REPORT ON THE FIELDTRIP FOR CITIZENS FROM SERBIAN ENCLAVES FROM THE MUNICIPALITIES OF NOVO BRDO AND KLOKOT, ORGANIZED ON NOVEMBER 21, 2009

On Saturday, November 21, the Priština Office of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia organized a fieldtrip for citizens from Serbian enclaves of Novo Brdo, Prekovce, Bostane, Izvor, Jasenovik, Klobukar, Straža and Klokot.

A group of 68 people, mostly young people and women, participated in the fieldtrip. They visited Štrpce and the Brezovica Ski Center, tourist resort Prevalac on Šara, Prizren (monastery of Sveti Arhangel, the church of Bogorodica Ljeviška, church of Sveti Spas, Orthodox Seminary (Bogoslovija), old Turkish bath - hamam, old bridge over Bistrica, the Šadrvan square and walked around the city trade center), and the monastery of Visoki Decani. For the majority of the participants in the fieldtrip, this was the first visit to these parts of Kosovo. During the visit to the church of Bogorodica Ljeviška in Prizren, they met with a dozen nuns from Raška, who also came to visit this shrine. They talked with the nuns, sang spiritual songs and carried out other religions ceremonies.

The fieldtrip started at 9 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. There were no problems, incidents or provocations. The participants moved freely, communicated in their own language, bought items in shops and were very happy with the fact that they were given the opportunity to visit these places.

One of the participants was Milorad Simijanovic from the village of Klobukar, Novo Brdo municipality, who returned to his native village in July of 2009, together with 32 other residents of the same village, where 18 houses were built for the returnees, and out of this number, 14 houses for Serbian families. Simijanovic expressed his support for this project of the Helsinki Committee, and stated that: "it was a concrete way to help the process of returning and integrating into Kosovo society. I support such activities, which are of great importance for liberating people from fear, especially the younger population, who did not have the chance to see anything for 10 years. During the visit, although we had no direct contact, we did communicate with the Albanians, walked around, visited our shrines, bought things, and no one looked at us badly".

Sonja Ivkovic from the village of Izvor near Novo Brdo also spoke highly of the fieldtrip: "I am happy that I participated in this fieldtrip", Sonja said, and added: "I value the efforts of the Helsinki Committee to help the people get away from their daily routine, which is sometimes not so pleasant. I have to say that by taking these people on a fieldtrip the Helsinki Committee accomplished a great deed. It meant so much to everyone. For this reason, I kindly ask you to organize again something for the people from Novo Brdo and its surroundings if you have the means, and I believe that you do. It would be ideal if you could organize a trip to Zociste, Patriarchy of Pec. this would be interesting for the people, it would help them get away from their daily routine and, in a way, help them also to relax, and all generations at that", Ivkovic said. During the entire trip back from Decani to their homes, the participants were singing, and afterwards, they thanked the Helsinki Committee for organizing the fieldtrip.

The fieldtrip was recorded by the "Link Produkcija" video crew, accompanied by the journalist Zarko Joksimovic. "Link Produkcija" will prepare a DVD about the activities from this fieldtrip.