I've often mentioned it, but never shown it. Pristina is a chaotic, unstructured and untidy place. It has its appeals but most are not visual... and yet, at certain times and certain moments, its quirky charms become slowly and strangely apparent. Especially on summer evenings, when the new-found daily heat (since the start of July its often peaked at 35 degrees in the afternoons) begins to fade into evening cool, Pristina relaxes into its café culture, its neighbourly strolling the streets, its children playing outside on the road, its citizens lolling on balconies.
Since the hot weather has begun, the city has also been bathed by a tremendously beautiful hour of twilight every evening between about 7.00 and 8.00pm. Pristina suddenly becomes another city, and for an hour or so it begins to look almost... beautiful here. Really! The sad reality being that the vivid, velvety sunsets, I presume, are the result of the city's terrible smog and the serious dust problems which arise from unpaved roads, industrial waste and that coal-fueled power station. If sunsets are the result of atmospheric conditions, then Pristina has a lot going on up there.
Last week, I managed to take some pictures which I think capture the city's essential charm at that magicked hour of evening. These were taken last Friday, 15 July 2011.
Is this the ugliest building in Europe? The library building of the University of Prishtina
Unfinished Serbian Orthodox Church of Christ the Saviour, construction of which was interrupted by the 1999 conflict
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