Kosovo's castles and fortresses, from prehistory to the Ottomans

In Kosovo, kalaja is the word you’ll keep seeing on signs, and behind it lies everything from citadels lording it over a town to heaps of stone on a hilltop with millennia of history. Here are the ones with an official record, and the ones I’d actually climb.

What the heritage register holds

Kosovo’s state heritage register, the DTK, lists 17 fortresses and fortified sites. Most are hilltop enclosures that the DTK places somewhere between the Eneolithic and Late Antiquity, and only a handful are medieval or Ottoman. Novo Brdo appears twice, under two separate records. Add Zvečan to the list, which has no DTK entry but which Law 03/L-039 protects as a non-religious Special Protective Zone, alongside the medieval town of Novo Brdo.

Prizren, the one to climb

Prizren Fortress crowns a cone-shaped hill on the east side of the old town, its walls following the contours in a rough oval. Its record says the earliest mention comes from the Byzantine chronicler Procopius of Caesarea, who calls it Petrizen, and divides it into three parts, the upper town, the lower town and the southern town, with ancient, Byzantine, medieval Serbian and Ottoman phases. Digs in 1969 and 2004 uncovered part of that story. For me it’s the best view of Prizren, and you walk up from the centre.

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Novo Brdo and Zvečan, the medieval pair

Novo Brdo Fortress sits on a hill between Përlepnicë and Krivarekë, about 39 km south-east of Pristina according to its record. The DTK dates it to the 13th and 14th centuries, notes that the name first appears in the early 14th as Nuovo Monte and explains that the area was famous for its silver and gold mines, its forges and its mint. The upper fortress had six towers. It’s my favourite as a site, though it takes a car and half a day.

Zvečan Fortress, in the north, is protected under the Special Protective Zones law. If you plan to go, bear in mind the FCDO’s warning about a risk of protests in the northern municipalities and that conditions can change quickly.

In the middle of town

Two can be seen without leaving the built-up area. Kaçanik Fortress is Ottoman, built by Koca Sinan Pasha between 1586 and 1590 according to its record, and its west and north walls, gate and a round tower survive beside the River Lepenc. Vushtrri Fortress stands in the centre of the old town, and the DTK itself quotes several theories about its origins, from Illyrian to Byzantine. One of the authors it cites mentions old foundations found during restoration in 1981.

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The hilltop sites, for walkers

The rest are hilltop enclosures, good for a walk with a view. Pogragjë, near Gjilan, covers 1.2 hectares with an 8 by 8 m tower, and its record places it in the network of Dardanian fortifications from Justinian’s time. Veletin, 970 m up, lies about 5 km south-east of Ulpiana and 1.5 km from Janjevo. The Hisari of Kastërc, about 12 km north-west of Suharekë, was a fortified settlement in the Eneolithic, a fortress under Justinian and a cemetery in the Middle Ages. In Drenas, at Vuçak below Mount Kasmaç, the walls of two late-antique enclosures survive, the Gjyteti i Madh and the Gjyteti i Vogël.

None of them has published opening hours or ticket prices from an official source. I’d wear proper walking shoes for the hilltop ones, go in daylight with water and stay on marked paths, since the FCDO also advises keeping to main routes in some rural border areas.

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