Shells, Teargas and Lawlessness

"My room is as clean as a pharmacy.  Although I am over 40, soldiers appreciate my professionalism.  Many of them are coming again.  Also my price is good.  Sex with me is cheaper than to buy porno magazines," Remka says.  An hour with her costs DM 20.  Remka is one of the most widely known women in the Serbian part of the divided Kosovska Mitrovica, a town in the northern part of Kosovo.  At the time of the NATO intervention she deserved a nickname Remka the Tomahawk.  She lives in the settlement called Bosanska Mahala, which is a sort of no-man's-land between the local Serbs and Albanians.  She is particularly keen on being body-searched by the French soldiers stressing that "many of them do not understand that she would not mind at all if they were touching her even more during the search."  She has already learned all the foreign currency rates, and for her services she takes cash in all convertible bank notes.  Remka is a tall blond girl with rough, almost masculine features.   Her hair is short and she has almost ten kilos overweight.  Her competitors are young and pretty girls, who found a solid source of income in the foreign troops in Kosovo.  It is a public secret that sixteen-year-old girls are selling sex for only a few tens of German marks.  One of them is Zorica, a teenage girl with a strikingly big bust.  She lives near the restaurant called "Tiha noc" (Silent Night), which is also visited by the employees of various international organizations in Kosovo.  She usually gives her services to the foreigners in their rented apartments.  

THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE: However, the main problem lies in the fact that in this city the curfew hour starting at 10 p.m., is in force, so the night life has been in a way paralyzed. Cafes and pastry shops are closed before the curfew hour begins, when KFOR's armored cars appear in the streets.  The KFOR soldiers have placed barbed wires on major intersections.  In the evening, the entrance doors of apartment houses are being locked, and only at 6 a.m. the civilians can get out in the street.  

>From early morning, the most frequented place in the Serbian part of the town is the "lotto room," where people gamble for a prize of up to DM 300.  Men sit or stand in the room full of smoke, and attentively watch how a "ping pong" ball is jumping in the gambling wheel.  This is perhaps the only place in this divided city where some sort of discipline and order is in place.  One ticket costs two YU dinars.  The crowd is anxiously and silently watching the drawing of the prize numbers on a big screen.  In a city that does not have a single factory, the money acquired by gambling is a lure for everybody -- from school children to pensioners.  As soon as a round is over, the people in the gambling house begin to talk and make noise.  Many of them have spent their last money on gambling, but the hope that maybe one day the luck will turn their way, never dies.  Only a few steps from the "lotto room" the street is swarming with people, who are selling cigarettes, clothes, and souvenirs... On improvised desks, made of cardboard boxes, people offer secondhand irons, all sorts of electric switches, rearview mirrors ripped from somebody's cars, cheap cameras, tools and the commodities mostly imported from China.  

The big industrial complex of Trepca, which used to be the biggest lead and zinc smeltery in Europe, is not working any more.  The mine of "Stari trg" (Old Square) is situated on the territory controlled by the Albanians, while the smeltery is on the Serb territory.  It used to have sixteen big factories, among which was the gold factory in Prizren, now also on the Albanian territory.  The Serbs consider "Trepca" their property.  A political settlement is still not in sight and without it, these factories will not begin to operate again.   
BARBED WIRE:  Barbed wire and armored cars are also positioned on the city main bridge, which represents the line of ethnic division.  The Serbian cemetery remained in the Albanian part of the city, and one of the Albanian burial places is in the Serb-controlled part.  From time to time, both Serbs and Albanians are visiting those places escorted by international troops.  Orthodox priest Velimir Stojanovic, who remained in the Albanian section of Mitrovica, contends that he "will never leave his church."  Although (from security reasons) his parishioners are not coming to services, he is adamant in his intention to protect his church, now encircled by barbed wire.
He says that there have been "many provocations so far."  He goes shopping in the Serbian part of the city only with help of the Italian carrabinieres, who are securing the church.  

Very few people remember where the city cinema used to be.  Now performances take place in the streets where real people act and real bombs are being thrown.
If  the dead and wounded did not exist, this region would in a way be an acceptable place to live in.  For almost a year no one in Mitrovica has paid taxes, or electricity or telephone bills... It is quite normal to see cars without register plates, while the buying of marihuana or other harder drugs is almost legalized...  On the Kosovo market, one gram of cocaine is DM 20 and that is far cheaper than anywhere in Europe.  A foreigner has only to ask around in the street to find out where the selling sites are or where the drug dealers are, and to realize that Kosovo has become the smuggler paradise.   And not only that.  Kosovska Mitrovica is also a paradise for reporters who indulge in the risks of their profession.  No one even pays attention to the shelling, demonstrations, teargas and arrests any more.  In spite of the peace forces, which came here from all over the world more than nine months ago, this province remains an unstable area.