Several hundred residents of Gracanica and the surrounding villages decided to celebrate the arrival of the Orthodox New Year, the new century and the new millennium on January 13 "out in the open": on the main street and in the main square in Gracanica, where a public celebration was organized. The slow roasting on a spit of an ox purportedly weighing 500 kilograms began the evening of January 12, at the same time that the first snow began to fall, growing thicker as New Year's Eve approached.
"Maybe it'll be a little better here in the new year. Freedom is the most important thing of all. If we have freedom, we will have everything. Maybe it will come with the change in leadership at UNMIK. We expect this Haekkerup to do better by the Serb people. We hope he will." These were the New Year's wishes of Vojislav Krstic from Dobrosin, who came to Gracanica with his family by bus to celebrate the arrival of the New Year.
Despite the merry holiday scenes, the Orthodox New Year and snow are not enough to hide the difficult life conditions in Gracanica. In comparison with a visit half a year ago, it seems that times are even harder. The only safe way of getting from the administrative border with central Serbia to Gracanica is still with a KFOR escort. Everything else is at one's own risk and requires both good driving skills and a lot of nerve.
Unlike six months ago, when most of the vehicles on the roads had either no license plates or old ones - the Kosovo Albanians reportedly refused the UNMIK plates because of a rumor that the abbreviation on them, KS, stood for "Kosovo Serbia" - now most vehicles, which as a rule are not owned by Serbs, do have them. The Kosovo Serbs still use the insignia of their country, while the Kosovo Albanians, if one is to judge from the construction sites cropping up along the road from Merdare to Gracanica, have an affinity for building gas stations flying three flags apiece: the Albanian flag with its two-headed eagle and the American flag are obligatory; and then the choice between the British flag and the German flag is up to the discretion of the new business owner.
Even though the electrical utility system in Kosovo and Metohija is no longer a part of the mother country, power outages in Gracanica are similar to the "damage restrictions" which hit the rest of Serbia on the eve of 2001 according to the standard [Gregorian] calendar. Because of the low voltage, few electrical devices can function normally. The night of January 13 was no exception; at 10 o'clock the power went out and a good part of Gracanica was left in the dark.
However, the telephone lines are an even bigger problem in Gracanica than electricity. There are almost none. That insecurity and a feeling of abandonment triumph over the desire to resist and survive is demonstrated by the increasing number of sold houses, not only in Gracanica but in other Serb places in central Kosovo. Since the middle of last year, when there were only some signs that the Kosovo Albanians were attempting to "sneak in" by buying up houses along the outskirts of Gracanica, by the January of this year 17 houses have been sold. They are mainly located near the checkpoint toward neighboring Ajvalija, an ethnically pure Albanian village even before the most recent war. At the entrance to Gracanica on that side of town, travelers will find a Hajvali gas station. The situation is similar in Bresje, Lipljan and Caglavica, where it is rumored that the sale of a Serb cafe on the eve of the Serbian elections upset the Serbs but did not prevent the sale of some other houses as well.
Everyone agrees that the most difficult situation is in Kosovo Polje which as late as last year still had a Serb majority; today less than five percent of the population is Serb.
Traditional Serb disunity is nowhere more apparent than among the remaining Kosovo Serbs. People enclosed in a microcosm of imposed enclaves and insecurity in which everyone knows everyone going back for generations, who are politically divided and where it is hard to find three Serbs who have the same vision of a solution to the Kosovo problem have a tendency toward exclusiveness of every possible kind; they have difficulty accepting people from other areas and many of them are waging their own "personal wars" with their compatriots.
The residents of Gracanica continue to have a peculiar relationship with the Church, too. It is said that a local priest, Bogomir Stevic Bogi, upon visiting a parishioner will first ask him in front of the gate to his garden: "Will you receive a visit from a priest?" Despite this, on the first morning of the new Orthodox millennium, as the episcope of Raska-Prizren, Artemije (Radosavljevic), served the liturgy for St. Basil the Great and a prayer service for the beginning of the new year, the church of the monastery of Gracanica was overflowing.
On the same day in the monastery chapel, an Argentine man of Basque-Galician descent named Zarko was received into the Orthodox faith and upon christening took the name of Rastko. A small ceremony was prepared in honor of the new brother with renowned Metohija wine and even better known monastery miniature cakes and pastries in the salon of the monastery residence hall. Brother Rastko came to our country after marrying a woman from Arandjelovac; he came to Kosovo wishing to record on film the story of the local people and the times.
Despite the unusual circumstances, the sisterhood in Gracanica, headed by Prioress Efrosinija (Jeremic), makes every effort to live a normal monastic life as defined by the typicon (rule book of monastery life) - in devotion to God and salvation. On work days the bell for awakening rings out or as the nuns say "the clapper strikes" at 4:30 a.m. The bell summons them to morning worship service, which during the winter is held in the monastery chapel instead of the church due to cold weather. At approximately 6:30 a.m. they go to the church of the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God, an endowment by King Milutin from the second decade of the 14th century, where liturgy is served daily. It is served by the Gracanica priests, by newly ordained priests serving their apprenticeship in Gracanica, and on holidays by the bishop.
After service and a sparse breakfast (tea, coffee, milk), shortly after eight o'clock the nuns withdraw to their duties in the kitchen, dining hall, two are assigned to greet arriving guests... In Gracanica there is an icon-painting and engraving workshop; the nuns themselves sew and embroider. Lunch is served at ten o'clock; after lunch, the workday continues. At 1:30 p.m. the prayer [Atakist] to the Most Holy Mother o God is read; an afternoon snack at two o'clock is followed by free time during which prayer duties are performed (the nuns read prayers assigned by their spiritual leader, the bishop) and read spiritual works. The bell is heard again at five minutes to five o'clock with a call to evening service which lasts about one and a half hours. Supper is at seven o'clock after which the nuns withdraw to their cells for free time. On holidays slightly less stringent rules are in effect.
Both the typicon and prayer duties for each of the 25 nuns in Gracanica are set by the spiritual father, Bishop Artemije, while the prioress as their spiritual mother is concerned with their duties and everyday life. The first, most basic and most important rule in the monastery, one of the nuns explains, is that nothing can be done without the blessing of either the prioress or spiritual father. Trips out of the monastery are allowed only with the permission of the bishop or with the blessing of the prioress to make purchases to meet the needs of the sisterhood. The reading of newspapers and fiction also requires the blessing of the spiritual father, which is received individually, and the same is true for all contacts by the sisters with outside persons, especially for conversations with reporters.
KFOR and the UNMIK police, however, could not prevent the loud boos with which the Albanians attending the ceremony responded to the speech of Rada Trajkovic, the Serb representative in the Interim Administrative Council (IAC) of Kosovo. The sound recording from Kouchner's Pristina farewell, claim foreign reporters, was heard around the world as the best testimony to the achievements of his Kosovo mission.