A snow-covered trail snakes upwards to a wooded hill. The deep blue sky and the dancing light from the brilliant sun reflecting off the snow could not be more than any maker of a travel guide could wish for! Were it not for the bullet –proof vests and the heavily armed German soldiers you could imagine that you were in a peaceful alpine winter resort. “It's almost like being at home here in Prattigau”, comments the Swiss Swisscoy guide, as a bad tempered Kfor soldier pulls aside the barbed wire which rudely greets us.

The infrastructure and mechanical utilities, though, are not, up to Swiss standards. The seats of the chairlifts are draughty wood slats and there is not a restaurant or snack bar in sight; no ski huts with fanciful alcoholic beverages to be found; no snow caterpillars have prepared the slopes and the sheer amount of unprepared snow would make any middle-European tour director cringe with worry.

“Before the war we had ski guests from the entire Yugoslavia, Hungary and Greece”, says Sibin Sibinovic, director of Inex-Interexport, who owned a 100-bed hotel and 16 km of ski trails. “On some weekends there were 1500 visitors, whilst now there are only Kfor soldiers and international aid workers who come and pay US $ 5.00 for a daily ski pass”.

For the mostly very Spartan life of the international troops stationed here, though, Bresovica offers them some sort of much needed amusement and sport. According to Daz Slaven, Wing Commander of the British Kfor Unit, skiing has become an important part of military training and fulfils an important social role – the troops need something more than constant patrolling and skiing is a great healthy outlet for energy. In December 2001 an article in the US military magazine Stars and Stripes even stated that hopefully opening of the ski area to the troops would counteract the “night club and pub crawling in Sofia”...

The 40'000 Kosovo stationed Kfor soldiers offered at least some hope for the chain-smoking owner Sibin Sibinovic, but in spite of his good relations with the financially strong military, NGO representatives and Uno-administrators, the political situation around Bresovica did not enable him to keep his 80 workers on the payroll. The compulsory standstill of the last winter resulted in a loss of 25'000 DM for Inex-Interexport's 600 hotel beds alone. The average monthly salary for a Kosovo family was ca. DM 1'000. “The future does not depend upon me, but, rather on the political developments in Kosovo”, says Sibonovic. His expression was not optimistic as he lit his next cigarette...

Susan Manuel, speaker for the Uno administrators of the United Mission in Kosovo (Umnik), believes that the ski tourism might help to bring the various groups of people in Brezovica together again. She personally looks forward to any free day when she can flee the smog, dust and muddy streets after a hard rainfall in Pristina, for the clean air in the mountains. But, sport as a means of uniting the various ethnic groups again?

On the ski slopes of Brezovica there's a group of young Serbs: a “raver”, with pink sunglasses and a Walkman, plays with a Rottweiler; Sasha, with a ghetto blaster in tow and his arm in a cast (from a recent ski accident), says that the mountains and skiing bring him life; and recently a young Albanian friend joined them for skiing. At first glance, Kosovo's youth, seems to be untouched by nationalism and the terrors of war.

“I used to play basketball with the Serbs, but I don't know where they are today”, says a young Albanian. To relax the tense atmosphere between the ethnic groups, the time is not yet ripe. “Too much has happened – it will depend entirely upon who takes the first steps for reconciliation. We know who started the war…”

©Marc Kollmuss (Fotos),© Felix Ruhl (Text)

For the complete text please contact Felix Ruhl: ruhl@balcab.ch