5.3.2011 by ctstmaser.

Gorani keep old customs alive

28/02/2011

A distinctive culture faces new challenges to their cherished way of life.

Photos and text by Nikola Barbutov for Southeast European Times in Belgrade – 28/02/11

The massive slopes of Mount Sar Planina stretch along the southern part of Kosovo. The part of the mountain called Gora is inhabited by a people of the same name — the Gorani. Some say they settled there more than 700 years ago.

The Gorani have their own language, albeit only in spoken form. They have their own unique tradition and culture. Their traditional woven costumes are detailed works of art, yet demand is dwindling as times change. Today there are only between 6,000 and 8,000 of them, whereas in the early 1990s their community was three times that big.

“I have no one to teach,” sighs Vernesa Hajradini, 53, who has spent 35 years behind a loom. Something like that cannot be learned overnight: a person must dedicate their whole life to it. Hajradini has spent decades behind a loom, every day of the week.

She mainly uses it to weave traditional costumes. But although such clothing used to be in high demand, it no longer makes for a lucrative business. What Hajradini can make and sell now benefits the family, but not as it once did.

The weave is extremely difficult and complex. Making the part of the Gorani costume that resembles an apron can alone take up to two weeks. Hajradini can sell it for 180 euros, provided she can find a buyer. Dressing head to toe in a Gorani costume would cost a person 400 euros, and would mean two months of difficult weaving for Hajradini.

Her younger daughter, Anita, is 31, and has spent the last ten years living and working in Austria. Her older sister left Gora more recently, heading to France last year. Hajradini’s son Erkin, 26, and his wife Mebrulja have two young children, but Erkin plans to go abroad too, because there is no work for him in Gora.

“I don’t have a degree, except for a nine-month hairdressing course and that’s about it. It’s difficult to find a job even with proper education,” he tells SETimes.

His father, Nehru Hajradini, is the local school teacher, but cannot help his son find a job. A few years ago, he spent his savings on some land in one of Belgrade’s suburbs, hoping it would help keep his family closer together. Belgrade, he reasons, is not as far as France.

The Gorani are a hard-working people, with a strong sense of their own cultural heritage and of belonging to the territory in which they live. Despite converting to Islam during the Ottoman Empire, they remember their Christian past, and still gather to mark Christmas, St George’s Day and St Mitar’s Day.

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Setimes.com

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