Disputes over control and mismanagement of Kosovo’s Brezovica ski resort have starved it of much-needed investment, despite the massive potential it offers for winter tourism and as a model for Serb-Albanian collaboration.
The ski infrastructure is outdated, and access woefully unfit to cope with the demand; tourists grumble about having to walk so far due to a lack of parking capacity at the ski centre itself.
“From what I’ve seen, the road needs to be widened so buses don’t get blocked,” said first-time visitor Ermal Bala from the Albanian capital, Tirana. Skier Ylli Hasani said the resort needed more ski lifts, “because the cable cars take too much time”, while Shpend Murseli questioned the quality of trail markings.
“There isn’t much safety for someone who may be skiing for the first time here; they could get lost,” Murseli told BIRN.
Dispute over control
Ski lift at Brezovica. Photo: BIRN/Denis Sllovinja
Built in the 1970s, the ski centre was one of hundreds of ‘socially-owned enterprises’, a corporate model of socialist Yugoslavia.
After the war, when NATO air strikes drove out Serbian forces and Kosovo became a ward of the United Nations, these enterprises were claimed by Kosovo, which Serbia fiercely disputed.
Brezovica reopened in 2002, staffed mainly by Serbs who form the majority in the municipality of Strpce/Shterpce, where the ski centre is located near Kosovo’s southern border with North Macedonia. The pistes, some as high as 2,500 metres and boasting snow for roughly 280 days of the year, have largely been spared the ethnic tensions between minority Serbs and the Albanian majority that have bubbled and sometimes boiled over since the war.
The ski centre needs millions of euros of investment but attempts to privatise it have so far failed.
In 2021, it was taken over by the Kosovo Privatisation Agency, KPA, a Kosovo government agency, but since the centre is located in a national park, day-to-day management was placed in the hands of Kosovo’s National Park Directorate.
It was previously run by Shterpce/Strpce municipality.
“There were never problems like those we see now,” the office of Shterpce/Strpce mayor Dalibor Jevtic, a member of the Belgrade-backed Serb political party Srpska Lista, told BIRN by email.
“The National Park charges both vehicle and visitor entry fees, yet no investment is made in maintaining or clearing the parking areas of snow,” it said. “At the end of each winter season, a pile of garbage remains, which the Strpce Municipality cleans due to environmental concerns, despite it being under the Directorate’s responsibility.”
“Cooperation with the central authorities regarding the management of the ski centre is non-existent and every proposal we sent to the central authorities was rejected without any consideration or response from their side.”
The municipality accused the government of refusing to issue it a licence for waste management, leaving it to pay for a temporary licence for a company from nearby Ferizaj/Urosevac to clean up the rubbish at the ski centre.
Control is at the core of the dispute.
“All the land at the ski centre is the property of the Municipality of Strpce and the Municipality of Strpce will fight with legal means to manage the ski centre,” the municipality told BIRN.
Illegal construction
Brezovica Ski Resort. Photo: BIRN/Denis Sllovinja
Since placing the ski centre under direct administration in January 2021, the KPA says it has extended loans to the enterprise amounting to 211,000 euros.
The agency told BIRN that Brezovica is a special case that requires close collaboration between local and state bodies.
“Due to the nature of the sector in which Brezovica’s assets fall and the importance of this centre not only for the community where these assets are geographically located but also for the tourism/hospitality sector at the national level, an extraordinary approach and considerable commitment are required, not only from the Kosovo Privatisation Agency but also from other relevant stakeholders with an interest in this matter,” it said.
What has gone ahead, however, is the construction of private villas in what should be a protected zone.
Previously, a BIRN investigation revealed that 800 villas and hotels had been built unlawfully in Brezovica, with the collusion of senior municipality officials, businessmen and politicians.
Yet the region stands out for another reason, for the relative ethnic harmony in and around the ski centre.
“Sometimes we joke about how we pronounce words or combine them, but we understand each other,” said Verka, a local Serb who was helping an Albanian tourist get into her ski gear. A Serb member of the Kosovo Police spoke in fluent Albanian as he tried to redirect traffic from an overloaded parking area.