Summary of the Year

We wait, but we do not hope much. It is a mood that has marked the year, including its end. Some of the images that are not easily erased we have compiled.

“The past year,” summarizes a resident of Strpce, “to tell you, thank God it's over. It means it was no good!” And the impressions of other citizens of Kosovo about the year we are saying goodbye to, are not much different.

However, there were also moments to remember, and even to dance. We discovered some new colors, tastes, plans. Like the Kosovar Minister of Police, we traveled miles just to enjoy the moment. As he told us last summer:

“What is unusual about me coming to the bridge on the Ibar to have a coffee? ” wondered Xhelal Svecla.

Before and after the coffee, the bridge on the Ibar again this year fulfilled its long-established mission. It defied the new burden and scratched old wounds.

Other hardships arrived in a surge of water after the explosion on the Ibar-Lepenac canal. While the responsible ones are being sought, others are being punished.

All in all, a tightening until it snaps. This was one of the strategies that marked the year: queues, dinar, banks, post offices, other institutions, all the way to the flag. Some were taking it down from buildings, others displaying, celebrating their own, and taunting. It is not surprising then that citizens have often literally screamed in anger.

Or as one resident said on the Day of the Albanian Flag, after the arrival of uninvited guests in Gracanica: “I feel defeated. Powerless.”

This was also a year of great victories by others. High expectations and quick adaptation to new American and global circumstances.

Adapting history is an old discipline for which we have again qualified this year and raised to a higher, digital level.

For proving the past, many no longer have time or patience. Focused on the future, finally with a passport in hand, many have left the year and its problems behind.

For the others, they remain in the same society and with the same desires, waiting for midnight and new days.

Happy New Year!