'Europe's Smallest and Safest City'

Interesting way for a tourism board to promote a city but after my 3 day visit over Easter to explore Slovenia and it's capital city, its tourist promotion slogan had a bit more of a ring to it. Although this tiny country of 2 million people and 300,000 in the capital city (half that of Pristina) deserves at least a week for a proper holiday, the fact that I decided to meet a friend from Serbia there on Thursday and flew out on Friday didn't allow for much premeditation. Other than finding a nice hotel/backer packer in the center of the city I was relying on my friends in-country contacts with whom he was staying and who was going to show us the local sites; on day in the city, another on the coast and a third in the famous Lake Bled area up north.

What I didn't really count on was the fact that since my joining the trip was pretty much a last minute arrangement, that my schedule would never completely match with my other companions allowing for me to explore and arrange for my own activities in the city. But when we were in sync, it was quite nice and allowed me to explore some unbelievable areas that I would not otherwise have had visited such as Piran (coastal city) and Lake Bled. Overall this country has to be one of the cleanest, quietest, most organized place I have every visited. I was even afraid to cross the street other than in the crosswalk with the little green guy and clicking nose approving my risky move. Almost an impossibility to realize that Slovenia and Kosovar were technically both part of the former Yugoslavia. These two places are worlds, cultures and years apart.

As you can see from the photos there existed a wonderful street culture of cafes, rivers, plazas, city mountain castle, winding canaled rivers and churches. I must say that it was very nice to be able to duck into an Easter service to hear the chanting of the Priests, the beautiful gospel and the ringing of the bells. I even caught an amazing farmer and handicrafts market that happens most everyday except on holidays. Everything is within walking distance and although the Western European prices doubled the cost of things back in Kosovo, the quality and ambiance were well worth it.

On the first day we drove down to Slovenia's tiny portion of the coast to wander around the picture perfect town of Piran with the cobblestone streets, ancient fortress walls, cathedrals, perfectly blue green water and spectacular weather. Moving from ice cream to lattes to seafood meals it was certainly a full day of luxury. Since the 2 hour drive put us back in the city for evening we rewarded ourselves with a couple mean games of bowling and general unbridled fun.

Day two had us heading out in a light rain and fog which thankfully burned off to reveal the spectacular views of Lake Bled. The irony of me visiting this magical place was that when flipping my office calendar it showed an areal photo of the lake and island and I said I must go there. Little did I know it would come true in less than 3 weeks:-) We walked the lake, boated to the island (row boats only) and went to the castle atop the surrounding cliffs to get one last spectacular view.

What does Todd Really Do?

Besides traveling, exploring and adventuring? I actually do have a purpose for being in Kosovo beyond the clean air and raging nightlife. Lets see if I can explain this in English (not because everyone here speaks Albanian but because there are enough acronyms in this line of work to actually be its own language). In a nutshell, my project is trying to help stimulate local economic development in the private sector. Due to the mostly rural environment this primarily falls into the exciting industries of growing and harvesting fruits and vegetables or working with the dairy sector milking cows and producing dairy based products. We do a little on the side with construction materials, wood flooring and even asphalt laying.

And what do I do for the project actually never having grown a vegetable or milked a cow? Well, I like to think a bit of post harvest marketing and linkages to actually get the products sold so the locals can have a livelihood and continue to develop their businesses. This is very slow and painful process since to begin with, most of the local product quality does not stand up to the flood of imported products being sold. Second, very few companies or people understand or recognize the value of marketing. Third, any domestic or regional sales are mostly based on personal connections AND there is general mistrust in the Balkans for doing business with Albanians (Kosovars). Beyond all this, no problem.

My team is the Marketing and Trade Linkages group (original huh?). Well aside from a good size collection of small deals and projects that we work on in each sector (entirely other teams working with the technical side of our project), we produced the first Marketing & Linkages Conference in Kosovo last week which brought together about 200 local retailer operators, producers processors, traders, wholesalers, donor groups, associations and marketing agencies. It was held in the only venue large enough known as the Grand which is an old Socialist hotel that was recently privatized but has yet to reflect any improvements. I was able to bring in some very well known and reputable regional retail chains to share their insights and words of advice with our infant industry in Kosovo. All and all the conference was very well received and we believe that not only did the attendees hopefully learn a new thing or two about how to improve their business but they met a couple new business prospects.



Although I have done similar events to this in the past, I learned very quickly that Kosovo once again provides a unique environment to operate in. For example, each of the 13 presentations had to be translated and edited for English, Albanian and Serbian (which means 39 versions). Not to mention most of the speakers are not very good (understatement) at using powerpoint so I had to edit each one increasing font size, altering layouts etc. The problem was that since a majority were not in English, I could not actually comment or edit the text. And then once it was translated if we needed to make edits we would have to do it 3 different times.



And of course there are the obligatory opening remarks by VIP's and government officials. Our keynote Deputy Minister of Ag. bailed at the last minute so we got his assistant who proceeded to talk 10 minutes over his allotted time about nothing related to the topics at hand. And then there is the attention span. Apparently most of the audience could hold it together for about a half hour before they get fidgety, start talking, leave the room, or take their cell phone calls. This attention deficit was magnified by the fact that once I fed them their free lunch, about 3/4 of the conference left leaving only a handful for the final excellent panel discussion. And you could forget about getting any supplies from the hotel. They don't even have a copy machine. All the projectors, computers, translation equipment, speakers, microphones etc were brought in from outside companies. They did however provide the food, drinks and little snacks which were much appreciated. Can't say much for the quality of the local wine though.



So all things aside, several of the Ministers said it was one of the best events they have ever attended. USAID made opening remarks with the Mission Director and appeared to be very interested in the guest presentations made during the morning sessions. As for me, 3 months of planning and logistics were rewarded by my failed attempt to snowboard (see earlier blog posting). And there you have it. I guess an event in the life...

Letting Go of the Past

I did not realize the true depth of Albanian vs. Serbian animosity till I visited the Kosovar town of Skenderaj to see the UCK memorial dedicated to the killing of an entire 'militant' family (22 members) by the Serbian troops during the war in 1999. I have seen many war memorials before but not ones that have attempted to build an entire theme park around it (little more than a model and parking lot foundation have been built) and that have left the site as close to its original state as possible. As the story goes the head members of this family were all leaders in the UCK army that was fighting for Kosovo's independence. Serbian troops had tracked down their family compound and launched a 3 day assault with an extremely large number of troops and munitions against this one family, which stood strong. Men, women and children were all killed and their bodies have since been buried across the street with full time honor guards standing out in the cold and bitter winds. I never understood this logic anywhere but I am thankful that it is not I standing like a statue.

A visitor shed sells all types of propaganda surrounding the family, the fighting, the war, etc. in all language. The 3 homes of the compound have been left pretty much in tact from the days of the fighting. Matter of fact, a grotesque system of scaffolding has propped up most of the walls and provided support for a large tin roof to prevent too much decay of the structures. The point is very successfully made that an awesome amount of firepower was used to kill this family. Very hard to imagine what exactly happened during those 3 days as we walked and drove around the peaceful and pretty countryside that still shows obvious signs of neither forgiving or forgetting the atrocities of the past.

A Weekend only in Kosovo...

It began with me rewarding myself by taking a day off work for a 'job well done' in successfully producing a Marketing and Trade Linkages Conference (separate posting). It ended with my worst day here...

A final blast of winter rolled through our area this week dumping 60cm of fresh powder in the mountains by Thursday night so a friend and decided to hit the slopes before anyone else carved up the ungroomed slopes. Leaving bright and early on Friday we were greeted by a ton of snow on the unploughed mountain road leading up to the lifts. In her 4 wheel Subaru we had no problem making all the way up to a waiting line of cars stuck behind a US Military bus that way stuck taking soldiers up for a day of R&R. At least the boys were resourceful enough to take 40 minutes and chain up the first bus only to be stopped 5 more minutes up the road by their second bus of kids they were hosting for a weekend camp. No chains required that bus to be careful manoeuvred back down the hill through a snow bank onto the side so all else could pass. So over an hour later we arrived at an empty mountain town with snow up to our thighs and thick flakes still falling...

Salivating we geared up and headed to the lifts, where we were told nothing was working because of too much snow and not enough people...Of course, why would they actually operate a ski resort on the single best day of skiing and snow they have had all season?? In absolute frustration I hiked up one of the slopes they had started to groom and boarded down once on top (and underneath) the fresh fluffy stuff. Almost too much powder and too short a run to get the hang of what it was like to board on something other than hard pack and ice (for the last 3 years). Not wanting to surrender we went to the only nice restaurant to get a warm bowl of Serbian soup and wait it out till they might change their mind. No luck so we acknowledged defeat and headed back to drive home. As if the point needed to be made that we had wasted our day off, there had been a fender-bender between two cars on the road which by Kosovo law requires you to not move the vehicles till the police arrive...up an unploughed mountain road. Almost three hours later they let traffic move again and in reality they had never even pushed the cars off the road...we just drove next to them. So we had waited for no reason other than to let the police tell us we could drive past. AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Of course there was an element of humor to the day. For example seeing the old Jetta Golfs with no chains but 4 guys sitting in the truck to weight the car down so it might make it up the hill. Or a station wagon trying to pass all the waiting cars on the left where there was an unploughed lane. Of course getting stuck and requiring the soldiers to push it out. So, my 'holiday' was 8 hours in a car with no boarding and more frustrations than going to work...how nice. And to top it off everyone was planning on going down there the next day to catch the perfect powder (which they all said was fantastic).



Not being able to bring myself to suffer on that road again, I passed the offers and instead joined two of my other friends down in sunny warm Skopje for an afternoon of shopping and a first rate steak dinner. Of course KFOR had decided to set up an extra road block and truck inspection at the Macedonian border which let cars through one by one. No worries, as long as we didn't wait three hours my day was still a bonus. So with Apache helicopters circling overhead I snapped plenty of shots of a Kosovo traffic jam.





In Skopje, my objective was to purchase nothing more than a can of tennis balls (15 euros in Kosovo) which I succeeded in immediately. Followed by a bonus of purchasing all new casual work shirts and a sporty light corduroy jacket (for under $50US). I guess I figured spending money was a good way to move beyond the day of hell. We walked around in the sun, had some fresh baked donut circles and just enjoying 'getting out' for an afternoon. Sadly we had to end the perfect afternoon with a 5 star steak dinner and fresh salad that is impossible to come by in Pristina. And a smooth 2 hour drive back wrapped up another weekend, only in Kosovo.