2024-01-14 13:21:25
Kosovo has once again appeared on the front pages of the media following the change of course (yet another) in the international policy of the Government of Pedro Sánchez. In the sanchista way. Without counting on anyone, without consulting anyone, without communicating it to the main opposition party. According to some information, The US would have pressured Spain to recognize the Kosovo passport. Like everything, given the lack of transparency of the Pedro Sánchez Government, they are only rumors. Little is known today about Kosovo, whose independence has been recognized by all Europe, with the exception of Slovakia, Greece, Spain, Romania and Cyprus.
But 20 years ago, the world was paying attention to what was happening in that small corner of the Balkan hotbed. We leave in taxi from Bulgaria to Kosovo just after the war with Serbia ended. Crossing Macedonia, where sandbags still remained on the roads, We were stopped by a group of soldiers pointing their Kalashnikovs at us.. The taxi driver literally started to shake. They searched the taxi, the taxi driver and carefully examined our luggage, which consisted of two small backpacks that contained just a few changes and toiletries. And it began interrogation, where were we going, what the hell had we lost in Kosovo, what a strange thing. Although Macedonians and Bulgarians speak practically the same language and both use the Cyrillic alphabet, it happens as in Catalonia with Spanish. That they refuse to understand each other. “Holidays“was our response, answered by a chorus of laughter from the Macedonian soldiers. Understandable, it did not seem very normal for two women to go on vacation alone in a taxi to an area devastated by war.
They let us go when we were about to call the Spanish embassy in Sofia. To reassure the scared taxi driverwho believed he was carrying two dangerous Serbian terrorists or spies as passengers, we pointed out the word “journalist” in a Bulgarian-Spanish dictionary. The man almost burst into tears with emotion. Journalists, I said it before! He explained to us that The Macedonian soldiers had taken us for prostitutesDespite the fact that we were already advanced in years, we were no beauty and in our small luggage we did not carry a miserable mischief. And in the universal language of noises and gestures he explained to us what the war had been like. “Here Serbs Buuum!”, here Kosovars Pum! Bang!” Pam, pam!“.
On the way we hardly came across any passenger cars, but it was a van caravan of international organizations. The UN, the EU, (UNMIK) UNHCR, the OSCE, KFOR, the international force under the umbrella of NATO and all kinds of NGOs. Kosovo was already under the command of international forces, which are even in charge of organizing traffic in the capital.
And we arrived in Pristina. The taxi dropped us off at the border, which we crossed on foot. Again the interrogation by customs authorities (naturally, the international forces) about what the hell we were going to do in Kosovo. Holidays. From perplexity to snide laughter and welcoming gestures to the intrepid Spanish girls. That was easy. The capital of Kosovo was two streets. And that’s it.
First objective: search hotel. Something so simple became an adventure. Then there were only two hotels in a city invaded by journalists and personnel of all kinds of international forces. We found one that looked more or less decent. “You can’t pay it“, the receptionist snapped at us when we asked for a room. Stunned, since we came from Bulgaria where everything was very cheap, we asked him in disbelief how much the night cost. 300 euracos (official currency of Kosovo despite not belonging to the EU and much less to the euro zone). Ah, well no, we can’t pay it, we admit. And he showed us a more accessible one at the end of one of the two streets. Two beds with holey sheets, broken lamps and a chipped bathroom at 60 euros a night (we are talking about 2002) they assured our rest for two nights that turned into one.
Pristina was literally taken. Italian Carabineris, the French gendarmerie and the Civil Guard, in addition to the EU and NGO detachments that made the night an endless party getting drunk in the bars at an arm’s length the cubata. After several Sabbaths in bars, pizzerias and stores, we decided that the Kosovars had a hard face for giving and taking and we began the return trip. This time by bus, which was safer than a taxi.
A thing with more miles than Sánchez’s Falcon, packed to the rafters, with wonderful Latin music at full blast and that stopped every 15 minutes to smoke, took us to Skopje, capital of Macedonia, 93 kilometers from Pristina. We were almost home, Skopje, with its markets where bags of UN humanitarian aid were sold without bothering to erase the acronym of the highly prized international organization.
From Skopje, scandalously cheap in those days, new bus to Sofia. In the Bulgarian capital, which we already knew well, we did take a taxi to our residence. The taxi driver, who could not have known that we were staying at the home of a member of the embassy and that we were aware of the prices, tried to scam us. Even though his muscular arms had nothing to envy of Popeye after a helping of spinach, we refused, gave him what he deserved, and at the signal of now! We open the doors and run away down the street to the noses of the jokers of that great country called Kosovo, whose standard of living we all maintained, and which It ended up becoming a Republic because the United States decided so. Now, it demands that Spain accept the Kosovo passport, as a prior step to recognizing the sovereignty of the former Serbian region.
But wow, who cares now about that 10,908 square kilometer piece of Balkan land where not even two million people live and doesn’t even have a sea? Well, that, to no one.
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