Pristina, Kosovo, has the distinction of being often seen as one of Europe’s worst capitals. It is definitely a place I never thought I would visit.

My only point of reference for Jordan 11 Jubilee Hoodie- Good Is The Plug this place is from a dark, distant corner of my mind, remembering the tragic news of the Kosovo War of the late 1990s after years of ethnic purification made about 750,000 Albans must relocate.

For many years, Kosovo’s ethnic Joe Biden For Sake Democracy White Grey majority Albanians contested control of the area with Serbs, even though they made up only 10% of the population, who regarded Kosovo as the cradle of their cultural identity.

The Kosovars declared their Joe Biden 46th President Inauguration Day 2021 Sunset  independence from Serbia in February 2008.

Ten years later, I was suddenly present in this chaotic city. In one direction are the towers rising to the sky of I’m A Stay At Home Dad Which Means I Am Tired Busy and Exhausted A’Clock centuries-old mosques and new tall statues made by domestic and foreign heroes.

Looking the other way, are once-famous landmarks like the state-owned Grand Hotel that are now largely vacant with Kosovan Flag I don’t need therapy I just need to go to Kosovo Vacation Shirt broken windows. “I don’t think it’s the worst hotel in the world,” Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaçi, told a reporter from the New York Times. “But that’s because the world is huge.”

I was, however, on a warm summer evening and chose to walk down an alley a few blocks south of Mother Teresa’s Church near Bill Clinton and George Bush Avenue.

My only trip to Pristina was to cross the Balkans after a 10-day hike in the Alps. After entering the rental apartment without running water (a problem in the whole neighborhood that my landlord cannot explain), I set out, determined to make the most of these two short days off.

With square concrete blocks, Joe Biden Chillin While You Tweeting Man President Shirt communist-style buildings and dusty streets, it is clear to see why Pristina is so badly viewed.

The Lonely Planet handbook calls it “not the most aesthetically pleasing city you’ll ever meet,” and The Boston Globe once said, “This Balkan city is probably the ugliest and most exciting capital in Europe”.

But considering the bloody and politically troubled recent past, comparing Pristina to a place like Paris or Rome is truly unfair. After all, in the past century alone, war in the Balkans left Kosovo under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the kingdom of Serbia, Yugoslavia, even Italy (as part of Great Albania during World War II) and Serbia again.

Image source, Deorah Huso Image

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Pristina, Kosovo, often regarded as Europe’s ugliest capital city

Today, despite boasting some I’m On The Naughty List and I Regret Nothing Funny Christmas Shirt of the oldest mosques in Europe, part The once proud grand Ottoman architecture has been replaced by communist structures from the Yugoslav period.

In fact, my goal while in the city was to see the most infamous structures of this communist period: the Kosovo National Library, a jumble of concrete blocks called a by Virtual Travel newspaper. in the world’s worst buildings.

Opened in 1982, the National Library is Pristina’s most prominent structure: a giant brutal structure whose metallic exterior resembles a railing reminds of a prison.

However, as I pushed open the glass entrance hidden beneath the library’s metal facade, there was a special beauty in this building, with its 99 domes and large windows.

Both the unusual exterior and the main deck of mosaic marble, bathed in a vast natural light stream from the building’s largest dome, evoke a connection with vanished Byzantine and Islamic architecture. by Pristina.

But then, just a few blocks away,It’s Not A Political Statement It’s A Patriotic Act Wear A Mask Us Flag Covid 19 White Text Shirt   is the bright white spire of St. Mother Teresa, completed in 2017, 14 years after Pope John Paul II beatified the Albany of his name.

The 76m tall structure is an ironic site here – because Vatican City does not recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty and also because 90% of Kosovo’s population is Muslim.

It is also true of justice. Before the Ottoman Empire took over centuries-long rulership of Kosovo starting in the 14th Century, most Albanians were Catholic.

With Turkish rule, the majority converted to Islam to evade taxes on Catholics. My tour guide, Bekim Xhemili, curator and ethnologist at the Kosovo Museum of Ethnology, says that today only 3% of Kosovo people are Catholic.

The construction history of the Holy Mother Teresa reflects the Kosovo desire to bring decades of conflict (mostly ethnic, not religious) into the past. According to Xhemili, Muslims as well as Catholics have donated money for the building of the sanctuary, with much of the money coming from ethnic Albans living in the United States.

But Kosovo’s path to peace and independence does not necessarily lead to prosperity.

Image source, Deorah Huso

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Completed in 2017, Pristina’s Holy Mother Teresa is due to donations from both Catholics and Muslims.

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