Part Two
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What kind of games were they? You mentioned something about… what kind of games were they? Micheal Jackson, Super Mario…
Edmond Pruthi: Super Mario (laughs). We had many, many games. For example, the shop in Mitrovica had around 40 video games. The most popular games were Autofront, Albanians called it Autron. It had cars, Ferrari. There was a guy with his girlfriend and they would go to Miami or wherever you chose to go. There was the steering wheel and when you would go on the side it would shake (laughs). Like an illusion of reality.
Then there was Operation Wolf and Operation Bear, it had two names. But here, our customers called it A47 with a rifle. It was a very big video game and for the sensor or whatever it is of the rifle to work, it didn’t directly work on the screen, but there was a mirror, so mirroring. The mirror would transmit the signal when they wanted to kill someone. You would see the screen in the mirror and you would shoot.
It was very popular. Maybe because those things were more popular during the ‘90s (laughs), but we just played games. There was also Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat was like Fortnite today, back then it was Mortal Kombat. There was a football game Kick off, now it’s FIFA. All these games I mentioned were two-dimensional, there are no turns, now they are 3D.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What was their duration? What kind of experience was it?
Edmond Pruthi: They could last three seconds to three hours, it depended on the player. It was, it was like a joke for the players to get to the queen or to get to the crown. Well, the queen… there were different levels, so ten to 15 levels, it depended on the game, it would get harder as the levels passed. The whole point was that your friends would see you play, and at the end you would write your name with three letters. You couldn’t type more, just three letters.
Now others would come to try and break the record of the person who was first. In the beginning was Kick off, then Athletics. The Athletics of the Olympiad. To throw the discus, jump, everything, running, someone came… Iliri, behind the Edi Club now they make ice for coffee shops. He said, “Look how my finger is crooked from playing games here.” (laughs) There are many different memories people who grew up here have.
Another one, a guy came here with his wife and children, and they were very in, you know, the way they talked to each other. His wife said, “You play there with the rifle game, I would come by here with my friends, I would look at you, you wouldn’t see me.” (laughs) You know, she had a crush on him but now they’re married, she reached her goal..
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Weren’t there women here? Girls?
Edmond Pruthi: They didn’t come in, they would just walk by here to see their crushes while they were playing and not paying attention (laughs). But I told her, “You got what you wanted, you made him like you. You got married.”
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did the police notice Edi Club? Would they come to search there or something?
Edmond Pruthi: I don’t… as far as I remember and I remember very well because I was here all the time, as I said, it was a family business. We didn’t have any experience like that. We worked at the Edi Club in Pristina and Mitrovica. We worked from morning until evening. Students would come here, I apologize to the teachers whose classes they would skip to come here, because they would do that. But we didn’t have any problems worth mentioning.
The biggest problem was that the comfort of my family and many other people destabilized in March ‘99, when since ‘98, I don’t know if you remember, but there was news that it will end today, no it will end tomorrow, there was Rambouillet and so on. There was news all the time. Back then I was 23, my father, mother and brother got tourist visas to America, New York, but they didn’t travel… we didn’t know what was happening, everything was destabilized.
On March 17 ‘99, my mother, father and brother went to New York as tourists. Because I think on March 15 was the Rambouillet decision, and he said, “I don’t know what’s happening. Let’s go…” he said, “we’ll stay there for a month and we will come back.” Me, Tina, Valentina and Vlora were here. The employers of Edi Club in Mitrovica and Prista were still here and, “The three of us will take charge.” My youngest sister was little back then, thirteen years old, Vlora, “Me and Tina will take care of the shops.” So my parents and my brother could go to America for a month…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you have relatives there?
Edmond Pruthi: Yes, my dad’s cousin was there, she sent him the warranty so they got a tourist visa. We were left here and… but that’s just luck. After a week the bombing started.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What happened? Did they kick you out of your house?
Edmond Pruthi: We were in the apartment here in Dardania. On March 24, ‘99, at 6:00 in the evening, in 8:00 in the evening the bombings started, at 8:04. At 6:00 in the evening Edi Club was closed in Pristina and we talked to Gani Xhaka, he was a very close collaborator of ours in Mitrovica. Gani Xhaka, Shefki Maxhuni, Ferki Maxhuni and many… Xhema, and many others that we worked with, Besim Nura. Most of these were directors or in management in Trepça, but when the violent measures started in the beginning of the ‘90s, when everyone got fired, my father gathered everyone in Edi Club, “Come work here,” to take care of their family.
My father hired 13 employers in Mitrovica, here were three employers who worked during the ‘90s. The shops closed and me and my sisters were stuck in the apartment. We were unprepared because we weren’t experienced with bombing, now we would know, you know? The bombings started, we were stuck in the apartment. The next day… there was a bakery called Arena, it was here in Kurrizi. I went to buy bread and said, “Two loaves of bread.” She said, “Boy, when you come out of your house you buy a bag of bread, not just two loaves!” I said, “Why? I’ll come buy fresh ones tomorrow.”
She just gave me a bag of bread. A bag like this, she told me how much it cost, I gave her the money, she gave me the change and I took it home. It was the first time I bought that much bread.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Were they planning to close it down?
Edmond Pruthi: No, but it wasn’t safe. While I was buying bread some sort of alarm went off, an alarm, you know? It wasn’t safe. We stayed in the apartment for five days, until March 29, when the building emptied.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did anyone ask you to leave?
Edmond Pruthi: Huh?
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Were you influenced by others to leave the apartment or how? Did someone kick you out?
Edmond Pruthi: No, it was… I can’t say they kicked us, but let’s say they walked us out. We left with cars to Macedonia. We took our father’s car, an Opel Ascona. Me, my two sisters and two other neighbors, and the other before us, at 6:00 am, early. I remember on our way to Macedonia, in Lipjan, where Janjevo’s crossroad is, we passed tanks, a line of tanks. We were the first ones who passed them.
Then at the border when I talked to my neighbors and stuff… but the last tank had told them, “You can pass.” You know, with a hand like this. Then there weren’t any cars on the streets, it was very dead. Also in Kaçanik, there was a stone house there, I don’t know if it still exists. There were soldiers there, we saw them, soldiers of ex-Yugoslavia, and we went to the border. At 8:00 am we were at the Kosovo-Macedonia border.
Our car was turned on. We will pass the border now, we had six or seven cars in front. We stayed in Bllace for a week with…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What was the experience in Bllace like?
Edmond Pruthi: With my two sisters. Four days, sorry, three days, but four days here in Kosovo’s territory, we didn’t even dare to turn on the car to heat up, because it was cold, the beginning of April ‘99. It would be cold at night, the car was made out of iron, my sister was young, thirteen years old. And…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: You can take a break.
Edmond Pruthi: We stayed three days in Kosovo at the border. We couldn’t turn on the car to heat it up because it was cold during the night. When we would turn on the car at 02:00-03:00 am, we would hope that the security guards there were somewhere sleeping. We would turn on the heat for at least three or four minutes. But they would come and hit the car hood with a baton, it was dark, we couldn’t even see, you know? We would just hear it bam {onomatopoeia} and you would turn off the car.
Maybe it was a strategy they used, because it’s easier to control the mass when it’s quiet. There were a lot of cars. We were at the border but during the day we could walk around the line of cars, you know? I remember Franklin Seda’s family, my childhood friend, Robert, was probably 30-40 cars behind me, almost at Shercen, or whatever that is, made out of concrete. They said the line of cars was from Kaçanik. I don’t know, I didn’t see it, but that’s what they said.
And what impressed me when they allowed us to get into the neutral zone, in the middle of Kosovo and Macedonia, Bllace, it was like a camp. When they let us pass through they didn’t even ask for our documentation at the border but… maybe you’ve done that when you play with cards, those lines that you make, one, two, three, four and five, you know? That’s how they wrote down how many people were in the car. We were three. And with his hand {shows with his hand}, go. We went… now we stayed in the neutral zone for three more days, so seven days in total.
I remember in the neutral zone, I’ll tell only one thing. People we know here in Pristina, I wanted to mention Mc Beka, Bekim Latifi, he was engaged with the Red Cross or I don’t know. He comes at 2:00 or 3:00 am and he sees me sleeping in my car, he knocks on my window. I looked at him, Beka, I said, “What are you doing, Beka?” We both grew up in Lakrishte, “Do you want milk?” said, “No, thank you!” (laughs) In that neutral zone there was milk, there was bread, but bread with raisins, not normal bread. Get rid of the raisins, you know? (laughs) We couldn’t eat it.
There was food, but there was mostly luxurious food, give me some water, because milk… (laughs)
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did the Red Cross give these out?
Edmond Pruthi: I don’t know, some organization. I don’t know. Then it was difficult when we wanted to get something when aid would come with trucks from Macedonia. The Bllace camp, but we were over it with cars. When the trucks would come, some basketball player would get in front of us and… because they would just throw them out. You couldn’t get anything that you needed. Biscuits or whatever they brought. And when some Albanian would spread their arms they would get everything for themselves (laughs). I would say, “Bro, you got everything, move out the way, shorter people are behind you.”
There were funny moments, you know? So the situation would be more relaxed after…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: So the Macedonians didn’t allow you to pass the border, that’s why you were stuck in the neutral zone?
Edmond Pruthi: Yes, yes. We were stuck in the neutral zone because Macedonia didn’t accept refugees. At the same time some embassies started to accept refugees to take them to a third state, further than Macedonia. But Macedonia wasn’t making any deals with them… the news I listened to in the car, you know?
Erëmirë Krasniqi: So you could listen to the channels from one side? Radio channels?
Edmond Pruthi: Yes, from Macedonia. There was also Haraqina Radio, it was in Albanian. In the ‘90s the radio was strong. The long antenna outside (laughs) it would work very well. There was another moment, we were mostly Albanians there, there were some of the Roma community from Ferizaj in a van. But they had everything for themselves, we were unprepared. They would feed us sometimes, they would give us food.
At some point, I will never forget it, they came from the Embassy of Turkey and said, “We have a deal with the Government of Macedonia that 100 cars can pass through Macedonia, Bulgaria and go to Turkey. I will never forget it, all Albanians and Roma, maybe Ashkali I don’t know, would speak Albanian. When suddenly they all started to speak Turkish. I thought, “Uee {onomatopoeia}, where am I? What changed?” They started speaking in Turkish, they would write the car plates, names and last names. They asked me, “Will you write them?” I said, “No, what would I do in Turkey?” I said, “I will go to Macedonia, if I’m lucky enough I will join my family. They will come to Skopje, or we will go to New York, I don’t plan on getting out of here.” We had a normal life.
And after… when they got those hundred signatures, me and my sister didn’t sign that list. Then the Government of Macedonia ignored that, they canceled the deal. So they came back, they all became Albanians again (laughs). It’s hard, but this is reality, it happened in front of my eyes. Our car broke down, it wouldn’t start. Opel Diesel, it’s normal. Albanians defend it by saying that Diesel doesn’t cost as much. It didn’t start, we pushed it.
Now I thought when we would go to Macedonia we would pull it with another car or something to Skopje. If we can’t find a place to sleep we would sleep there, you know? There’s no other way, you have to find a way to survive in the most imaginable situation of my life. There was a friend of mine, he died in ‘99 after the war in a car crash here at Xhevdet Doda, at the Cathedral, Albert Caka. His mother went to a house there… it was in the neutral zone. She found flour and a well. She got water and would do something with the flour, there was a wood stove there she would make, how do we call them? Crepes, kurtz kurtz {onomatopoeia} you know? (Laughs)
She would put the batter there and make them, you know? A little bit of salt. Flour, salt and water. And at some point Alberti, he was a very good guy, he said, “Hey…” his father was the Minister of Education…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Parallel, of the Parallel System.
Edmond Pruthi: Of the Parallel System, he was an education inspector. He said… they would make it through the month, you know? But he was a good friend of mine, we were together all the time. Me, him and Drilon Shala, he had the Art Photo, a photographic studio here at Kurrizi, Naim Shala’s son. And Albert said, “You have shops, you have a good life. My father is an inspector and here we are, the same…” I said, “We were the same there, too. Since we were good friends it doesn’t matter, we were the same.” “No…” he said, “I mean family financial conditions.” So in that moment there were no rich people, no poor people, we were all the same.
So Albert’s mother would make us that bread or I don’t know what to call it. We passed the border, we pushed the car somehow. I’ve never shared these experiences before, never (laughs). I was in a car crash in ‘97 at the crossroad of the Hospital and since then I never drove again, even though it wasn’t my fault. And when we passed the border there was a guy dressed in all white, a young boy, he had a sweater with braids. He was dressed well. He had a nice, big Mercedes, I don’t know the model, but it was big.
He said, “It doesn’t start?” I said, “No, I’ll wait for a van or something to tow us to Skopje.” He said… he opened the trunk and pulled out the tow. He said, “Here, let’s do it.” I said, “No, I won’t tow this car.” The car looked very expensive…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: From Kosovo or Macedonia?
Edmond Pruthi: From Macedonia, I didn’t know him, but later I realized who he was. After like a month I found out who he was. He laid down with those white clothes and towed our Opel with his car. He said, “Let’s go.” My sister, Tina, didn’t want to drive because she said, “I’ve never done it, I will hit the car in front, I don’t know how to do it.” There I broke my oath to not drive, but to this day I’ve never driven again, except there. I’ve never driven since then, I only broke my oath when he towed us…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: You never drove again?
Edmond Pruthi: Never again, never. That day I took over the steering wheel to Skopje. We went there, we went to an auto mechanic at the entrance of Skopje. I didn’t have the number of my family in America in a paper or something because I didn’t know what would happen until we got to the border. Where would we go, what would happen, I didn’t know. I thought if someone would stop me and find that American number they would get angry, what is that number, you know? I would think about all kinds of things. So I memorized the number in Pristina, and I would repeat it in my head when we went to the border so… I would remember it.
I called my family from that auto mechanic’s shop and they… they knew we were fine, we were in Macedonia. After a month I went with one of my friends from the village… yes, we were refugees in Studeniqan village of Skopje, 18 kilometers from Skopje. And with a friend of mine who passed away a month ago, Ismet Aliu, we went to Saraj, it’s a neighborhood where a lot of Albanians lived in Skopje. And in a coffee shop there I see that person. After a month in Macedonia I saw that person sitting in a coffee shop.
I asked Ismer, “Who is that person?” He said, “Why?” I told him the story, I told him he towed my car to Skopje. He said, “He is Enver Idrizi.” The Albanian Jean-Claude Van Damme (laughs). Maybe you know Enver Idrizi, he is a well known karateist, but I didn’t know him. So I went to talk to him, and I introduced myself. He said, “Yes, I remember you.” Then Enver Idrizi opened a club in Germany, we were in New York. He came to New York to organize an evening… this happened later, I had a radio, Radio Melosi in New York, where I helped people with marketing and everything.
So we became friends since that car two, but I’m still in contact with Enver, he is a very good person. At least that’s my experience with him.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did you get to New York? Did you sign a list, or how did you go from Skopje to New York?
Edmond Pruthi: Yes, with IOM, International Organization for Migration. Me and my sisters were in Studeniqan. My parents and brother were there with the IRC, International Rescue Committee, which prepared the documents for refugees. So they notified the IRC and then we were on the second or third plane to America. We went there in May ‘99.
I want to mention that in Studeniqan we lived in an old man’s house, Osman Atullahu, Osman Xhemajli, he is still alive with his three sons. We visit them often, they visit us, we… we stayed there for a month and a half but it felt like ten years. We had a very good time with them. Then there was the Universal Hall in Skopje. They called us on the phone at 12:00 in the afternoon and told us to be at the Universal Hall at 5:00, it was like going to Vushtrri from Pristina. (laughs) We went there slowly.
We went there, and some busses took us to the airport. We didn’t check in, we went directly to the runway. There were some doors with wires, I remember, in the afternoon. At 5:00 we were supposed to leave from the Universal Hall, we left at 8:00, and we got to the airport at 9:00. And it was a charter flight. When we got on the bus everyone was Albanian, when we got on the plane everyone was Albanian, it was a different experience (laughs). 300 Albanians on a plane. But it was good, we were all happy, they weren’t… I couldn’t believe it.
I remember that on that plane when the doors opened there were American soldiers… so as refugees we didn’t need to go through the airport but there was a way with soldiers who saluted us like this {shows with his hands} and we got to the plane stairs. We went to New York, we… the flight was through Dublin, Ireland. We stopped there and from there we went to New York, so we went there on 15…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What were you thinking when you went there? Did you want to come back or stay in America?
Edmond Pruthi: We didn’t know, we didn’t have a clear idea. I’ll tell you another small thing. There in Studeniqan there are two coffee shops. One was PDSH [Albanian Democratic Party], some people of the party stayed there, I would hang out at both of those coffee shops because I didn’t want to create a split as a refugee. We saw two trucks with red blocks, and I said to Ismet, my friend, “What are these blocks, Ismet?” He said, “We have started to build houses on the hill for the refugees, for ten to 15 years and then you might go back to Kosovo.”
So, back then there wasn’t a clear idea of what is going to happen after a month or a year, we didn’t know. We went to America to meet our parents and brother. We rented an apartment in The Bronx and we started a life there spontaneously. When the war ended, I came back here on August 4. I came back because… I started working there. I finished an English course at Marymount College…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you speak English?
Edmond Pruthi: Huh?
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you speak English? Your family?
Edmond Pruthi: Yes, we did. Tina, my brother who was twelve-thirteen years old, and my youngest sister could speak English. I understood it, but I wasn’t good at grammar, so I couldn’t express myself. We went to an English course at Marymount College in Manhattan. The teacher was Ukrainian, he said that whoever learns the most in two weeks will get a job at Marymount College as an administrator to register new students.
So, I got the job, because I spoke Serbian and Albanian, I wasn’t shy, and I decided to learn. At the end of those two weeks I was the best English student in the class. I worked there but I came back to Kosovo on August 4. Just me. My family said they would come back in September. I started working at UNMIK, at the police station number 1, there at Boro Ramiz, at the Palace of Youth and Sports Adem Jashari now. It’s known as Boro Ramiz.
I started working as a translator from September ‘99 until April 26, 2000, when I was threatened by those who were questioned by the police and I went back to America.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: You came back with the idea of living here?
Edmond Pruthi: Yes. My parents came back in September, my sister and brother started school there with the idea of coming here in the second semester or during the summer of 2000. But back then there was some sort of anarchic freedom. Freedom, I don’t know how to say it, we were free, but it wasn’t safe for the family, you couldn’t have… so when you stop and think about your family you decide to go back and keep staying there. Year after year you have more life and daily responsibilities, and you get used to living in another place.
