Underneath my feet are thousands of tons of lead, gold, silver, zinc and copper. I am at the Trepca mine near Mitrovica in Kosovo.



Some wait only for independence for the mine to regain its former glory, but will they wait in vain?

At first sight it seems completely abandoned apart from one person manning the main gate. Then one old miner appears to guide us up four flights of stairs, through a white-tiled building which is deserted and neglected, the white tiling cracked and dirty.

Then we mill about for a bit by one entrance to the mine. Over the door is a sign saying ‘Good luck’!

Tracks disappear inside and I venture a short way into the mouth of the tunnel, but it doesn’t look desperately safe. Some more miners appear. There are no youngsters among them, their faces are tired and lined and several look as though they should be at home, enjoying their pension.



At its height, more than 5,000 people used to work here. But the men tell me there are now only about 600 of them, trying to keep the creaking beast ticking over.

They say when the Serbs left, they stripped the mine of all its equipment. Now, no ore is processed here but sent via two companies, one Swiss and one British.

Wartime attack

One man tells me that during the war he fled his village on a tractor with many relatives. But under attack by Serbian troops they had to run. He had to leave his aunt behind because she was disabled. He says she was burnt to death. This is the sort of thing they are all trying to forget, and which perhaps forces them to be optimistic about the future.

He says: “Kosovo is rich in minerals and rich in farming land, is rich in all other aspects. Here, we provided wealth for so many years for the whole of Yugoslavia, there is no reason why we cannot provide now for just Kosovo. That’s why I’m saying Kosovo has a bright future.”

It is true Kosovo has the second largest deposits of brown coal” or lignite and there are United Nations plans for large scale generation with the hope that it will eventually export power to the rest of Europe.



But mineral mining doesn’t make huge profits and this mine is clearly in need of massive investment. Businesses worried about profits in an economic downturn may not rush to put their money in a place that has a questionmark over its future.

We clamber up a steep ladder and then a series of steps cut into the hillside. At the top is the pit head. Rusty sheets of metal cover huge holes in the ground and tools are scattered around on large work benches.

Two miners dressed in thick leather aprons are clambering up the tall gantry clutching huge spanners. They shout and a pile of debris shoots down the hillside, clattering on the road below.

Longing for independence

Abaz Nimani who’s 60 has worked at the mine for 38 years. He is longing for Kosovo to declare its independence.

“I couldn’t even tell you all the suffering we’ve been through to get to that day,” he says.



“We’ve suffered a lot from the communist system and the Belgrade system which has ruled here. But it’ll all be worth it.”

But Kosovo has something like 50% unemployment and that worries him.

“We have to do much more to provide new job opportunities for the youngsters. They are just sitting around doing nothing, yet they are very hard working people.”

A short way from the mine itself is the HQ. It’s just as beaten up as the mine itself, adorned with communist-style crossed-hammer symbols.

We poke around for a good while looking for the right building. All look abandoned.

But one shows some signs of life when we tentatively push at the heavy glass doors. Although it seems empty we can hear one voice. Amid all the abandoned offices, a man sits busily looking at spreadsheets.

He tells us we need the next floor. Up the cracked and chipped marble staircase there is more activity and the headquarters of Trepca mine. We meet Nazmi Mikullovci, the manager of Trepca.

He is a man with problems. He tells me that it’s uncertain who even owns the land. He says in a normal business he could just go ahead and make a decision. Here he has to talk to four different international agencies as well as the Government.

He says this leads to delays that cost them a million dollars last year.

Handcuffed by the system

“So for me, the independence of Kosovo is not just about my own personal freedom, it means opening up the business and a real chance to change the systems that handcuff us.”

But some changes are hard if not impossible to make until Kosovo develops as a country. At the moment it doesn’t have a pensions scheme.

“It’s not about the law, it’s about morality,” he says.

“If I get rid of these old workers, they would get 40 euros a month. That’s pretty close to a death sentence. We have no social insurance, no medical insurance. So tell me what I should do about our rather elderly workers. They are willing to work, they want to work but they are very limited in what they can actually do. It’s another set of handcuffs.”

Finally and officially breaking away from Serbia may be much easier than shedding shackles on growth and development, and without economic success Kosovo will not truly be independent.