My family first went to the U.K. in 1999 and, like so many others, we stayed. I’ve lived there ever since. For a long time we intended to move back to Kosovo. First it was “once the war is over” and later it was “when we get British citizenship.” But then my brothers and I were in school and then university and then it was years later and it never happened.

A confession: this was a relief to me. I was happy where I was. My spoken Albanian was clumsy and as I grew older Kosovo became synonymous with awkward teenage encounters in the summer and getting dragged around by my parents to family events. I felt out of place.

I understand now that the problem was that I had no personal relationship to Kosovo aside from what my family told me and I wasn’t really making much effort to cultivate one. My parent’s concept of Kosovo was tied to their youthful experiences before the war and seemed alien to me.

As I developed my own identity rooted in feminism and queerness, I felt that I was somehow unacceptable in Kosovo and that this was tied to having grown up in the U.K. This meant that I associated Kosovo with restrictions and old-fashioned ideas of how to live. I wasn’t interested in it. I didn’t want to deepen ties with a place that would enforce regressive gender norms or make me feel guilty for wanting something different from my life than what my parents wanted.

Then one summer day a few years ago, I joined my cousin on a group hiking trip and my experience of Kosovo shifted completely. We climbed mountain peaks and stretched out on meadows and picked wild strawberries the size of my little fingernail. I’ve done the same every summer since. Now whenever I think of Kosovo it’s the air on the mountaintops and the glint of snow even in July that come to mind, the velvet drape of trees and memories of scrambling across the rocks.

Being out in nature has deepened my attachment to all of Kosovo. The land pulls me back, and I want to spend every weekend up in the mountains, building that relationship and learning about the place my family is from. And I want a beer at the end of it.

This is obviously a romanticized picture because being on holiday in the summer is not the same thing as daily life, with its mundane details and grievances. I know walking in the mountains isn’t how people spend most of their time in Kosovo. It’s not really what I’d spend all my time doing either. And even though hiking is what started shifting things for me, I’ve also been struck by the number of people I’ve met through my cousins who are musical. Or into photography, or street art or story-telling, or animation, or film-making or zine-making. Or alternative club nights, or design. Or have an astrology-themed Instagram account.

My younger brother worked at the Manifesta art festival last summer. Accompanying him to events, I encountered a side of Kosovo’s alternative scene that I never knew about. In these people, I see the same diversity of thought and life experience that I’ve always wanted to surround myself with. My concept of “how people are in Kosovo” expanded, and with it, my desire to have my own connections and community there.

Giving Kosovo a shot

A young Kosovar woman who grew up in the U.K. contemplates moving home.

Vesa Popova

Giving Kosovo a shot

A young Kosovar woman who grew up in the U.K. contemplates moving home.

Vesa Popova