At Banjsca Monastery in Kosovo

It says: Ben Blushi

From Mitrovica, the road passes the foot of the Trepca mine full of mineral waste mountains and chimneys, which once smoked carrying all of Yugoslavia with lead, zing, drinking, and other minerals, whose reserves now account for nearly $12 billion. Today Trepca is exploited very little and very badly, and it is almost an object of extortion by Serb villagers living with its remains.

From Trepca to Banjska, there are about two miles [3 km], winding up between several narrow hills and old houses, where Serbs stay in the yard watching cars.

The village of Banjska, which has no more than 50 homes and possibly about 200 residents -- all Serbs -- still have traces of a brief war that took place here on Sunday, on September 24th, when the village's entrance was blocked by two trucks to prevent Kosovo police and create a safe area around the gun-filled monasteries.

What happened later is known, because the event took the world's lap to revive the memory of the wars that took place in the former Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1999 when Kosovo was freed.

In an effort to pave the way, an Albanian policeman was killed by Serbian paramilitaries, who all day hid in monastery buildings to protect themselves until they left four dead and some injured while the rest broke through the monastery wires and climbed hills to shelter in Serbia.

Now the Banjska Monastery, built by Serbian King Stefan Milutin in the 1300s and has served as a mosque for a century, is also supervised by Kosovo special police. The police stand outside, in front of the center entrance of the monastery, which rarely opens, when Orthodox monks who live there go out for wood or food supplies.

Around the monastery, which has been rebuilt along with St. Stephen's Church, is still the 700 - year - old thick wall almost collapsed. On that wall, Serbian paramilitaries rode when they fled, to rescue Albanian snipers who must have settled in the surrounding hills to get a better view of the target.

In the back of the monks monastery, the monks have set up a tent with red roofs used as a warehouse to collect materials or numerous scraps left there over the years. In the middle of that, there's a long table in which Serbian paramilitaries must have eaten and drank before leaving. Since the Republic of Kosovo has declared them at large, this has probably been their last lunch in Kosovo. Some bottles left carelessly, along with the dishes, are traces of a military body that apparently sought more courage in Serbian labeled beer alcohol.

Albanian special police, who guard the area, speak very little. Of course they know many, but they are not allowed to tell whether they killed Serbs that day and how they captured those who remained. One of them who had a gray bang and looked very much like Hashim Thaci, which didn't seem to enjoy it, was called Enver, while the platoon commander was called Bekim. Most of them had once been KLA.

From the height of the monastery, the entire village of Banjsca appears. Serbian villagers don't get much out in the village and sometimes in the courtyards hear children playing with each other or with their parents. Surprisingly, the village has many small dogs, one of whom barked long and did not separate us as if it had the ability to distinguish Albanians from Serbs.

I took some photos in Banjska as well as in the area around Trepca, which resembles a bottle of bottles that tortures the entire passage between Kosovo and Serbia. Looking back, I thought about how this conflict can be solved which is only in its preliminary phase.

Nobody knows.

The 40 thousand Serbs from the 4 northern Kosovo municipalities, for which Serbia demands Association, continue to live in the midst of this abyss, hoping that one day they will join Serbia. If they didn't have that hope, maybe they would all have left, to find jobs in Serbia that cannot be found in Kosovo.

They don't want to integrate and they don't seem to let them integrate. Serbia pays them even when they don't work. They live there in the mouth of the bottle, praying to their saints for better days.

While awaiting news coming from Belgrade, Serbia is weaker, Kosovo is a little stronger, but the West that seceded Kosovo from Serbia in 1999 is the most fragile and indecisive.

The bathroom, named after the word bath, means that there are hot hot water nearby, is evidence of the hottest area in Europe today.