Ferizaj cultural tour

This city has always been considered as a place where tolerance and coexistence in terms of religion and culture has been part of the society in the last centuries.

Ferizaj is a municipality located in the southeastern part of Kosovo. The city according to the last official census it has 42,000 inhabitants and about 110,000 inhabitants with the entire municipality (96% Albanians and 3% Ashkalis). It is strategically located at the mouth of the Kaçanik Gorge, which cuts the Sharr mountains in two and gives access to the plain of Polog, in the Republic of Macedonia.

Ferizaj is a relatively new town, not necessarily pretty, it was conceived as a wild West town, hastily cut around the rails of the railroad. A plaque in the center attributes the town’s name to the owner of its first guesthouse, Feriz Shashivari.
In addition to some desolate former industrial yards waiting to be redeveloped into doubtless yet more housing stock, there is some active industry – a sunflower oil factory, a metalworking factory, and a pipe factory.
Also near the city is located a huge American base camp of Bondsteel that serves as the headquarters for Multinational Task Force East (MNTF-E), led by the US army. Camp Bondsteel is the largest and the most expensive foreign military base built by the US in Europe, since the Vietnam War.

What to visit in Ferizaj?

As a small place, Ferizaj can be easily explored within a day, as there aren’t many attractions to visit in this town.

Sadik Tafarshiku Library

Built in 1928 and converted to a library in 1950, today this impressive red and yellow building stores a large collection of Albanian language books as well as a good reflection of English novels and references books. Next door to the library is an art gallery and city museum.

The Mosque and Church

A rare sight, the bright white modernized Mosque of Mulla Veseli and the Orthodox Cathedral share same yard in the center of Ferizaj. The mosque was built in  1984 and reconstructed in 1941, while the church was constructed in 1927.

Nerodime Bifurcation & Nika’s Mill

The bifurcation of the Nerodime river occurs only 6 kilometers away from Ferizaj. It’s a hydrological curiosity, unique in Europe, because the two divided streams run off and flow into two different seas: the Aegean and the Black Sea.
The rare phenomenon can be witnessed at the bifurcation point, close to Nika’s Mill which was built during the 16th century and  is open to visitors as well. This is oldest building of Ferizaj, that made use of the river’s flow for nearly 500 years.

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