Kosovo Packages/Deals & Travel Agents Near Me

In early 2008, Kosovo separated itself from Serbia. Battered first by Soviet-era architectural planning that often replaced historical sites with concrete-box-style construction and later by the Balkan conflict in the 1990s, there's not much left to see—what remains standing sometimes comes with warnings to look out for unexploded ordnance.

Like Serbia, Kosovo once was part of the now-defunct Yugoslavia, a nation originally cobbled together after World War I from territory inhabited by Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Kosovo is the ancient birthplace of Serbia and rich in national history and tradition, but today its population consists primarily of ethnic Albanian Muslims. When ethnic rivalries began to tear Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s, Serb nationalists began a brutal campaign to "cleanse" Albanian Muslims from Kosovo that continued after a peace accord in 1995 brought the wider Balkan conflict to a close.

A NATO-led peacekeeping force finally imposed an uneasy peace in 1999, but the calm was heavily tested by Kosovo's declaration of independence. Many Serbs were enraged, as they regard Kosovo as a province that rightly belongs to Serbia. (Although many Western nations have recognized Kosovo, its independence has been officially disputed by Serbia, Spain, Russia and more than a dozen other nations.) International forces remain in Kosovo in considerable strength to keep order; the fledgling government is being administered by the United Nations, for now.

The Sar Mountains are home to tourist and ski resorts in the relatively calm south and southeast, but travel to and from Kosovo could be complicated by confusion about entry and exit protocols and leashed hostility on the part of some of its Balkan neighbors. Even nations that have recognized Kosovo haven't yet established embassies or consulates yet, and some neighboring countries won't honor entry stamps affixed by Kosovar border officials. It's not advisable to try to enter Serbia from Kosovo, as border posts and checkpoints have been attacked repeatedly.

The main towns in Kosovo are Pristina, the capital, and Prizren (a city of many mosques, the burial place of Serbian king Stephen Dusan, and home to a wealth of craftsmen who specialize in embroidery and in creating gold and silver articles). Mitrovica, a divided city in the north that includes a large Serbian enclave, is a flashpoint that's best avoided. Since independence, it has been the scene of occasional pitched battles between U.N. peacekeepers and angry residents who preferred Serb rule.

History

Kosovo was part of the kingdom of Illyria until it was conquered by Rome in the 160s BC and made into the province of Illyricum. Migrating Slavs moved into the area during the sixth and seventh centuries, and after the area became part of the Byzantine Empire in the AD 850s, it served as a center for Slavic resistance against the empire. Control of it passed back and forth from Constantinople to Serbians and Bulgarians, until it finally was conquered by Serbs in the 11th century.

Kosovo then became the heart of the Serbian Empire—by the 13th century, Pec was home to the Serbian Orthodox Church, while the secular center of Prizren and Pristina, the capital from which the aristocratic House of Brankovic ruled, both flourished. An Ottoman invasion in the latter part of the 14th century, however, began a gradual Islamization that prompted a major migration of Orthodox Christians out of the area. By the late 1800s, most residents were Albanian Muslims.

When most of central and eastern Europe experienced a surge in ethnic nationalism in the late 19th century, feelings of ethnic Albanian nationalism were awakened, and a League of Prizren was formed to foster a unified Albanian people within the Ottoman Empire. An Albanian revolt broke out in 1910, shortly followed by a larger Balkan war in 1912, in which the Serbs recaptured most of Kosovo. The Serbs proceeded to "re-colonize" the area as many Albanians fled, and eventually the ratio of Serbs to Albanians more or less equalized.

After World War I, the Kingdom of Serbia became the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, and Kosovo was partitioned into four counties, three of them part of Serbia and one part of Montenegro. The area was reorganized again in 1922, with the formation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which had a short life rudely ended by Axis occupation during World War II. At that point, most of Kosovo became part of Italian-controlled Fascist Albania. Kosovars served in the partisan forces known for their fierce resistance to the Axis powers during the war until the area was liberated in 1944. It then became a province of Serbia within Yugoslavia.

Kosovo got a first taste of autonomy in the 1960s, when it was awarded the power to name its own president and prime minister, as well as a representative to the federal presidency of Yugoslavia. About that time, the ethnic balance began to tilt again, with the Albanian population increasing while the number of Serbs remained about the same. Ethnic tensions heated up once more, sparking some protests. In that atmosphere, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 1989 drastically reduced Kosovo's political autonomy; from that point forward, resistance to Serb rule—and corresponding Serb efforts to keep a lid on—escalated steadily.

Open conflict began with skirmishes between security forces, both Serbian and Yugoslav, and the Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian guerrilla force regarded by some as a terrorist organization. Eventually the Serbs brought in military and paramilitary forces, and the conflict evolved into a brutal campaign of "ethnic cleansing." It's believed 1 million or more ethnic Albanians were forced to flee, and thousands remain missing. NATO intervened in 1999, and the war ended with the U.N. taking over administration of the area.

Discussions about independence for Kosovo resulted in the formation of a provisional government in 2001; meanwhile, discussions on a final status eventually yielded a proposal for "supervised independence." It became clear that plan was a dead letter when Russia, which could've vetoed it in the Security Council, declared it wouldn't support a resolution that wasn't acceptable to both Serbians and Kosovars.

Kosovo's legislative Assembly then took matters into its own hands, declaring its independence on 17 February 2008.