This steep flight of 233 steps leads up to the suburb known as Dragodan (its old, Serbian, name) or – more recently – Arbëria. The walk to the top is worth it for the great view of the city spread out below you. (Coming down is even more fun, not least because of the long metal slide that has recently been set up alongside the steps, making excellent use of the topography.)
This is the access route to Prishtina’s old affluent neighbourhood with some accompanying good quality restaurants. Many embassies are located here and diplomats live near their offices. When rubbish accumulated alongside the steps a few years back it made this a natural site for an expat clean-up campaign. What happened next could be a parable of international interventions of all kinds – the neatly cleared area was tagged with a sign which said ‘Area cleared up by internationals from [name of organisation]’. Misunderstanding the implications, households nearby took this as a notification that any litter in the area would continue to be cleared and the rubbish returned in even greater quantities…
