, its wines measure up to the best of France or Italy. Well, no they don’t. I tried the StoneCastle Merlot recently, and it was actually OK – you can drink it (with the caveat that during extended periods in this neighbourhood my palate is highly unreliable). It tasted like Merlot anyway, which is a good sign.

I tried another Merlot the same evening, from a winery owned by one of Kosovo's most prominent luminaries. According to the label, it was a 1993. My host told me he didn’t believe it. He had never seen any vintage other than 1993. Well, it certainly didn’t taste like a fifteen-year old wine. Isn’t that a great idea? What if Burgundian producers were to label all their wines for the next fifteen years as Grand Cru from 2005?

But the proliferation of private producers in the Balkans is a good thing. Slovenia is well ahead of the pack. I prefer the wines of the Goriška brda region (Collio in Italian, in this border-straddling territory). I am a long-standing fan of the Sivi pinot (Pinot Griggio) from Ščurek, and the wines of Movia are worth drinking. The wines of Croatia are as diverse as that country’s geography and climate. So far, I’ve not been convinced by the heavy reds of Dalmatia which are so admired in some quarters. They just seem very big, usually flabby, often oxidised, and uninteresting. The wines of Istria are often more restrained and refined, like those of Matošević.

But I think Montenegro is especially interesting. I’m biased – I like Montenegro. The hills between Bar and Virpazar seem particularly promising. That Montenegro has an indigenous grape variety, the Vranac, adds to the interest (it’s grown elsewhere in the Balkans, in Macedonia, Bosnia and Kosovo, but Montenegro is its real home). Several small private producers have been springing up, and some of them are really pretty good. The prices some of them go for in Podgorica shops – up to 50 Euros for a bottle last time I was there – are also an indication of how highly they are prized. It’s really quite exciting.