Gračanica – inside the monastery

“is it here that a taxi has been called ?” The little old man has spoken in serbian, but we understand the general meaning of his question, when he appears on the first floor of the building. the young woman we interviewed asks us where we would like to go and, even though we would prefer to go directly to our guest house in Velania, we assure her that the bus station would be fine. our conversation has made us realize why a serbian cab driver wouldn’t be too comfortable driving in the middle of Pristina, and we couldn’t help but notice how carefully she had chosen the driver to call, “He has a Kosovar car plate”, she had told us with a shrug, “they’re mandatory for taxis”, her sigh said enough.
“it’s the station close to here, right ?” she asks. we had no idea that there was another bus station. “well, the main one, where we took our bus to Gracanica this morning”, we reply. she nods, “yeah, I think it’s the one. I remember there used to be one about ten minutes from here”. I try not look too surprised by her incertainty. but after our interview, I doubt that anything she says could really surprise me anymore, I’m too stunned by everything she told us, probably. she translates our destination for us and our cab driver nods.
we shake hands and I thank her again for talking to us and giving us a bit of her time. her smile doesn’t hide anything anymore when she replies she’s been happy to talk with us.

                                                                               ****

the hotel number 1 is like the hotel palestine in baghdad or at least what we imagine of it. sitting at our table, waiting for our dinner to arrive, we watch cameramen and photographers going in and out, greeting each other, grabbing a beer then going out again. it’s the night of the general elections, but nothing “hot” will happen tonight. yet, there’s at least one journalist at each table, most of them foreigners. the tv is on in a corner and periodically, everyone glance at it. the table near ours is crowded with various russian journalists, they talk passionately while drinking vodka like we’re drinking our wine. on the other table next to us, a lonely middle aged writer is typing non-stop on his laptop. two photographers sit down at the table next to him, they drop their heavy gear on the table and start looking at their pictures. David suggests as a joke that I also put a camera with a big lens on our table. I smile and pull my small leica out of my bag. I snap the shutter twice, to fix this moment I definitely enjoy. on the right corner of my frame, one of the photographers is looking at me.

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Pristina – Christ the Saviour Cathedral

so it appears we’re staying in a prostitute hotel in south mitrovica. a three stars, no less. my brother’s girlfriend had warned us about every hotel except one at the outskirts of the town, but we still needed a cheap place to stay and all the decent hotels in north mitrovica had been booked by journalists and tv crews long before we arrived. with all our heavy bags, we finally check in at the hotel Jaffa, which looks comfortable — if not cheap — enough. it takes a full day before David confirms that this one is indeed a brothel, and accessorily, that the walls must be made of nothing more than thick paper. we finally understand, highly amused, why there are no single bedrooms, why our cab drivers always give us startled glances and make us reapeat our hotel name, why there are mirrors along the beds, or why men having coffee outside stare at us in such a weird way, every time Am?lie, David and I go out. that said, the hotel Jaffa is rather clean, the beds are huge and our gear is safe, which is all we could ask for.

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Prizren – Monastery of the holy Archangels

it’s only around 3 pm and I’m already in love with Prizren — its sleepy narrow streets and shiny mosques at every corner, its 16th century ottoman bridge and the Gazi Mehmet Pasha hamam, the cobbled Shadervan square and its fountain where teenagers fool around and a couple of old men play backgammon in the sun. I’m fascinated by life here, by the amount of juvenile energy everywhere. half Kosovo’s population is under 25 years old and unless you lock yourself in your hotel room, there isn’t a minute when you won’t notice it, wherever you are.
around 4 and a half, as we’re wandering in the small alleys, the first muezzin begins his call to prayer, soon joined by every minaret and in a few seconds, the whole town is echoing their ritual melodies.

                                                                               ****

standing on the ruins of the Kaljaja Fortress perched on Sara Mountain, a few inches away from the precipice, I turn back from the sight of the Saint Saviour church below me and pause to look at everyone’s small silhouette : St?phane at the opposite side, the Bistrica river beneath him, Leila on top of the entrance door, facing the city, Sander on her right, at the farther corner from me and David walking to the back of the fortress. we’re almost alone there now and, each of us gazing in a different direction to embrace the magnificent view, it feels like we’re the last sentinels of our castle.

                                                                               ****

her smile is a warning or a punch in the stomach, as it punctuates her chopped sentences. it slices our questions, it closes every door her words just opened, and for more than an hour, we witness the struggle between stories that still need to get out and smiles she turns into stop signs to hide her tears. she will never cry in front of us, but she will be fierce and ironical, vulnerable and strong, bitter and overwhelmed by guilt, cold and looking for approval, disillusioned and torn apart, all at the same time. her smile is a slap on the face, it tries to lock every door her immense sadness opens wide. we leave Caglavica still engulfed by her emotions.

                                                                               ****

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South Mitrovica

Momcilo finds us in front of the Philosophy university, a small building a few streets away from north Mitrovica main street. a slouching man in his thirties, Momcilo wears a black leather jacket, ray ban sunglasses and, above the collar of his dark t-shirt, he lets a fading tatoo appear on his neck. distant, Momcilo looks blas? as a rockstar. “we were told that you know everyone here…”, we start, “as you may have noticed, Mitrovica is a small town.”, Momcilo states the obvious with a shrug and an ironic smile. we follow him in the small alleys to the guarded entrance of the block with the police station, the courthouse and his NGO. near his building door, a couple of soldiers are sunbathing. in the NGO’s office, Momcilo silently weighs us with penetrating glances and it takes a good fifteen minutes before he starts to lower a bit his defences. he truly animates himself when we start to talk about politics, about the future of the serbs of Kosovo and the mess they’re in, about the UN, the US and the EU and their responsabilities, and of course, about his NGO’s action with serbian youth. “they all say that the next generation is our future, but we really got to do something with them now, in the present” he argues, “so we’re encouraging them to take some responsabilities, to decide things for themselves.” they also work with some albanian NGOs, “before 99, albanians had to learn serb and serbs had to learn albanian”, he explains, “but that program has been cancelled, so we’re focusing on that issue, too. people have to be able to do this simple thing : communicate, if not, how can we achieve sustainable peace?”
after more than an hour, we have to end our interview. “by the way, who gave you my contact?”, Momcilo asks. as we say the name of the albanian former journalist and Pristina school of journalism co-founder, Momcilo’s face brightens “aah, yes, a very clever and very interesting man!” “he said the same about you”, we smile.

                                                                               ****

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Belgrade – Kralja Milana

“so, you’re Robert ?” Snezana asks to Am?lie, pointing her finger to her, after she stormed into the common room and glanced at each of us. I watch Am?lie’s eyes wide opened with surprise and gently tap Snezana’s shoulder, “err, no, I am Robert’s daughter, Juliette”. Snezana bursts out laughing and hugs me and kisses my cheek. “here, we kiss a lot” she says, still laughing. she looks around us, the room, our computers and notepads spread on the table, the decoration, then she decides it’s a good place to stay and sits down. I propose to go outside for a drink but she shrugs, “nah, we’re fine here, aren’t we?”
I feel a bit ashamed to welcome my father’s fourty something collegue in our hostel common room, but i agree nevertheless. David points out that there’s beer in the fridge and as i serve it, wondering out loud if it’s still good, Snezana laughs again “oh as long as it’s alcohol…” then she lights one of her many cigarettes.
                                                                               ****

our first mission is to find the Ben Akiba, apparently the classiest hidden bar in Belgrade, situated in a shady street near the hotel Moskva according to our information. On our first try, we face a couple of security guys in front of a black box with a door that indicates the entrance of a nightclub. “The Ben Akiba? it’s closed now, it’s been moved”, they tell us, before asking us if we want to come inside. after hearing the echoes of technoid beats, we politely decline. the general impression is that we’ve been duped : wouldn’t it be logical for guys working for a nightclub to try to get tourists to come inside instead of another bar? Besides, we all have in mind the article published only a year before in a french renowed daily newspaper that talked about the Ben Akiba. and it’s also mentionned with the address in the recent french Belgrade guide we’d bought. it it had been moved, the journalists would have said so, right? on our second try the next day, David, Am?lie and I take the time to inspect the street, but with little luck. the only clue we have is the only cyrillic written doorbell of a building on which I read Klub. we suddenly hear a talk close to us and the words Ben Akiba. A couple of men near a car get our attention : “the Ben Akiba, you know it?” “yes but not here anymore. it’s gone…two years.” we’re puzzled, the journalist mentionned the place in his article as if he’d been there… we’re still suspicious : wouldn’t it be logical for the neighbours of a hidden bar to discourage the tourists?
we wait for the others then decide to ring at the Klub bell. the door opens without a question and we enter in a luminous beautiful building with large stairs. we closely inspect every door but no luck there either. Delphine finally rings at the door on the second floor where the bar should have been. A charming old man answers : “oh the Ben Akiba, yes, yes, it used to be in this appartment but it’s moved a couple of years ago… the owner was killed or something..”
back near the Hotel Moskva, now doubtful about the other hidden bars we’ve read about, we sarcastically conclude : “never trust a journalist.”
                                                                               ****

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