The architect said, ‘This will be a restaurant.’ Mahmut said, ‘This will be a pastry shop.’ Because he said, ‘I want this, I want that’ ‘But I’ve designed a restaurant, you’re saying a pastry shop.’ He [Mahmut] said, ‘I’m saying a pastry shop, you’re saying a restaurant.’ Do you understand? [Addresses the interviewer] And that’s what they decided, how they decided.

He said, ‘Under one condition, I’ll do it my way, the interior also.’ And that interior, this interior hasn’t changed since ‘78. […] My father accepted, ‘I’ll do it the way you want it, but it will be a pastry shop.’ And Elida was opened on November 19, 1978.

[…] The history of the name is, as I mentioned before, my father was friends with Mahmut Bakallu until his last gasp, and he is the main reason why we have Elida. Mahmut Bakalli’s daughter is called Elida, so we didn’t know how else to reward him for all his help, and my father said, ‘We will name the pastry shop Elida.’ For him that was an extraordinary gift, a priceless gift…

In the Old Bazaar, right where you would enter the street of ropemakers, there was a synagogue. At the Bazaar, other than the Turkish and Albanian Pristina folk, the Jewish people had shops as well. From back then, I remember personally two quilt making shops, a watchmaker, and I know two tailors as well. Karakušević Nasko, Jewish, he was a watchmaker. From the Prličević family, they are a family of Jewish descendants as well, they were tailors. These are some of the old craftsmen in that bazaar. 

Where exactly was the synagogue?

Eh, now the synagogue, you know the Parliament Building today, the back entrance or the largest entrance of it is there, right in front of it. The synagogue was not there when they demolished that area, the synagogue was relocated, and it still stands to this day relocated like that. House of Emincik, the current Ethnological Museum, right in front of that museum, the synagogue has been moved there. 

And the Jewish families, they have left?

The Jewish families, based on what I know, there were many families here during the Second World War, and they were hidden by the old families here in the city during those times, protected. Some of them were captured by the German occupiers and sent to camps. And later, I think after 1947, when Israel was established, they slowly moved there. I remember right above Taukbahçe, the place called the Jewish Cemetery. Since it was not very far away from my neighborhood, we would go there often. There were maybe, I do not know the exact number, but around twelve large tombs, sarcophaguses. We would go climb above them, sunbathe lying there, on top of the stones. There were Jewish symbols and Hebrew writings on them. I do not know if that place is still there, I had heard that two to four tombs were left, and they had put it under protection. But I haven’t seen it since.

I knew… I know everything about the Grand Hotel, everything, I don’t wanna say it but I also knew how many spoons there were, because I did the balancing, registration, balancing. There isn’t a point in the Grand Hotel that I don’t know in detail. I know the rooms better, so to say, rather than the host. I know the storehouse better than the storehouse worker does, or used to. I know better what was in the storehouse rather than the storehouse worker, or the kitchen the inventory they used. Because I dealt every month, at least once a month with them. Registrations, balancing, so… 

Did you have your spoons, since you mentioned spoons, were they engraved?

Yes.

Who made those?

We ordered them… We had them, but now, since you wanna know about the inventory at the time when Grand Hotel was built, Tito, I am talking about Tito again, he brought his own inventory for 300 people all silver, silver inventory for 300 people. When I say 300 people, I mean with all of it. With exceptions, what couldn’t be in silver, was crystal, first-class crystal. The silver inventory was made by Famipa from Prizren, Famipa from Prizren.

I am telling you there was a special care, the reality of how it’s good to accept a… It’s very special that the noble inventory, how we used to call it back then, silver, noble, was checked by Serbian police every six months. One single thing couldn’t be missing.

My father really liked Turkish classical music, while he was listening to them all day on the radio, he improved himself and he started playing banjo. After the mandolin, they bought a banjo and he started playing along with the radio, he didn’t have a professional degree. Music notes and such, he picked up playing banjo and improved himself. So in those times the associations were established, cultural associations. […] 

My father used to sing, he was a sound artist, he used to have a really nice voice, really nice. And while he was listening to songs on the radio, he was enjoying and learning. So while playing music together, he soon became very famous in this area. “Oh, there is a Rasim, Rasim, his surname is Rüşüt, but who is Rasim? Rasim is Salih’s son. Rasim, Barber Salih’s son, Master Salih, Salih’s son.” Rasim and Rasim Salih, that is how they started calling him, Rasim Salih. […]

There were more Turks living in Kosovo back then, unfortunately, a lot of them migrated. Then the [Executive] Council makes a decision in which Rasim Salih has to move to Pristina and establish an orchestra. The entire group of four friends, they wanted them to move to Pristina. Yes, no, yes, no, the final decision was that in the year ‘51 my dad moved here to establish the orchestra.

At the time Ernest Koliqi had sent three-hundred teachers to Kosovo. Everywhere, in the villages and everywhere schools in the Albanian language started. In Mitrovica, Bedri Gjinaj, he was born and raised in Mitrovica, but educated in Albania. You know, how they used to go secretly… but very capable, he was a very capable man. When I enrolled, not only I, but the entire class, the first thing we learned was the flag. I was familiar with it, but his teachings were effective, whatever he would say stuck with you. When we began the class, he said to us, ‘Let’s learn the flag song.”’ {She recites} 

‘Oh red and black flag, 

all the joy and love that you wave, 

makes my heart spring with you, 

in the fields and meadows, 

mountains and brooks forward with you, 

I will fight fearlessly,

though I am young

I am your soldier and I’ll say,

Today that freedom has come,

May the  Albanian flag live long.’

When I went home, I recited it to my father, what a hug he gave to me, his tears poured out of joy. Of course… that school year, it was like ten years in one. Everything that they taught us, the lectures were such that you understood and internalized them immediately.