Photos from Our World

Prizreni, Europe's most oriental city

The town of Prizreni did not suffer much during the Kosovo War with NATO bombing confined to a number of military and security force sites in and around the town. Serbian forces destroyed an important Albanian cultural monument in Prizren, the League of Prizren building. Serbian forces also made a concerted effort to attack mosques in order to insult the residents' religion. Prizren's surrounding municipality was badly affected 1998-1999. Before the war, it was estimated that the municipality's population was about 78% Kosovo Albanian, 5% Serb and 17% from other national communities. During the war most of the Albanian population were either forced or intimidated into leaving the town. At the end of the war in June 1999, most of the Albanian population returned to Prizren. Serbian and Roma minorities fled: 97% of Serbs and 60% of Romas had left town by October. The community is now predominantly ethnically Albanian, but other minorities such as Turkish, Ashkali (a minority declaring itself as Albanian Roma) and Bosniak (including Torbesh community) live there as well, be that in the city itself, or in villages around.

Further damage occurred on March 17, 2004, during the Unrest in Kosovo: this time to Serb cultural monuments such as old Orthodox Serb churches: Our Lady of Ljeviš from 1307, the Church of the Holy Salvation, the Church of St. George (the city's largest church), the St. George Runjevac, a chapel of St. Nicholas, the Monastery of The Holy Archangels, as well as Prizren's Seminary and all the residences of the local priests were damaged by Albanian rioters as revenge during the unrest. Although very few Serbs remain in the town itself, the municipality is still the most culturally and ethnically heterogeneous of Kosovo, retaining communities of Bosniaks, Turks, and Roma in addition to the majority Kosovo Albanian population live in Prizren. Likewise, a significant number of Kosovo Serbs reside in small villages, enclaves, or protected housing complexes. Furthermore, Prizren's Turkish community is socially prominent and influential, and the Turkish language is widely spoken even by non-ethnic Turks.

In the late sixties, when these photos were taken, Prizren was a wonderfully exotic town, with its population still largely wearing traditional dress.

	At the market	Roma woman	Shopping for beads	Selling jugs
	Shqipëtar women	Shqipëtar men	Bridge over the Bistrica	Old houses
	Water fountain	Two Shqipëtar men	Two Shqipëtar women	Shqipëtar boy

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