Census Takers Face Challenge in Battle for Streets of Kosovo

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia —  Ali Poroshtica, lanky and toothless at 75, has lived in the capital of war-shattered Kosovo for 40 years, the past 30 of them on Moravska Street.

It’s about the only street name he can remember.

“I knew the names before, but they keep changing them,” Poroshtica said, standing in the heart of Pristina on a recent sun-dappled afternoon. “If I want to invite you somewhere, I just tell you the landmarks.”

Not all ethnic Albanian resistance to minority Serbian rule in Kosovo was armed.

Over the past several years, the government of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic led a systematic campaign to “Serbianize” the separatist province by re-christening the streets in the names of Serbian religious, political and military heroes.

But ethnic Albanians, who outnumbered Serbs by 9 to 1, refused to accept the changes, making Pristina a city of streets with no names.

That recalcitrance has left international peacekeepers with a monstrous challenge as they prepare to register Kosovo residents late this month as part of a census from which a voter registration list will be drawn.

U.N. officials want to leave the sticky issue of place names up to whatever local Kosovo authority emerges after elections, likely to be held next year. In the meantime, they have to register people by address, but few will acknowledge the official Serbian names of their own streets, said Albrecht Conze, director of civil documents for the U.N.’s civilian government in Kosovo.

“We don’t want to have [ethnic Albanians] standing in the registration office screaming that they don’t want to live on Prince Lazar Street,” said Conze, referring to the medieval ruler who died after the historic 1389 battle that marked his Serbian kingdom’s last effective stand against the Ottoman Empire. “Albanians do not want to put the hated Serb names on their address cards.”

He said the problem cuts both ways. The relatively few Serbs who remain in Kosovo aren’t likely to accept the old names, many of them Albanian.

So administrators are weighing several possible solutions, including registering people by blocks, much like U.S. census tracts.

Meanwhile, maps don’t help much in Pristina. The city is best negotiated in the style of ancient mariners, with well-known buildings replacing the stars.

For example, the Papillon Cafe, a popular nightspot among young Albanians, was on Vidovdanska--a Serbian word referring to Prince Lazar’s famous battle--when Bekim Berisha opened for business 13 months ago.

But no one can tell you where Vidovdanska is. Even delivery people find the business the same way everyone else does--by looking behind the food kiosks across the street from the 10-story Radio Pristina building.

“Nobody ever asked me [for the address] before,” Berisha said. “Pristina’s not a big city. When you open a new bar, everybody knows.”

Milosevic isn’t the only politician who has tried to stamp Kosovo’s streets. Ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova has tried to get people to call the street in front of Berisha’s cafe Mother Teresa Boulevard, after the late Albanian humanitarian.

So far, there have been few takers.

“As far as I know, when the politics change, the names of the streets change,” said Ekrem Pashalli, 68, who has lived on the same street for most of his life. He gave the history of his street: “Before World War II, the street was called Karagjorgjevo. Then the Communist bandits came in and changed it to Trepcanska. Then later under Tito it was Lole Ribara. Then two years ago the Milosevic bandits changed it to Gavrilo Principa.”

As he stood on one of the main thoroughfares cutting through the core of Pristina, a conga line of smoke-belching cars moved in fits and starts. The gutted ruins of a post office tower, the target of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization missile this spring, loomed behind him. Across the way, a dozen people negotiated the stone steps of the National Theater, another local landmark.

Pashalli was asked if he knew the name of the thoroughfare, older than he is and upon which he has stood countless times before.

He slowly looked up the street, then down.

“No,” Pashalli finally said, smiling as he shook his head. “I don’t know.”