Zubin Potok, on the shores of Lake Gazivoda

Look Zubin Potok up on a map and the first thing you see is water. The municipality revolves around Lake Gazivoda, which tops the Statistics Agency’s list of lakes, and that’s how I’d treat it, as the lake municipality, with a medieval monastery thrown in.

A municipality almost empty on the census

Zubin Potok has 61 settlements. The 2024 census counted 763 residents and the Statistics Agency also publishes 3,385 with estimation, as elsewhere in the north. Nearly everyone counted lives in Çabër, with 681, followed by Zupç with 57 and Varragë e Poshtme with 14, while the village the municipality is named after had 5. The OSCE put the area at about 333 km², with an economy of farming and small trade.

Town is roughly 15 km from Mitrovica and 12 km from Zvečan as the crow flies.

Lake Gazivoda

Lake Gazivoda (Ujmani in Albanian) covers 9.1 km² according to the Statistics Agency, ahead of Radoniq, Batllava and Badoc. The OSCE describes it as a 24 km artificial lake built in 1977, calls it one of the municipality’s main resources and tourist attractions, and explains that its hydroelectric plant produces electricity distributed throughout Kosovo. From town, the centre point OpenStreetMap gives the lake is about 8 km away.

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

Churches and a monastery

According to the OSCE, in 2018 there were 16 Serbian Orthodox churches here, most of them from the 14th and 15th centuries, and a 14th-century monastery renovated in 2003 with Special Zone status. Law 03/L-039 names it in article 7.1 n as Duboki Potok monastery, and OpenStreetMap places it about 2 km from town, dedicated to the Presentation of the Virgin. The Ministry of Culture database, by contrast, holds no record for this municipality. OpenStreetMap notes that the monastery’s community is male.

Before you go

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

Roads and services

The OSCE profile rated the infrastructure as good. The main roads linking the villages to town are asphalted, town and villages have water and sewerage, and the power supply is unreliable in the remotest villages. There was a health centre and seven village clinics. Pristina is about 48 km away as the crow flies, and Mitrovica, the region’s main town, about 15.

Before you go

Swimming, boating and lakeside stays don’t feature in any official source I know of, so I won’t pitch it as a beach trip. The British advice, on the other hand, does name Zubin Potok over the risk of protests, sometimes violent. If you’re in a hire car from Pristina, check your rental terms cover the whole of Kosovo before heading up. I’d drive over by day from Mitrovica, and if you carry on north, Leposavić has the Roman town of Municipium DD.

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