A House in the Balkans

2006-05-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Ascent of Ljuboten

On the 13 May Brian and I went up Mount Ljuboten - one of Kosova’s highest summits (2499 m) and a very majestic mountain sitting very prominently at the end of the Sharr Mountain chain. In fact its summit is on the Kosova/Macedonia border. We had an excellent day for the assent with sunshine the entire day. The whole trip from the nearest road (from an altitude of about 900m) to the summit and back down took 9 hours. It takes about 2 hours to navigate up through the forest to get above the tree line and a further 3½ hours to reach the summit. Most of the way up is simple walking except for the steep approach to the summit where ice axe and crampons become necessary. The descent was much shortened by a long glissade (bum-slide in plain English) straight down about 600m of snow from near the summit. On the return though the forest I saw a bear with (I think) three cubs following behind - the bear turned and went way from us as soon as I saw it. Brian, being behind at the time, didn’t have the good fortune to see them. All-in-all a grand day out.
Not much news on the house - we are still staying most weekends and finishing internal works bit by bit. No doubt this will continue through the summer. Here are some photos of our trip up Ljuboten.

2006-04-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

The Arrival of Spring

Which means warmer weather, naturally, but more importantly electricity most of the day. The snow has gone except in the mountains above the tree line. We have been at the house every weekend in recent weeks. The hardships of winter are behind us and it has been good not work so hard and have time to do some local walks and enjoy the area. Here are a few springtime photographs...the river is the stream outside our house which is in spate now from the snow melt. This weekend a local fisherman caught four trout here! I was surprised as its only for a few months that the water is deep enough for larger fish.

There has been much activity now its warmer and most weekends we have curious visitors around to the house to see what we've been doing all winter. The house is great to stay in now and becoming quite comfortable - we now have proper beds to sleep on so all our hard work and camping on a hard floor over winter was worth it.

2006-03-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Dog Days of Winter
Its been a while since my last posting. This is mainly because Enita and I have been off for a short holiday in Slovenia and later Enita was in Romania on a work trip. There’s been a couple of improvements to the house in the last couple of weekends - we finally have some beds to sleep in. A local woodwork shop in Prishtina manufactured three very strong sturdy beds for us and this had made big difference to our comfort level whilst at the house. We have also how completely finished the upper bedrooms. We’ve finally stopped camping in the house.

Winter has been hanging on in Brezovica. It is always surprising how winter has such a vertical component. What I mean by this is that winter disappears and spring arrives depending on altitude. A couple of weeks ago spring edged its way into Prishtina, but at our house everything was still frozen solid. Then last weekend a major thaw had set in at the house and the first buds appeared on the trees but winter still remained up at the ski resort. I know this because I went skiing last Sunday and there was still a good two metres of snow lying.

Last summer we acquired a dog at our house. Or more precisely she acquired us and is, as is only appropriate for a weekend house, a weekend dog. She is a large cross-bred Sharr dog. Sharr dogs are a local breed here in the Sharr mountains, something like a St Bernard. They are kept by local mountain shepherds to protect against wolves and bears. We feed her and she comes and sits outside our house when we are around. She is very soft and friendly and loves affection but I imagine she could be quite ferocious if she needed to be, in fact she will not go near other humans, only Enita and I as we seem to have gained her trust. She is also the leader of the rest of the local wild dog pack and will not allow other dogs near our house. We have no idea where and how she lives when we are not there, we guess she sleeps in a neighbouring derelict house. We call her Mico (pronounced ‘Meetso’ in English) and she seems to like that name. This is her photograph taken on her last visit to us.

2006-03-07T02:28:00.000-08:00

More Snow and More Work

It’s a while since my last blog. This is mainly because there is not too much to report. Enita and I have spent the last two weekends hard at work on the house, in serious DIY mode. No skiing. Lots of achy arms and backs. Actually we may have gone skiing at least once but the weather hasn’t been so good so we didn‘t go, too cloudy and cold. Lots more snow has fallen often followed by rapid thawing. We heard that there was an avalanche at the ski resort last weekend in which several skiers were partially buried, fortunately no fatalities. So probably good we didn’t go.

Work on the house is going on steadily, we’ve now finished the bedrooms and landing upstairs so now we can start on finishing works downstairs. The kitchen is complete…here’s a photo of the kitchen, with Enita, notice the candles - no power as usual. We plan to buy a generator now. We both felt a bit ill after this weekend's work from the very toxic smelling nitro-based varnish we are using for the floors. Probably we’ll suffer long term health problems from this house reconstruction.

This Monday (yesterday) we were supposed to go on a weeks holiday to Slovenia but Prishtina airport had to cancel all flights due to blizzard conditions. Winter seems unending this year - the first heavy snow fall was in October followed by nearly a meter of snow in one weekend in November and since then we have lived with snow nearly everyday. No doubt the first lambs will be skipping and early daffodils budding in England but in the Balkans winter continues unabated in a blanket of white. Here is a picture of the trees outside our house after more fresh snow.

2006-02-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

A Change in the Weather

A working weekend this weekend, no skiing. This coincided with a sudden change in the weather. After sub-zero temperatures for almost two months without let-up warmer air came to Kosova. This resulted in quite a shock on Friday night, at exactly 1.12 am we both awoke thinking that either there had been an earthquake or a bomb or both. In fact the snow avalanched off our roof; 100 square metres, nearly half a metre deep, fell in a split second with an explosive crack followed by a long rumble. I honestly thought the whole mountain was collapsing it was that loud. Quite a shock.

Next day we had some local workers in the house fitting tiles in the kitchen. They are friends with one of our neighbours, Mile, who came round for a gossip. He is a Serbian refugee from his village about 30 km away from where he was forced to leave after the war. He is waiting for his house to be rebuilt and is in the meantime staying in a disused hotel with his family, including his 83 year-old mother, and about 20 other families. He is a former metal worker and was at one time in the military guard of President Tito, the late Yugoslav President. He helps by doing odd jobs in the area, cutting wood, clearing snow etc., but is very proud and never asks for work even though times must be very hard for his family. He has watched us rebuild our house and must want to get back to his own home.

As for Enita and I we just worked and worked on finishing the house. Its slowly getting there but can be fustratingly slow at times. The kitchen, bathroom, utility room and two bedrooms are pretty well complete, its the sitting room and getting furniture in that is making living there still quite basic. We've increased the comfort levels a bit; we have a gas cooker now so we can have a brew even when there is no power. In fact we are getting a bit more electricity now, a whole 3 hours a day. A couple of photos of me this week; the first is in a preposterously precarious position up the ladder putting some finishing touches high up in the upper landing. The photo angle makes it look a lot worse than it was, I was actually quite stable. The second I'm taking a well earned teabreak.

2006-02-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

Skiing and DIY

My first blog in two weeks...we've now had two very similar weekends in Brezovica. They seem to be following a patten - we go skiing on Saturday and do DIY on the house on the Sunday. In other respects things are much the same as I've reported in earlier postings. It continues to be cold, cold and sometimes even colder. And more fresh snow every week. Only one or two hours of electricity a day. This is turning out to be a hard winter in Kosova.

The mountains are looking wonderful in their full winter dressing and on both Saturdays that we have been skiing we have had sunshine and perfect snow conditions. If these sub-zero conditions continue I am planning to do some snow-shoe mountaineering next weekend as the snow is very crisp right now. This is a great way to get away from the skiing crowds and really get into the mountains.

The house gets a bit nearer to being finished each weekend, although I doubt it will be properly complete until the spring. Last weekend we finished the kitchen installation. I was very surprised when on Sunday last when the company suppling the kitchen turned up unannounced. Not the kind of service usually obtainable in Britain. The installation crew travelled nearly 3 hours to get to us over snow covered roads, on a Sunday, and fitted the last part of our kitchen. That kind of customer service can't be beaten.

Otherwise this weekend we finally finished the second bedroom - thats me in the picture varnishing the floor. So we can now take in guests, all we need now is some furniture.

2006-01-29T11:03:00.000-08:00

No Electricity!

Well not exactly none, if you call one hour a day of electricity, arriving in two half hour doses, having electricity then we have electricity. Brezovica is officially in a Serbian enclave in Kosova and, for largely obsurce political reasons most of the population don't pay their electricity bills. This has for sometime tried the patience of KEK (the Kosova power company) who have now made Brezovica a "Category C" area. This means the we only get electricity when there is enough for the rest of Kosova ("Category A" getting a 24 hour supply). Which is one hour a day. It might get better when the temperatures rise but probably not much. And cold it has been, this last week has seen temperatures drop to minus 25. So its really a wonder that we even get one hour a day.

The picture above is our little Fiat in its parking bay, excavation of which is getting more difficult each weekend due to the build up of snow on either side.

Fortunately our house has proved to be well insulated. But we checked our neighbours house and found water all over the ground floor due to frozen drain pipes. We weren't sure where the water was coming from since we couldn't open the bathroom door due to the leaking water having frozen in a big block of ice behind the door. Anyway we turned off the water at the mains and that afforded a temporary solution. A permanent one will have to wait for a thaw.

The snow just gets deeper, another 45 cm must have fallen since last weekend. No skiing this weekend, just work on the house. But its hard work living without electricity - its more or less a full time job bringing in wood, loading up the stoves, lighting them, cooking and heating water on the stove. Hard enough to do all this and work on the final phases of house reconstruction. Anyway today we more or less completed the varnishing and painting etc. to the second bedroom. Soon we'll be able to have guests, assuming they don't mind 18th century living conditions. Here's a picture of Enita hard at work.

Speaking for myself I, like most of the residents ot the UK, take having electricity at the flick of a switch completely for granted. Here it is like a gift, we almost cheer when our half hour ration arrives. Our relationship with KEK is perhaps like that of victim to torturer, we are pleased with them when they stop our torment and bring us light. We run around doing all the jobs that need power - boiling water, sanding down woodwork, drilling holes etc before it goes off again. Reading at night is such a luxury.

Finally another picture, the house with a view looking south and up towards the Sharr Mountians. This is why we stay here and put up with no electricity - the mountains.

2006-01-23T11:44:00.000-08:00

Snow and Skiing

Another weekend and another blog....this weekend we were able to use the house for something other than just a building project. We went skiing - Brian, a fellow colleague in the Kosova water sector, Enita and I.

We arrived on a cold crisp Friday evening with a perfect clear ski illuminated by an amazing canopy of stars. One of the few advantages of living in a place with frequent power cuts is the lack of light pollution. Actually in Brezovica even with electricity there is practically no artificial light to dilute the star light but its even better when the electricity company plunges the area back into medieval darkness and it is illuminated only by the stars. The whole process of arriving on a Friday evening can be hard work - but fun and a real escape from city living. First it is usually necessary to excavate a parking place for the car in up to a metre of snow. Then to get unpacked by candlelight, to bring in wood and get the wood stoves going. By then its time for bed.

Up early the next day to go skiing. About minus 10 so its a bit of struggle to get ready but at least in the cold there is no hanging around. A perfect cold icy morning with blue ski. The ski resort in Brezovica is 6km up the mountain from the house so it doesn't take long to get there. We were blest with near perfect weather and perfect snow (and lots of it - nearly 2m deep at the resort).

Now I don't know much about the main ski centres of Europe but Brezovica is a fine place to ski. Its small and friendly and most of the ski slopes are steep enough to satisfy the most competent skier. Heres a couple of photos to show how it looks. Thats Brian and Enita in the picture.

After a hard days skiing we go to our usual retreat - Pizzeria Tina - that makes the best pizzas in the Balkans and we recover from the cold and our skiing exertions with cups of mulled wine and hot chocolate.

Sunday we take a while to get up in the morning - its very cold again and getting up to fire the wood stoves is a task that I spend too long lying in my sleeping bag thinking about rather than getting up and doing. After a cold breakfast (no electricity for the essential bowl of porridge) more work on the house to do, although its difficult to work with frequent power cuts. The work has to be done in a flexible manner - doing all the stuff with power tools as and when there is power and then doing painting and other manual tasks when the power goes off. By the time we finish its dark again (and snowing) and time to wend our way back to Prishtina.

2006-01-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

A Cold Weekend

Enita and I have just returned from a cold weekend in Brezovica. A significant weekend for Enita since it marked the first time she has slept in the house since before the war in 1998. But it was cold - I would guess well below minus 10 at night, possibly closer to minus 20. Even with two very effective wood burning stoves it was hard to thaw the ice on the inside of the windows. We both woke up in the early hours with very cold heads and had to find hats to get warm again.

There was also still at least 60 cm of snow around the house - frozen and crisp. Every tree had captured a wonderful lining of frozen snow on each and every branch. This was particularly beautiful at night when the light of a near full moon reflected off the snow.

It proved difficult to work very much. Most of our energies were directed to bringing in wood and continually refuelling the stoves. Between that and preparing meals in a very unfinished house there isn't much time for getting to grips with the internal finishing work that needs doing. We have one bedroom complete and the bathroom is more or less functional - but the rest of the house is a building site. Since we don't have any furniture yet its more of a camping experience than comfortable mountain living.

2005-10-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

Beginnings
For the most of 2005, since May, we have been busy making a house in the Balkans. The house is in the beautiful Brezovica valley on the north side of the Sharr mountains in Kosova. The house is an almost entire reconstruction of our house that was destroyed in the 1998 - 1999 Kosova war of liberation. The picture here shows how it looked after occupation by the Yugoslav army (soldiers took refugee here during the NATO bombing) and a further five years of neglect.

The house is located near the small village of Brezovica, which is in the municipality of Sterpce. The majority of the people in this area are Serbian so Brezovica is now often referred to as an "enclave" since the vast majority of the population of Kosova are Albanian. It is important to know this to understand the context of this house and the local politics. There is still some tension in Kosova between Serbian and Albanian people - although so far we have had nothing but cooperation from everyone we have met in re-building this house.

The house itself deserves to be rebuilt. It is in a beautiful location. It is surrounded by forest and nestling below the towering Sharr mountains which dominate the view to the south. There is a fast flowing mountain stream to the east side of the house. The area around is officially classed as national park land so no one owns it and it is not cultivated. There are no fences around which gives the area a wonderful free feel - when you step out the door you step directly into the forest and onto mountain paths.

As of October 2005 we had more or less completed the rebuilding, at least it looks like a house from the outside, although there is still a lot to do inside. Rebuilding was a story in itself and its pity I didn't start this diary at the beginning....too busy organising builders and materials to find time for blogging! This is how the house looked in October 2005: