April 11, 2023 • 28 mins
In this episode of 6 Degrees of Cats, the world's #1 (and only) cat-themed culture, history and science podcast, the team heads to Eastern Europe to understand ways young nations are building inclusive communities that value not only humans, but also felines, canines, and other animals.
Listen in as Ares Shporta, a cultural leader in Prizren, describes the history of Kosovo and why efforts to restore the Lumbardhi Theatre to its post-war condition has fostered a community where all neighbors – human and animal – are welcome. Filmmaker Kaltrina Krasniqi shares how her passion for caring for stray and abandoned animals led to the creation of Pristina’s most popular bookstore-café, Dit’ e Nat’, and its most beloved feline resident. Meanwhile, animal rights legal activist Elza Ramadani discusses the strides she and her colleagues at Animal Rights Foundation Kosovo (ARF) have made to ensure that animals are recognized as valuable members of the community in Kosovo, Europe's youngest nation.
Learn a bit more about the history of this young nation through an inspiring exploration of how feline advocacy and animal welfare are making a positive impact on communities in Kosovo and beyond.
Support the podcast, sign up for The Captain’s Log, the companion podcast newsletter and learn about way$ to help keep this ship afloat for our next season here: linktr.ee/6degreesofcats.
Featured voices:
- Kaltrina Krasniqi is a Kosovan storyteller and director whose film, Vera Dreams of the Sea, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2021 has since received international acclaim. She co-owns Pristina’s Dit’ e Nat’ bookstore-cafe (Instagram: @ditenatcafebookshop) and founded Oral History Kosovo and Vera Films, her film production company.
- Elza Ramadani is the founder of Kosovo’s Fondacioni për të Drejtat e Kafshëve në Kosovë / Fondacija za prava životinja Kosovo / Animal Rights Foundation Kosovo - ARF), which was founded in 2018 to improve animal welfare, focusing on the legislative aspects of protecting and promoting animal rights.
- Ares Shporta is the executive director of Prizren, Kosovo’s Lumbardhi Foundation, which oversees the historic Lumbardhi Theatre. Through its programs, it aims to create civic spaces for research, experimentation and collective learning.
Producer, writer, editor, sound designer, host, basically everything*
- Captain Kitty (Amanda B.)
* with co-executive producers Binky & Snuggles
Animal voices include:
- Binky & Snuggles _^..^_
Opening and closing credits:
- Leathered: "Look Alive" (c) 2022
- Samples licensed via Loopcloud
- Additional sound effects from Pixabay.com
Logo design:
- Edward Anthony © 2024 (Instagram: @itsmyunzii)
Research cited:
- BBC. (2023, January 23). Kosovo profile. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18328859
- History of the ASPCA. ASPCA. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.aspca.org/about-us/history-of-the-aspca
- Pet ownership statistics in 2023 | the zebra. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/pet-ownership-statistics/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Oh, I'll be in key.
(00:02):
Do you think of me as your roommate or your mommy?
Ah!
Your Butler, are you serious?
Where did you even learn that word?
If you've been watching Downtown Abbey,
Downton.
Downton Abbey.
Thanks, Binky.
(Opening song "Look Alive" by Leathered)
Welcome to episode four of Six Degrees of Cats.
(00:24):
A podcast about how cats have shaped our past, present, and future.
We meet again.
Now, you may not know this about me, but I, Captain Kitty, and one of those rare and unique
people who love traveling.
And of course, in my travels, I make a lot of friends.
Cat friends.
Last year, I was hired for a job that took me to Kosovo.
(00:48):
Kosovo is in Eastern Europe.
It's bordered by Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro.
The famous Balkin Mountain Range is among its most notable landscape features.
A close second?
The Accursed Mountain.
It's furry residents and their human care takers really left a positive impression on me.
(01:14):
So in this episode, I'm passing the mic to Binky and Snuggles, who will be interviewing the cats of Kosovo.
I'm kidding.
I'm just really excited to share with you more about this amazing country.
It's full of some really inspiring community cats, or lists, for all the residents in their communities.
(01:37):
Before we dive in, a disclaimer.
Kosovo's been through a lot of stuff, and I want to make sure that we don't have this expectation that any single person can represent a quote-unquote objective perspective of what happened.
And you won't come away from this episode with a comprehensive overview of Kosovo.
I don't really know a good resource for that.
(02:00):
You just have to travel and talk to the people and experience it for yourself.
That said, we'll do our best here at 6 degrees of cats.
So, off we go to Kosovo.
Of course, I had heard of Kosovo before.
(02:22):
I knew it was near the Balkans, and that it's one of the few Muslim majority nations in Europe.
But beyond that, didn't have a lot of information.
I'm guessing that, like me, dear listener, unless you personally have a direct connection to the region or country,
you haven't had Kosovo on your radar either.
We're at not for the work I tend to worry, I don't think it would have been on my agenda.
(02:46):
And I'm so glad it was.
So I stayed in Prizren, which is the second largest city in Kosovo.
It was in the fall.
I walked around Prizren in my downtime and explored a few sites, stopping into shops full of pistachios.
Enjoying mint tea and fresh salads with ripe tomatoes and really incredible halu-mi-like cheese.
(03:12):
The Ottoman Empire's historic influence on this region was super evident in both the food and the stunning architecture.
My colleagues and I had many cool opportunities to meet community and cultural leaders in Prizren.
I hung out with the only (Kosovan) female producer of raki, which is a special local brandy, at Syrrush, her bar and shop.
(03:37):
We were also allowed to see a private showing of punk and anarchic themes by a curator of political texts that were published and produced and Kosovo.
There were two things about my time in Prizren that compelled me to bring us to Kosovo.
The first was just how darn welcoming and extremely knowledgeable and conversant the folks that we spoke to were.
(03:59):
And the second, the animals on the street.
For all North Americans here, let me clarify.
The animals on the street I'm talking about aren't rats, or trash pandas (raccoons).
I'm talking about cats and dogs.
I've traveled to other cities in Europe and Asia where feral animals share the streets and community spaces with humans.
(04:26):
But there was something different about the street animals in Kosovo.
While dining al fresco, a family of kittens played at my feet and the staff were totally indifferent to their presence.
The cats were, well, some variation of tabby?
The dogs, however, that was different.
(04:48):
I saw golden retrievers running around with chihuahua's on the streets.
Laboror retrievers and pit bulls hanging out. They looked almost pure bred.
Turns out there's a pretty specific explanation for that, and it starts with the history of Kosovo.
Since I, Amanda B., am far from qualified to speak to the history of Kosovo,
(05:11):
I'm lucky to call upon the expertise of one of the Kosovo's,
I had the privilege of learning from who runs a large cultural foundation in Prizren.
My name is Ares Shporta, I'm a native of Prizren, which is second biggest town in Kosovo, the youngest country in Europe.
Prizren is an old city, it's over 3000 years old.
(05:34):
It has all layers of Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, or Serbian, Yugoslav, and other kind of new historical layers.
It's a very particular place, it's a multi-lingual, tri-lingual, so it makes it very culturally, linguistically, digitally diverse within the context of its region.
(05:55):
I studied in Istanbul for six years, I did cultural policy, cultural management studies.
I was at the time part of an initiative, the second initiative to save all the cinema impossible from privatization and demolition.
And after we successful stopped it for a second time, I was kind of summoned to my hometown and came back to the co-founding director of Lumbardhi Foundation,
(06:21):
LUMB-ARD-HI, which is a non-profit focused to revive the cultural life, and preserve through reviving this whole cinema that practically functions as an interdisciplinary art center.
Kosovans have gone through a lot.
Kosovo was an autonomous province, there was a war in 1998 and 1999.
(06:44):
This was the last of the Yugoslav Wars of '90s.
We were administered by the UN for nine years, in 2008.
I was 17, in the independence declaration and the constitution and the flag and the hymn were approved.
To get a sense of the work that folks like Ares are doing to keep Kosovo and culture and community moving forward,
(07:06):
Ares shared more about the early post-war years.
After the war, there was nothing.
Priority was security.
You had military rule, you had curfew, you had no cultural life.
No culture, is nothing.
In the state, public infrastructure would take years and years to be reviving.
(07:28):
But the community is because we had lived in parallel.
We organized education system, finance system, health care and everything in parallel for a whole decade.
We organized the part of the cultural life and alternative culture while being moved to a kind of technically underdeveloped in terms of the kind of services it provides to its citizens.
(07:50):
There is a sense of duty to one has this idea in relation to what can be built, not because we believe in nature state.
Kosovo is multi-ethnic state.
It's not based on one ethnicity.
It's just a matter of the state that the processes are way of trying to influence what kind of society will be and what kind of care and what kind of services will provide.
(08:17):
So all of these weaknesses, loopholes and then flexibility to me seem like an excellent opportunity to craft our own model somehow to the best of our ability and capacity.
And the Lumbardhi Theater is one such example of a new kind of model.
One that includes all of its citizens.
(08:38):
The bar that was a space for all of all kinds of others or those who have been others.
Also it's kind of the first safe space for the clear community and preserve.
People are really recently starting to recognize some very basic human facts.
And these spaces include non-human others.
(09:00):
In our cinema and our garden we created a safe space for the local community of our cat neighborhood and dog neighbors.
I could definitely pick up on that when I was in the theater myself.
It was such an open and welcoming space.
I had the opportunity to speak to another such person in Kosovo who owns a cultural center that both includes and serves their animal neighbors.
(09:24):
We'll hear from her after the break.
[Music]
When the wars started, a lot of people that had especially dogs, they had to flee their homes and then they would have to let go their animals as well, their cats under dogs.
(09:53):
And I remember those first weeks seeing all of these beautiful dogs very confused in the city not understanding what was happening because they were not used to live outside of their gardens and homes.
That was a filmmaker friend of ours.
My name is Kaltrina Krasniqi.
I'm a film director from Kosovo.
(10:15):
I've been making films since I was 18.
I've set up several organizations in my life starting with a coffee book shop, Dit' e Nat'.
Then there are films that are small of some company which is focused mostly in supporting young and brave voices in cinema.
I'm also one of the founding members of Oral History Kosovo, which is a platform where voices of people from different paths of life are recorded.
(10:42):
They're using oral history methodology.
Kaltrina helped me understand more about those dogs I saw running around.
When we came back from the war, a lot of the animals had also been killed.
But those that survived, now you see different kinds of dogs in the streets, cold and retrievers and pitfalls or I don't know, different kinds of streets.
(11:06):
And like Ares, Kaltrina noticed that these cats and dogs on the street were themselves evidence of the seismic shifts that Kosovo was experiencing post war.
Mostly because it has to do quite a lot with some very dramatic social and political shifts.
This country has been through war and through bombardment, retraction, and also through particular political systems which really didn't encourage people to have big homes or big gardens.
(11:34):
However, after the war, this started to change radically because also the lifestyle of people started to change and animals became a topic in our society.
Kaltrin's business, Dit' e Nat', is one example of how some cultural organizers are informed by and include animals as their neighbors.
(11:55):
In 2009 I started on an MA program in Media and Communications. There was like this international institute we could do that here in Kosovo, that period.
And then there I met this friend Baton who had already opened a small bookshop in the center of the city, but he was thinking of expanding it.
My partner and I, Gens, we were also thinking of joining forces with somebody to establish a platform where we could promote film music but also our favorite books.
(12:26):
So we joined Baton in his venture of opening Dit' e Nat' bookshop.
Very fast, this place became one of the most popular cafes in town. We would have two to three events a week. It was very friendly for people who love coffee and for people who love books and especially those who love to read good translations in English.
(12:52):
What was very interesting was that we had a very small garden and a small little cat started visiting a straight cat. And my partner Gens really fell in love with this cat.
He named her Chef, which in Albanian means boss. She became our bookshop cat. She was a ginger, very friendly.
(13:14):
It's no coincidence that this cafe and bookshop is animal friendly. In fact, it's by design.
We started with our bookshop to do that to feed all the dogs of our neighborhood. And then in the beginning that was not seen as a nice thing because people would be concerned that there would be large groups of dogs coming in front of their houses and threatening.
(13:38):
And then they realized that by developing the relationship with the stray animals or neighbors became safer.
So our neighbors now feed the cats and dogs of our neighborhood and our friendly to them.
And then we realized that we were not the case in the past. However, we still have a very big issue that we're trying to deal in municipality level regarding stray dogs and also stray cats, especially during the wintertime.
(14:10):
Winters can be very harsh here and that really makes the life of stray animals quite difficult.
Here in the United States, according to one statistic, one and a half million domesticated animals in shelters are euthanized annually.
(14:31):
Unfortunately, this is the primary solution across the world that most systems use to quote unquote humanely control animal populations.
For a while, it was the only solution available in Kosovo.
But there have been several nice activist groups that have been dealing with animal rights.
(14:55):
Kaltrina put me in touch with the leader of one such group.
I'm Elza Ramadani. I'm from Kosovo. I live in Pristina. I had this big passion and idea to help the animals in my country because after finish my lost studies,
I just saw that something is missing. I saw many animals on the street and we just wanted to find the sustainable solution for animal protection and also animal rights.
(15:24):
We wanted to make that topic famous, if I may say so, in Kosovo and kind of start talking about it, we saw that no one is doing that.
The foundation is called the animal rights foundation in Kosovo in English or ARF.
In April 2018, we started to register this organization.
(15:50):
It's an ungovernmental organization in Kosovo. We wanted to start talking about loss, ethics, and how the state and institutions actually are dealing with animal rights.
Animals rights and animal welfare in general. Starting from the main problem we saw on the street every day, the stray dogs and stray cats.
(16:11):
People just dumped the animals on the street when they were sick or when they were old or just because they got enough of them.
So in this way, many stray animals also reproduced on the street without any control from the municipalities or the state itself.
And yeah, we have now a very difficult situation.
(16:32):
The stray dogs cats do not pose direct risk to society, but people are afraid of stray animals in general, then they also tend to abuse them and mistreat them sometimes.
Elsa and her team are focused on sustainable and humane solutions on behalf of Kosovo's animal citizens.
We really worked so hard to understand the main root causes of the stray animal situation in Kosovo.
(16:58):
We saw that the lack of proper loss and regulation was the main issue, but also the proper and constant and consistent enforcement of those legal dispositions that we had in Kosovo.
Earlier, I was shared the human side of the post were setting in Kosovo in parallel for animals.
After the war it was difficult to provide security also for the food of people in general and if we talk about companion animals, they didn't care at that time because it was also not so feasible to do that.
(17:31):
But of course 10 years after that or 15 years after that, we kind of can criticize the institutions of not doing more.
Just recently we asked the municipalities what they did actually since 2008 up to now.
We saw that in 2009 and 2010 2013 they actually started to give out tender, spade projects to some veterinarians to shelter some dogs, to register some dogs or cats they were fearing to companion animals which are dogs and cats.
(18:08):
But we never saw such shelters, no one cared about those projects and I think because the state back then was also quite corrupted as we know and it was a chaos after war.
I must say that in 2009 and 2010 nothing was done correctly from my perspective in what we as an organization saw on those documents.
(18:30):
We never saw what really happened and we never got a report or photos or the actual place of the shelter that they were referring to.
We still deal as the country with basic stuff, if I may say so. It's really hard sometimes but of course we really need to stick to it.
(18:51):
The first organization dealing with animal rights in cost of we really need to set a good example and motivate others to do more.
And partnership with other organizations not just in cost of but also abroad.
And Elsa and the team have already had some wins.
One of our biggest achievements up to now is also for pushing the state to draft and approve very big and important national strategy for the humane and sustainable control and management of the dog population in general.
(19:23):
And also one sub legal act for registering companion animals, cats and dogs.
The first time that the state undertook something with a great amount of money to deal with the situation humanely and sustainably.
So we are really really happy that this happened.
We advocated for this two or three years because we wanted to convince the institutions that only with a strategic approach with a sustainable mindset we can solve the situation.
(19:54):
Otherwise, if we just think that we build shelters and kill animals, we just want to solve the issue like that.
Thanks and no small part to ARF's efforts as recently as November 2022.
As a country to register, identify with the micro chip all the dogs as companion animals as pets so that if they get abandoned or lost, we will have an address of the family that takes care for the animals.
(20:21):
The achievement and European Union also and the states around us are asking for cost of when the Balkans actually start something like that.
So animals are more protected, they well being and we know who is abandoning them, they can also be fined.
Finally something is starting to move, but this is just the beginning.
And for kids.
(20:42):
They tend to survive better than dogs and many aspects, but then they also need care, better in the care and getting registered.
Still relies maybe in some of the stray cats that we have around.
We will also consider to make pressure to register cats and to take care more about cats because they really left behind with so many aspects.
(21:03):
So I figured cross about that.
From where I broadcast our version of ARF, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or the ASPCA has been around since 1863, which is 87 years after the declaration of independence was signed.
(21:29):
In comparison, Kosovo declaration of independence was in 2008, so go ARF.
The considerations and care for animal neighbors that Ares, Kaltrina and Elza are addressing hit home.
It's not at all a uniquely Kosovan problem.
There are organizations across the world, from Puerto Rico to Brazil to South Africa to Japan and all places in between,
(21:56):
where similar work to include the animal citizens care and comfort is ongoing.
We've called ourselves pet parents, owners, stewards, guardians.
These animals are part of our community.
(22:17):
They are neighbors. And they're equally entitled to share space safely and comfortably with us.
It's not zero-sum.
Animals even though they look differently, even though they cannot speak to us and cannot think as us, they are just the same.
(22:40):
They have joy, they can experience anger and jealousy and can be sad and depressed, so it's really important to consider them as our same species.
We're not so different, you know, we're animals too.
If we can create relationships with people, we can definitely create relationships with animals.
(23:06):
You learn quite a lot, and mostly about resilience, friendship and sustainability.
There is an increasing number of people taking care of cats and dogs.
I don't separate them much. They are part of our everyday life. Very much part of our ecosystem.
(23:30):
I think we always tell to ourselves as human beings that we are the most important and the supreme intellectuals of this universe and planet.
As homo sapiens, we really need to know better to care more about the other creatures in our habitat.
(23:53):
But Amanda, you might say, there are obvious reasons we prioritize human needs over non-human needs.
From a human-centric perspective, the soul perspective we can really empathize with, there's no question. Human suffering, trumps all.
(24:14):
But I don't think it's either or.
We all stand to enormously benefit if humanity takes on a different species expansive perspective.
We see that we don't have a peaceful mindset and a peaceful society if we treat animals in a wrong way.
(24:35):
If we don't care about animals in general and the welfare and their health, we are risking ourselves.
It's the same with a planet and the environment. We see that with climate crisis around the world.
If we don't care about our environment and our animals as part of this planet and ecosystem, then we will be destroyed by it.
(25:01):
The next time someone asks you why you care so much about cats or animals when there's so much human suffering in the world,
remind them that we haven't really made a lot of progress with that kind of mindset.
It's impossible to create a new and better world if we don't include up front our non-human neighbors,
(25:24):
with whom we share this unique planet.
Or not, so maybe only once is there a cat planet to be discussed in a future episode.
But hold up. We're not leaving this planet just yet.
In fact, we'll be staying in Europe and heading to the snowy hinterlands of Norway, among other places.
(25:49):
Why? Find out in the next episode.
I want to thank the incredible speakers from Kosovo, including...
Ares Shporta
Kaltrina Krasniqi
Elza Ramadani?
While the opinions are mine, the research and hard work is their own.
If you'd like more about Kosovo, my guests and to follow the inspiring work that ARF is doing over there,
(26:12):
or if you'd like to pay me to fly out and interview all the cat people in Kosovo,
please check out the show notes for all the links and references.
And as always, thanks to my production team.
That would be me, Captain Kitty, and my boatswain, Binky and skipper Snuggles.
Thanks again, folks! I appreciate you.
We're all in this together, both on the earth and in this universe.
(26:36):
Everything is connected.
6 Degrees of Cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly.
Captain Kitty, aka Amanda B.
Please subscribe to our mailing list by visiting tinyurl.com/6degreesofcats
or find us on all those social media platforms.
(26:57):
And for my paid subscribers, you'll have access to the extra audio with more deep dives by our experts.
This and all episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient and the weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
(27:23):
So, very soon after Chef came our cat, the second cat, which we named Lula,
which in Albanian language means flower.
She is still with us for nine years now. She is very quiet, very independent, very friendly,
but also she's one of those cats that really, you know, wants to be left alone.
(27:49):
She is not in the mood. And people that frequent are bookshop cafe are used to it.
And respect her space because from the beginning she kind of had her own style on how she's going to deal with the fact that she's living in a busy public space.
[laughter]
Oh, I'll be in key.
(00:02):
Do you think of me as your roommate or your mommy?
Ah!
Your Butler, are you serious?
Where did you even learn that word?
If you've been watching Downtown Abbey,
Downton.
Downton Abbey.
Thanks, Binky.
(Opening song "Look Alive" by Leathered)
Welcome to episode four of Six Degrees of Cats.
(00:24):
A podcast about how cats have shaped our past, present, and future.
We meet again.
Now, you may not know this about me, but I, Captain Kitty, and one of those rare and unique
people who love traveling.
And of course, in my travels, I make a lot of friends.
Cat friends.
Last year, I was hired for a job that took me to Kosovo.
(00:48):
Kosovo is in Eastern Europe.
It's bordered by Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro.
The famous Balkin Mountain Range is among its most notable landscape features.
A close second?
The Accursed Mountain.
It's furry residents and their human care takers really left a positive impression on me.
(01:14):
So in this episode, I'm passing the mic to Binky and Snuggles, who will be interviewing the cats of Kosovo.
I'm kidding.
I'm just really excited to share with you more about this amazing country.
It's full of some really inspiring community cats, or lists, for all the residents in their communities.
(01:37):
Before we dive in, a disclaimer.
Kosovo's been through a lot of stuff, and I want to make sure that we don't have this expectation that any single person can represent a quote-unquote objective perspective of what happened.
And you won't come away from this episode with a comprehensive overview of Kosovo.
I don't really know a good resource for that.
(02:00):
You just have to travel and talk to the people and experience it for yourself.
That said, we'll do our best here at 6 degrees of cats.
So, off we go to Kosovo.
Of course, I had heard of Kosovo before.
(02:22):
I knew it was near the Balkans, and that it's one of the few Muslim majority nations in Europe.
But beyond that, didn't have a lot of information.
I'm guessing that, like me, dear listener, unless you personally have a direct connection to the region or country,
you haven't had Kosovo on your radar either.
We're at not for the work I tend to worry, I don't think it would have been on my agenda.
(02:46):
And I'm so glad it was.
So I stayed in Prizren, which is the second largest city in Kosovo.
It was in the fall.
I walked around Prizren in my downtime and explored a few sites, stopping into shops full of pistachios.
Enjoying mint tea and fresh salads with ripe tomatoes and really incredible halu-mi-like cheese.
(03:12):
The Ottoman Empire's historic influence on this region was super evident in both the food and the stunning architecture.
My colleagues and I had many cool opportunities to meet community and cultural leaders in Prizren.
I hung out with the only (Kosovan) female producer of raki, which is a special local brandy, at Syrrush, her bar and shop.
(03:37):
We were also allowed to see a private showing of punk and anarchic themes by a curator of political texts that were published and produced and Kosovo.
There were two things about my time in Prizren that compelled me to bring us to Kosovo.
The first was just how darn welcoming and extremely knowledgeable and conversant the folks that we spoke to were.
(03:59):
And the second, the animals on the street.
For all North Americans here, let me clarify.
The animals on the street I'm talking about aren't rats, or trash pandas (raccoons).
I'm talking about cats and dogs.
I've traveled to other cities in Europe and Asia where feral animals share the streets and community spaces with humans.
(04:26):
But there was something different about the street animals in Kosovo.
While dining al fresco, a family of kittens played at my feet and the staff were totally indifferent to their presence.
The cats were, well, some variation of tabby?
The dogs, however, that was different.
(04:48):
I saw golden retrievers running around with chihuahua's on the streets.
Laboror retrievers and pit bulls hanging out. They looked almost pure bred.
Turns out there's a pretty specific explanation for that, and it starts with the history of Kosovo.
Since I, Amanda B., am far from qualified to speak to the history of Kosovo,
(05:11):
I'm lucky to call upon the expertise of one of the Kosovo's,
I had the privilege of learning from who runs a large cultural foundation in Prizren.
My name is Ares Shporta, I'm a native of Prizren, which is second biggest town in Kosovo, the youngest country in Europe.
Prizren is an old city, it's over 3000 years old.
(05:34):
It has all layers of Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, or Serbian, Yugoslav, and other kind of new historical layers.
It's a very particular place, it's a multi-lingual, tri-lingual, so it makes it very culturally, linguistically, digitally diverse within the context of its region.
(05:55):
I studied in Istanbul for six years, I did cultural policy, cultural management studies.
I was at the time part of an initiative, the second initiative to save all the cinema impossible from privatization and demolition.
And after we successful stopped it for a second time, I was kind of summoned to my hometown and came back to the co-founding director of Lumbardhi Foundation,
(06:21):
LUMB-ARD-HI, which is a non-profit focused to revive the cultural life, and preserve through reviving this whole cinema that practically functions as an interdisciplinary art center.
Kosovans have gone through a lot.
Kosovo was an autonomous province, there was a war in 1998 and 1999.
(06:44):
This was the last of the Yugoslav Wars of '90s.
We were administered by the UN for nine years, in 2008.
I was 17, in the independence declaration and the constitution and the flag and the hymn were approved.
To get a sense of the work that folks like Ares are doing to keep Kosovo and culture and community moving forward,
(07:06):
Ares shared more about the early post-war years.
After the war, there was nothing.
Priority was security.
You had military rule, you had curfew, you had no cultural life.
No culture, is nothing.
In the state, public infrastructure would take years and years to be reviving.
(07:28):
But the community is because we had lived in parallel.
We organized education system, finance system, health care and everything in parallel for a whole decade.
We organized the part of the cultural life and alternative culture while being moved to a kind of technically underdeveloped in terms of the kind of services it provides to its citizens.
(07:50):
There is a sense of duty to one has this idea in relation to what can be built, not because we believe in nature state.
Kosovo is multi-ethnic state.
It's not based on one ethnicity.
It's just a matter of the state that the processes are way of trying to influence what kind of society will be and what kind of care and what kind of services will provide.
(08:17):
So all of these weaknesses, loopholes and then flexibility to me seem like an excellent opportunity to craft our own model somehow to the best of our ability and capacity.
And the Lumbardhi Theater is one such example of a new kind of model.
One that includes all of its citizens.
(08:38):
The bar that was a space for all of all kinds of others or those who have been others.
Also it's kind of the first safe space for the clear community and preserve.
People are really recently starting to recognize some very basic human facts.
And these spaces include non-human others.
(09:00):
In our cinema and our garden we created a safe space for the local community of our cat neighborhood and dog neighbors.
I could definitely pick up on that when I was in the theater myself.
It was such an open and welcoming space.
I had the opportunity to speak to another such person in Kosovo who owns a cultural center that both includes and serves their animal neighbors.
(09:24):
We'll hear from her after the break.
[Music]
When the wars started, a lot of people that had especially dogs, they had to flee their homes and then they would have to let go their animals as well, their cats under dogs.
(09:53):
And I remember those first weeks seeing all of these beautiful dogs very confused in the city not understanding what was happening because they were not used to live outside of their gardens and homes.
That was a filmmaker friend of ours.
My name is Kaltrina Krasniqi.
I'm a film director from Kosovo.
(10:15):
I've been making films since I was 18.
I've set up several organizations in my life starting with a coffee book shop, Dit' e Nat'.
Then there are films that are small of some company which is focused mostly in supporting young and brave voices in cinema.
I'm also one of the founding members of Oral History Kosovo, which is a platform where voices of people from different paths of life are recorded.
(10:42):
They're using oral history methodology.
Kaltrina helped me understand more about those dogs I saw running around.
When we came back from the war, a lot of the animals had also been killed.
But those that survived, now you see different kinds of dogs in the streets, cold and retrievers and pitfalls or I don't know, different kinds of streets.
(11:06):
And like Ares, Kaltrina noticed that these cats and dogs on the street were themselves evidence of the seismic shifts that Kosovo was experiencing post war.
Mostly because it has to do quite a lot with some very dramatic social and political shifts.
This country has been through war and through bombardment, retraction, and also through particular political systems which really didn't encourage people to have big homes or big gardens.
(11:34):
However, after the war, this started to change radically because also the lifestyle of people started to change and animals became a topic in our society.
Kaltrin's business, Dit' e Nat', is one example of how some cultural organizers are informed by and include animals as their neighbors.
(11:55):
In 2009 I started on an MA program in Media and Communications. There was like this international institute we could do that here in Kosovo, that period.
And then there I met this friend Baton who had already opened a small bookshop in the center of the city, but he was thinking of expanding it.
My partner and I, Gens, we were also thinking of joining forces with somebody to establish a platform where we could promote film music but also our favorite books.
(12:26):
So we joined Baton in his venture of opening Dit' e Nat' bookshop.
Very fast, this place became one of the most popular cafes in town. We would have two to three events a week. It was very friendly for people who love coffee and for people who love books and especially those who love to read good translations in English.
(12:52):
What was very interesting was that we had a very small garden and a small little cat started visiting a straight cat. And my partner Gens really fell in love with this cat.
He named her Chef, which in Albanian means boss. She became our bookshop cat. She was a ginger, very friendly.
(13:14):
It's no coincidence that this cafe and bookshop is animal friendly. In fact, it's by design.
We started with our bookshop to do that to feed all the dogs of our neighborhood. And then in the beginning that was not seen as a nice thing because people would be concerned that there would be large groups of dogs coming in front of their houses and threatening.
(13:38):
And then they realized that by developing the relationship with the stray animals or neighbors became safer.
So our neighbors now feed the cats and dogs of our neighborhood and our friendly to them.
And then we realized that we were not the case in the past. However, we still have a very big issue that we're trying to deal in municipality level regarding stray dogs and also stray cats, especially during the wintertime.
(14:10):
Winters can be very harsh here and that really makes the life of stray animals quite difficult.
Here in the United States, according to one statistic, one and a half million domesticated animals in shelters are euthanized annually.
(14:31):
Unfortunately, this is the primary solution across the world that most systems use to quote unquote humanely control animal populations.
For a while, it was the only solution available in Kosovo.
But there have been several nice activist groups that have been dealing with animal rights.
(14:55):
Kaltrina put me in touch with the leader of one such group.
I'm Elza Ramadani. I'm from Kosovo. I live in Pristina. I had this big passion and idea to help the animals in my country because after finish my lost studies,
I just saw that something is missing. I saw many animals on the street and we just wanted to find the sustainable solution for animal protection and also animal rights.
(15:24):
We wanted to make that topic famous, if I may say so, in Kosovo and kind of start talking about it, we saw that no one is doing that.
The foundation is called the animal rights foundation in Kosovo in English or ARF.
In April 2018, we started to register this organization.
(15:50):
It's an ungovernmental organization in Kosovo. We wanted to start talking about loss, ethics, and how the state and institutions actually are dealing with animal rights.
Animals rights and animal welfare in general. Starting from the main problem we saw on the street every day, the stray dogs and stray cats.
(16:11):
People just dumped the animals on the street when they were sick or when they were old or just because they got enough of them.
So in this way, many stray animals also reproduced on the street without any control from the municipalities or the state itself.
And yeah, we have now a very difficult situation.
(16:32):
The stray dogs cats do not pose direct risk to society, but people are afraid of stray animals in general, then they also tend to abuse them and mistreat them sometimes.
Elsa and her team are focused on sustainable and humane solutions on behalf of Kosovo's animal citizens.
We really worked so hard to understand the main root causes of the stray animal situation in Kosovo.
(16:58):
We saw that the lack of proper loss and regulation was the main issue, but also the proper and constant and consistent enforcement of those legal dispositions that we had in Kosovo.
Earlier, I was shared the human side of the post were setting in Kosovo in parallel for animals.
After the war it was difficult to provide security also for the food of people in general and if we talk about companion animals, they didn't care at that time because it was also not so feasible to do that.
(17:31):
But of course 10 years after that or 15 years after that, we kind of can criticize the institutions of not doing more.
Just recently we asked the municipalities what they did actually since 2008 up to now.
We saw that in 2009 and 2010 2013 they actually started to give out tender, spade projects to some veterinarians to shelter some dogs, to register some dogs or cats they were fearing to companion animals which are dogs and cats.
(18:08):
But we never saw such shelters, no one cared about those projects and I think because the state back then was also quite corrupted as we know and it was a chaos after war.
I must say that in 2009 and 2010 nothing was done correctly from my perspective in what we as an organization saw on those documents.
(18:30):
We never saw what really happened and we never got a report or photos or the actual place of the shelter that they were referring to.
We still deal as the country with basic stuff, if I may say so. It's really hard sometimes but of course we really need to stick to it.
(18:51):
The first organization dealing with animal rights in cost of we really need to set a good example and motivate others to do more.
And partnership with other organizations not just in cost of but also abroad.
And Elsa and the team have already had some wins.
One of our biggest achievements up to now is also for pushing the state to draft and approve very big and important national strategy for the humane and sustainable control and management of the dog population in general.
(19:23):
And also one sub legal act for registering companion animals, cats and dogs.
The first time that the state undertook something with a great amount of money to deal with the situation humanely and sustainably.
So we are really really happy that this happened.
We advocated for this two or three years because we wanted to convince the institutions that only with a strategic approach with a sustainable mindset we can solve the situation.
(19:54):
Otherwise, if we just think that we build shelters and kill animals, we just want to solve the issue like that.
Thanks and no small part to ARF's efforts as recently as November 2022.
As a country to register, identify with the micro chip all the dogs as companion animals as pets so that if they get abandoned or lost, we will have an address of the family that takes care for the animals.
(20:21):
The achievement and European Union also and the states around us are asking for cost of when the Balkans actually start something like that.
So animals are more protected, they well being and we know who is abandoning them, they can also be fined.
Finally something is starting to move, but this is just the beginning.
And for kids.
(20:42):
They tend to survive better than dogs and many aspects, but then they also need care, better in the care and getting registered.
Still relies maybe in some of the stray cats that we have around.
We will also consider to make pressure to register cats and to take care more about cats because they really left behind with so many aspects.
(21:03):
So I figured cross about that.
From where I broadcast our version of ARF, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or the ASPCA has been around since 1863, which is 87 years after the declaration of independence was signed.
(21:29):
In comparison, Kosovo declaration of independence was in 2008, so go ARF.
The considerations and care for animal neighbors that Ares, Kaltrina and Elza are addressing hit home.
It's not at all a uniquely Kosovan problem.
There are organizations across the world, from Puerto Rico to Brazil to South Africa to Japan and all places in between,
(21:56):
where similar work to include the animal citizens care and comfort is ongoing.
We've called ourselves pet parents, owners, stewards, guardians.
These animals are part of our community.
(22:17):
They are neighbors. And they're equally entitled to share space safely and comfortably with us.
It's not zero-sum.
Animals even though they look differently, even though they cannot speak to us and cannot think as us, they are just the same.
(22:40):
They have joy, they can experience anger and jealousy and can be sad and depressed, so it's really important to consider them as our same species.
We're not so different, you know, we're animals too.
If we can create relationships with people, we can definitely create relationships with animals.
(23:06):
You learn quite a lot, and mostly about resilience, friendship and sustainability.
There is an increasing number of people taking care of cats and dogs.
I don't separate them much. They are part of our everyday life. Very much part of our ecosystem.
(23:30):
I think we always tell to ourselves as human beings that we are the most important and the supreme intellectuals of this universe and planet.
As homo sapiens, we really need to know better to care more about the other creatures in our habitat.
(23:53):
But Amanda, you might say, there are obvious reasons we prioritize human needs over non-human needs.
From a human-centric perspective, the soul perspective we can really empathize with, there's no question. Human suffering, trumps all.
(24:14):
But I don't think it's either or.
We all stand to enormously benefit if humanity takes on a different species expansive perspective.
We see that we don't have a peaceful mindset and a peaceful society if we treat animals in a wrong way.
(24:35):
If we don't care about animals in general and the welfare and their health, we are risking ourselves.
It's the same with a planet and the environment. We see that with climate crisis around the world.
If we don't care about our environment and our animals as part of this planet and ecosystem, then we will be destroyed by it.
(25:01):
The next time someone asks you why you care so much about cats or animals when there's so much human suffering in the world,
remind them that we haven't really made a lot of progress with that kind of mindset.
It's impossible to create a new and better world if we don't include up front our non-human neighbors,
(25:24):
with whom we share this unique planet.
Or not, so maybe only once is there a cat planet to be discussed in a future episode.
But hold up. We're not leaving this planet just yet.
In fact, we'll be staying in Europe and heading to the snowy hinterlands of Norway, among other places.
(25:49):
Why? Find out in the next episode.
I want to thank the incredible speakers from Kosovo, including...
Ares Shporta
Kaltrina Krasniqi
Elza Ramadani?
While the opinions are mine, the research and hard work is their own.
If you'd like more about Kosovo, my guests and to follow the inspiring work that ARF is doing over there,
(26:12):
or if you'd like to pay me to fly out and interview all the cat people in Kosovo,
please check out the show notes for all the links and references.
And as always, thanks to my production team.
That would be me, Captain Kitty, and my boatswain, Binky and skipper Snuggles.
Thanks again, folks! I appreciate you.
We're all in this together, both on the earth and in this universe.
(26:36):
Everything is connected.
6 Degrees of Cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly.
Captain Kitty, aka Amanda B.
Please subscribe to our mailing list by visiting tinyurl.com/6degreesofcats
or find us on all those social media platforms.
(26:57):
And for my paid subscribers, you'll have access to the extra audio with more deep dives by our experts.
This and all episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient and the weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
(27:23):
So, very soon after Chef came our cat, the second cat, which we named Lula,
which in Albanian language means flower.
She is still with us for nine years now. She is very quiet, very independent, very friendly,
but also she's one of those cats that really, you know, wants to be left alone.
(27:49):
She is not in the mood. And people that frequent are bookshop cafe are used to it.
And respect her space because from the beginning she kind of had her own style on how she's going to deal with the fact that she's living in a busy public space.
[laughter]
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