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Footsteps in Kosovo

by Kristina Lucas

261 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0751; ISBN 1-4120-2923-6; US$22.20, C$27.75, EUR18.04, £12.95

"All unnecessary travel to Kosovo is NOT recommended." There is no answer to this as the author packs for her return to Kosovo ... alone.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Footsteps in Kosovo - a travel book that deals with an unusual subject in a different manner. Initially when learning she was to visit Kosovo the author, searched for information about the land and the inhabitants... "to find out what it was like". Admitting ignorance of the land other than knowledge of the conflict in 1999 when NATO conducted an air offensive on humanitarian grounds to halt what was termed as the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population of Kosovo. Much has been written about the war period but despite extensive investigation she came across very little on the domestic front. The book is an attempt to remedy this. The personal dialogue draws a sensitive picture of this small part of the world - not much larger than the county of Yorkshire - now a UN protectorate, and still an 'active posting' for the NATO military forces after 5 years of 'nation building'. With the aid of her camera and a quirky sense of humour that saw Kosovo becoming 'curiouser and curiouser', aspects of living in Kosovo today are revealed. First seeing Kosovo from the comparative safety of one of the myriad of white 4x4 vehicles she falls irrationally in love with the land, the people and the fascinating history. With her camera ever ready she portrays a land of often violent contrasts. Written looking at Kosovo briefly from history - the day before; the war years - yesterday; the author takes to her heart the Kosovo of today. Determined to attempt to analysis her attraction 60-year-old Kristina returns... alone. To find her affinity, interest, intensifying. She has since been back yet again on her own, to stay in the capital Pristina just prior to the recent elections; feeling her way in this unsettled land; 'to test the water' as the frustrations of the population continue to simmer.

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About the Author Determined not to grow old gracefully, Kristina is a keen amateur photographer and has had photographs published by a regional newspaper. Married with two grown up children she lives in a remote part of Cornwall.

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Excerpts

A)
There does not seem to be much effort to repair war - damaged houses; from mere bullet holes - to burnt-out shells - to cruise missile write offs.

It is rather a case of leave them and build new ones.

B)
The railway line to nowhere from nowhere; to me so desolate. Abandoned; given up against odds too great to be overcome.

Only a paper cup reminds of man's presence, poised for an instant on the rusting rail before tumbling between the oil streaked sleepers. A breeze sends it spinning gaily further along the track. Other pieces of litter stir, but none so free as the paper cup. A torn newspaper, trapped under a rail, waves raggedly at its passing; or is it in supplication before the knowledge of oncoming wheels? Are distant vibrations already jarring messages along the rusty steel? Not anymore...

Once the busy commercial transit route for the Trepce Mines and a main part of the infrastructure of Kosovo.

No trains have yet returned to this part of Kosovo and rail links to Serbia have been severed.

Now nothing remains except the rusting tracks where already grass and weeds take over; one lopsided signal...down...and the remains of a signal box; on the side of which someone has nailed a ball net.

C)
He slows the car and points...set back in the trees I can see three houses, the clearing already becoming heavily overgrown. All three are gutted. One had belonged to his friend, who had been killed there.

Bringing me along this lane has been the first time he has come this way since his friend died. Until recently any return was impossible and even now as a Kosovo Albanian he cannot stop.

He expresses no anger, just sadness. I thank him for driving me this way.

A little further on he suddenly says that he liked to think of Kosovo as a little Yugoslavia; a land where many ethnic people existed together. He considered himself to be on good terms with Serb, Turkish and Albanian before the time of 'bad men like Milosevic'. And now?

This is what he hates the most, the loss of everyday acceptance of other people and the suspicions that have been sown. He resents having to be wary driving in places like this when once he came here, without thinking, to visit a friend

Is this how progress can be measured? After four years, he, a Kosovo Albanian can now drive this way, still under the watchful eye of KFOR, who are still in evidence at either end of the main street, but not to stop nor set foot.

I have made a small journey into the cruel world of ethnic hatred.

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Catalogue Information

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