Pristina's old bazaar, and what survived the bulldozers

Anyone arriving at Pristina’s old bazaar expecting lanes of shops like those in Prizren or Gjakova is in for a surprise. There’s no bazaar to wander here, only the buildings that survived its demolition. I find that absence the most interesting thing about it, because it explains Pristina better than any single monument. Here’s what it was, what’s left and how I’d see it.

The heart of the Ottoman town

Kosovo’s Ministry of Culture protects the area under a name so long it reads like an inventory, the old bazaar complex with the Stone Mosque, Jashar Pasha’s mosque, the old fountain, the Kosovo Museum and the clock tower. These are buildings from the 14th to the 19th centuries at the core of the historic zone, around Nazim Gafurri street.

The record quotes a description from 1662 in which Pristina already had a covered trading area, its bazaar, a hammam, 11 inns and about 300 shops. The Ministry describes the bazaar as the city’s cultural, social, craft, trading and administrative centre, crossed by two urban axes. The Municipality’s leaflet adds that from the 17th to the 19th centuries Pristina held international produce fairs that drew merchants from several countries.

So what happened to it?

It was knocked down. The Ministry of Culture says so plainly, quoting the slogan of the time, “destroy the old, build the new”. The bazaar was cleared for a new administrative quarter, and the centre lost its historic character. The Municipality’s leaflet puts the urban plan in 1953 and the demolitions between 1950 and 1970, and adds something few visitors know. In 1988 the two rivers that crossed the city, the Prishtevka and the Vellusha, were covered over.

What survived, the Ministry says, is three mosques within the old boundaries, the hammams, the clock tower, a few houses and some other public buildings. Even the stone house now standing in the yard of the Ethnological Museum in Pristina was moved there in 1960, and it’s the only building left of the bazaar itself.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Pristina before prices climb.

The two bazaar mosques

The Stone Mosque, or Çarshi Xhamia, takes its name from the bazaar it once faced. The Municipality’s leaflet calls it Pristina’s oldest building, begun in 1392 under Sultan Bayezid and finished under Mehmed II. The Ministry dates it to the early 15th century and describes a square hall 12.70 metres a side, its dome raised on a twelve-sided drum, walls painted with plant motifs and a stone minaret that has never been altered. When the record was written, conservation work was under way.

Jashar Pasha’s mosque stands on the same street. The Ministry dates it to the 15th century, but its look is 19th-century, from when Jashar Pasha, a local man, paid for a thorough rebuild and left it his name. It’s a single-domed hall 10.50 metres a side, with an open timber porch, painted walls and a ten-sided minaret carved at its base. The Ministry holds it up as an example of late Ottoman baroque.

The fountain, the tower and the museum

In the Stone Mosque’s yard is the old marble fountain, which the Ministry dates to the late 17th or early 18th century. It’s the only public fountain of its kind left in Pristina, out of dozens that once stood around the city. Six marble slabs 77 centimetres high, decorated with rosettes, surround the basin. Its water once came by pipe from the springs of Germia Park and now comes from the city supply.

To the east are the Kosovo Museum, in its 1885-86 building, and the 26-metre Pristina clock tower. A little further north the Ministry also protects the Llapi Mosque, dated by some sources to 1470 and by a slab found in 1996 to 1551; it burned in 1999, was restored in 2009-10 along with its 16th-century paintings, and is open again to worshippers.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Pristina Old Bazaar and choose by the reviews.

How I’d walk it

In an hour, on foot, going inside only where a door is open. I’d start at the Stone Mosque, look at the fountain, carry on to Jashar Pasha’s mosque and the museum, then head up to the clock tower, the Great Hammam and the Imperial Mosque, which make up the other side of the same old town. The mosques are working places of worship, so go outside prayer times and dress modestly. That loop is the first morning of my one-day route round the city.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Pristina before prices climb.