Prishtine

View of the city and its skyline. This camera is located in the heart of Prishtine, Kosovo. Prishtina is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. Pristina, also spelled Prishtina or Priština listen (help·info) (Albanian: Prishtinë or Prishtina, Serbian: Приштина, Priština) is the capital and largest city of Kosovo[a]. It is the administrative center of the homonymous municipality and district. It is estimated that the current population of the city stands between 500,000[1] and 600,000.[2] The city has a majority Albanian population, alongside other smaller communities including Turks, Bosniaks, Roma and others. The territory's interim government and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) have their headquarters in the city. It is the administrative, educational, cultural center of Kosovo. The city is home to the University of Pristina and has an international airport, Pristina International Airport, with the IATA airport code of PRN and ICAO code LYPR (temporarily BKPR while UNMIK in effect). The name of the city is derived from a Slavic form *Prišьčь, a possessive adjective from the personal name *Prišьkъ, (preserved in the Kajkavian surname Prišek, in the Old Polish personal name Przyszek, and in the Polish surname Przyszek) and the derivational suffix -ina 'belonging to X and his kin'. The name is most likely a patronymic of the personal name *Prišь, preserved as a surname in Polish Przysz and Sorbian Priš, a hypochoristic of the Slavic personal name Pribyslavъ.[3] A false etymology connects the name Priština with Serbo-Croatian prišt (пришт), meaning 'ulcer' or 'tumor', referring to its 'boiling'.[4] However, this explanation cannot be correct, as Slavic place names ending in -ina corresponding to an adjective and/or name of an inhabitant lacking this suffix are built from personal names or denote a person and never derive, under these conditions, from common nouns (SNOJ 2007: loc. cit.). The inhabitants of this city are called Prishtinali or Prishtinas in Albanian; in standard Serbian they are called Prištinci (Приштинци) or Prištevci (Приштевци) in the local dialect. Pristina lies in the geographical coordinates 42° 40' 0" North and 21° 10' 0" East Pristina covers 572 square kilometres (221 sq mi). Pristina lies in the Northeastern part of Kosovo close to the Goljak mountains. It has a good geographical position because it lies in the continental cross roads. From Pristina there is a good view of the Šar Mountains which lie several kilometres away in the south of Kosovo. Pristina is located beside two large towns, Obilić and Kosovo Polje. In fact Pristina has grown so much these past years that it has connected with Kosovo Polje. Lake Badovac is just a few kilometres to the south of the city. There is no river passing through the city of Pristina now but there was one that passed through the centre. The river flows through underground tunnels and is let out into the surface when it passes the city. The reason for covering the river was because of: The river passed by the local market and everyone dumped their waste there. This caused an awful smell and the river had to be covered. The river only flowes through Pristina's suburbs in the north and in the south. In Roman times a large town called Ulpiana existed 15 kilometres (9 miles) to the south of modern-day Pristina. This city was destroyed but was restored by the Emperor Justinian I. Today the town of Lipljan stands on the site of the Roman city, and remains of the old city can still be seen. After the fall of Rome, Pristina grew from the ruins of the former Roman city. The city was located at a junction of roads leading in all directions throughout the Balkans. For this reason Pristina rose to become an important trading centre on the main trade routes across south-eastern Europe. Pristina came to be of great importance to the medieval Serbian state, and served as the capital of King Milutin (1282-1321) and other Serbian rulers from the Nemanjić and Branković dynasties until the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, when an invading Ottoman army decisively defeated the Balkans coalition army. In the following decades the area gradually came under Ottoman control, there was an Ottoman law-court in Pristina in 1423. The whole of Serbia was subsequently conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1459. The building of the former "Rilindja" newspaper, also the tallest in Pristina. UNMIK Head Quarters - Pristina. Mother Teresa Boulevard. The Ministry of Culture Osce Building in Pristina. Grand Hotel. Palace of Youth Kosovar Government Central Building (Formerly a bank, damaged in the 1999 war, now fully renovated). National Public Library in Pristina. RTK Building. Skanderbeg statue in PrishtinaPjeter Bogdani, who is the most original writer of early literature in Albanian, lived and worked in Kosovo. After his return to the Balkans in March 1686 and spent the next years promoting resistance to the armies of the Ottoman Empire, in particular in Kosovo. In 1686 Pristina was briefly liberated by Pjeter Bogdani with aid of Austrians. He published his book Cuneus Profetarum (Alb: Ceta e Profeteve roughly Vanguard of the Prophets) in 1685.[5] During the Ottoman Empire, Pristina became increasingly Ottoman in character following the conversion to Islam of many of its inhabitants, both Albanians and Slavs. From the 1870s onwards Albanians in the region formed the League of Prizren to resist Ottoman rule, and a provisional government was formed in 1881. In 1912 Pristina along with the rest of Kosovo was briefly included in the newly independent state of Albania. But the following year the Great Powers forced Albania to cede the region to the Kingdom of Serbia. In 1918 Kosovo became a part of the newly formed Yugoslavia, though without any of the autonomy that the region later enjoyed. Before World War II, Pristina was an ethnically mixed town with large communities of Albanians and Serbs. Many Albanians were deported to Turkey as a consequence of the ethnic cleaning program applied by the Serbs. Muslim Albanians were identified as Turks and thus forcibly evicted from their ancestors' homes. The Albanians were sent to Turkey, where the Turkish government enforced them to accept new Turkish names and settle the Turkish provinces formerly inhabited by Greeks and Armenians. The Second World War saw the decline of Pristina's Serbian community as well as a large-scale settling of Albanians in the town. Between 1941 and 1945 Pristina was incorporated into the Italian-occupied Greater Albania.