Kosovo/Serbia Issues

Kosovo/Serbia Issues

My brief visit to Prishtina, capital of Kosovo is drawing to a close.   A bit of an eye opener, it was.   I have not seen any remnants of destruction of the war. It appears to have been cleaned up and re-built, giving it more of a modern appearance than the other Balkan cities I have visited.   Coming from the west coast of Canada, I will have to admit that I was not very well versed as to what went on in the wars here in the 1990’s.   After having visited the area, and done some research, I would have to admit that I am not a whole lot more informed as to what went down.  From the sounds of it these countries were played as pawns by the greater powers.  Serbia was the political center of Yugoslavia.  As Yugoslavia disintegrated Serbia wanted to hold on to Kosovo as part of it’s domains.   The Kosovo folks, backed by our good old friends the US of A decided that they wanted Kosovo to be independent.   As the rest of Europe engaged in an arms sales embargo for the Balkan states, the US ignored the embargo, and loaded up Hercules aircraft with arms and flew them in under the guise of darkness.  After the dust settled and fighting stopped,  Russia wanted to deploy the peace keeping forces in Kosovo.  The Western powers would not let that happen, because they knew that if Russia was the peace keeper, that eventually Kosovo would divide itself into two countries, along ethnic lines (Serbian Christians/Albanian Muslims). The western powers could not tolerate the idea of a Muslim country in Europe so they backed western peace keepers to prevent Kosovo from dividing.   As it stands today,  the US and several European countries recognize Kosovo as a country.  Serbia, Russia and China do not recognize it as a country.  Meanwhile with 10,000 UN peace keepers here, it remains not a part of Serbia.  What that means for travellers is that one can enter Kosovo overland from Serbia, Montenegro, Albania or North Macedonia.  But if one wants to leave Kosovo and go to Serbia, one has to be able to prove to the Serbian border officials that you entered Kosovo from Serbia, as from their point of view, Kosovo is still part of Serbia.  Any entry into Kosovo from other than Serbia is actually an illegal entry into the country from their point of view.  Just to make things a bit more complicated, apparently Russia pays attention to the visas in one’s passport when applying for  a Russian visa.  So for me to enter Russia, I have to make sure that any stamp in my passport regarding entering Kosovo, is from a Serbian entry point, and exit stamp from a Serbian exit point.   Kind of  a messy thing for  a guy that is just travelling through the area.    

 

I am trying to make it to Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzogovina.   The officials here in Kosovo will not admit that Sarajevo exists, so I must travel tomorrow by bus back to Serbia, to a city called Novi Pazar.   Once the bus is out of Kosovo, the driver can sell me a ticket on to Sarajevo….  How is that for strange?