Travelling to a land that most of my fellow countrymen and women regard with suspicion.

Two questions inevitably come together, in whichever order, when I tell people back home where I’m going. “What in the world are you doing there?” and “You’re not going to…?”.

Hiding behind the second pronoun in the first sentence is Kosovo, possibly the world’s youngest state, whose statehood is still fervently disputed by the country I live in, Serbia.

The second sentence hides an even more sinister place-name, one that many of my compatriots seem to be reluctant even to pronounce: Prishtina.

The capital of Kosovo is considered to be more risky than, say, Mitrovica, in whose northern part Serbs constitute a majority. But yes, ladies and gentlemen, despite the fact that my work occasionally takes me to Mitrovica, Prishtina is where I spend most of my time in Kosovo.

To be honest, the horror seen in their faces was not entirely unmatched by my own doubts and reserves I felt before visiting Prishtina for the first time in November last year.

While for Serbia, Kosovo has for long been a myth revived at times to fuel various political purposes, since the 1999 war - for the majority of people - it has become a different kind of mythical place: a land forgotten in time, hidden somewhere between history and improbability.

In the eyes (better to say, minds) of my generation (most of whom never set foot there), Kosovo is a godforsaken place where savage people kill each other casually, cannibals feast on the flesh of children of ethnicities other than their own, and, as Zizek once ironically put, women get beaten - and like it.

Despite being raised and trained to resist stereotypes of whichever form, I must admit my conceptions of Kosovo and Prishtina were much more like Afghanistan and Kabul than Northern Ireland and Belfast, for instance.

But it’s nothing like that. Yes, Kosovo is a post-conflict society and its every pore breathes the reality of that condition. Interethnic violence still poses a threat. There is probably more barbed wire per square metre of land than anywhere else in the Balkans. But it is also a developing society. It’s young, and growing.

Its capital, Prishtina, reflects this in many senses. The ugliness of the communist architecture clashes with the (often uncontrolled) enthusiasm of recent construction. KFOR posters promoting ethnic tolerance (if not reconciliation) are displayed everywhere, but people do not seem disturbed by them as they go about their daily business.

In the streets of Prishtina, life looks normal. During lunch hour, restaurants and cafés are crowded with young professionals enjoying quick, tasty and healthy meals at more than reasonable prices (a combination of things I really miss in Belgrade).

The food is excellent – which means light, fresh, and prepared in a number of ways. (It was probably developed to cater to the tastes of numerous internationals living and working in Prishtina. But who cares, when you can get excellent curry?).

Belgrade may take pride in its café culture, but nowhere have I seen such sophistication and enjoyment in the art of sitting over a cup of macchiato and chatting than in Prishtina.

There is even that rarely achievable crossover of café and bookstore, and of course, it’s right in the city centre (the choice of books is great, so is the coffee, but the latter is not so special since, frankly, coffee is great everywhere in Kosovo).

For the night-minded, the club scene also has a reputation. There is also some beautiful nature once you get outside the city, but here I stop least this text gets mistaken for a tourist promo.

Oh, and another thing – of course I was reluctant to speak Serbian openly at first. But whenever someone overheard me speaking it in a café or restaurant, the only reaction was pleasant surprise and genuine joy.

Most Albanians in those situations will squeeze out as many words of Serbian they know (be it a lot or just a little), smile, ask how are things in Belgrade, or even play some music commonly considered as “naša” (covering a wide array from Serbian turbo-folk over Bosnian sevdalinke to Croatian soft pop, but that’s an altogether different story). It seems they don’t think we eat little children for breakfast. Which is food for thought, if you can pardon the pun.

Jana Bacevic is a university lecturer and education policy analyst based in Belgrade who travels to Kosovo often, both on business and pleasure.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/blogs/18242/