Sinan Pasha Mosque - Prizren, Kosovo

The Ottoman's captured Prizren in 1455 and some time after that they looted and destroyed the Serbian Orthodox Monastery of the Holy Archangels. The monastery was located about 1 1/2 miles up Prizrenska Bistrica Canyon and was built in the mid-14th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, the stone (including marble) from the monastery was used to build the Sinan Pasha Mosque which was started around 1600 or 1608 and completed in 1615. The mosque was built by Sofi Sinan Pasha, bey (governor) of Budim (apparently synonymous with Buda, as in Budapest).  It has one large dome and another smaller half-dome that covers the mihrab. The walls and dome inside were painted in the 19th century. This is the most beautiful mosque I have been to so far. The inside painting is more extensive than I've seen in other mosques and there is some representational painting (of a mosque and flowers) that are not normally present in Islamic art.

Sinan Pasha Mosque as viewed from Prizren Fortress. The Prizrenska Bistrica  flows to the right of it.

Street level view of Sinan Pasha Mosque.

Sinan Pasha Mosque from across the river.

A partial view of the main dome and niches.

Another view of the main dome and niches. 

Inside of the main dome. Beautiful.

A scalloped section of the wall.

A representational painting of another mosque.

Windows above the mihrab. 

The mihrab.

The beautiful patterned carpet.

Window shutter.

Front door.

Marble fence on front porch.

Inside dome above the front porch.

Water for ablution (?) out front.

We visited the mosque with a Muslim resident of Prizren, Inan, a friend and co-worker of my brother Chris, who worked in Kosovo for about three months several years ago. Inan arranged for a taxi driver, Bekim, to pick us up in Skopje, Macedonia (we could not take our rental car into Kosovo) and take us to Prizren and back to Skopje. Bekim was also Muslim. So we got to know these two Muslim men quite well, learn about their country, the Kosovo wars from their perspective (that were mostly with the Orthodox Serb Christians) and some of the practical day-to-day ways that they live and practice their religion. Inan mentioned that my brother Chris was one of the best Muslims he's ever met (in the same context that we would call someone a good Christian). It made the visit to the mosque all that more comfortable and enlightening. In our American culture much of what we hear about Muslims is from the extremists. It was so nice to spend time with wonderful men, to turn the phrase, who were  great Christians, in the same sense of living good, ethical and charitable lives.   

After our visit to the mosque, we hiked up the hill to Prizren Fortress, also known as Kaljaja. Before the Kosovo War in 1998 to 1999, Prizren was about 78% Kosovo Albanian (Muslim), 5% Serb (Orthodox Christian) and 17% from other national communities. During the war, most of the Albanian population were forced to leave town. After the war, most of the Albanian population returned and 97% of the Serbs quickly left within four months. In March 2004, during unrest in Kosovo, all of the Serb cultural monuments in Prizren, including old Orthodox Serb Churches were damaged, burned or destroyed.  The Serb quarter of Prizren, on the hill near Prizren Fortress, was destroyed and the remaining Serb population was evicted from Prizren. As we walked up the hill to the Fortress, we passed destroyed houses and the old Orthodox Church of the Savior that was virtually destroyed during that unrest. From the Fortress we got a good view of the Prizrenska Bistrica River (bistrica means "clearwater" in Serbian and Prizrenska means "of Prizren" to distinguish it from other rivers of the same name) which flows by Sinan Pasha Mosque.

Prizren Fortress on the hill from the area near Sinan Pasha Mosque.

A destroyed home in the Serb section below Prizren Fortress.

More destroyed homes in the Serb section of Prizren.

Church of the Savior built around 1330. It was heavily damaged in the 2004 unrest. Viewed from Prizren Fortress.

Sinan Pasha Mosque from the Fortress, the river to the right, and a guarded Serbian Orthodx Church to the upper left.

Sinan Pasha was grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire five times: (1) from 1580 to 1582 (under Murad III); (2) from 1589 to 1591 (also under Murad III); (3) from 1593 to February 16, 1595 (under Murad III and briefly Mehmed III); (4) from July 7 to November 19, 1595 (under Mehmed III); and (5) from December 1, 1595 to April 3, 1596 (under Mehmed III, until Sinan Posha died). The grand vizier was the greatest minister of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire with power of attorney and dismissable only by the sultan himself. Originally known as Sinan Pasha Topojani, he was born in Albania in 1520 (one source says 1506, but I think that makes him too old at the end). He was a governor of Ottoman Egypt in 1569 and a governor of Damascus in 1589. He was involved in the conquest of Yemen in 1571 and commanded the expedition which conquered Tunis in 1574. He commanded the army against the Safavid Persians from 1580 to 1581, but was disgraced and exiled when his lieutenant was defeated at Gori (current Georgia). He also initiated the Long War against the Habsburg Monarchy in 1593 when he commanded the Ottoman army in the capture of Gyor (current Hungary) and Komarno (current Slovakia). He was also commander in defeats at the Battles of Calugareni and Giurgiu (current Romania) in 1595 against Michael the Brave of Wallachia and lost Esztergom (current Hungary) after a siege by the Habsburgs. He died on April 3, 1596 while he was preparing a campaign against Austria. Legend has it that the course of the Prizrenska Bistrica River changed to wash away the tomb of Sinan Pasha because the remnants of the Holy Archangels Monastery were used to build his mosque. However, Sinan Pasha's tomb is located in Istanbul and so I suspect the story is purely legend. It seemed ironic that Sinan Pasha was the Ottoman Turk commander who ordered the coffin of St. Sava burned in Belgrade, now the site of the Temple of St. Sava, that we visited earlier in our trip. Now we were visiting a mosque honoring Sinan Pasha. Emblematic of the religious and cultural tensions of the area. 

Temple and Church of St. Sava - Belgrade, Serbia

The Temple of St. Sava in Belgrade, Serbia is a Serbian Orthodox church and the largest Orthodox church in the world. It is also the eighth largest church in the world (at least on one list), after, among others, St. Peter's in Vatican City, Seville Cathedral in Spain, Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York and Milan Cathedral in Italy. It is not a cathedral as the seat of the Metropolitan bishop of Belgrade is St. Michael's Cathedral. It is in the form of a Greek cross (two bars perpendicular to each other and dividing each other in half) with a large central dome. The facade is white marble and granite. It is still under construction, but when finished it will have mosaics as inner decorations. The central dome will have a mosaic of Christ Pantocrator. Construction on the church began in 1935. Work stopped in 1941 in the Second World War when Belgrade was bombed by Germany. During the war it was first used as a parking lot by the Germans and then later as a parking lot by the Russians. Construction did not begin again until 1985. The center dome was lifted up by cranes and was completed in 1989. The exterior is is complete and the windows and bells are installed, but the internal decorations are still mostly incomplete. 

St. Sava Temple

Bluish white outer marble around a window.

The unfinished interior.

An example of what the inner mosaics will look like.

Unused marble on pallets outside.

A small church of St. Sava was built in 1895 and was later moved a short distance for the larger building, often referred to as the temple. When we visited on a Sunday they were having a service in the smaller church which we visited and spent about 15 minutes. There were three priests leading the service and each had his back to the congregation and was facing the iconostasis. They were singing along with a beautiful choir which was out of site. There were no chairs. The women congregants were all on the left side and the men were all on the right side. 

The small St. Sava church is to the left and the St. Sava Temple is to the right. 

People going to small St. Sava church for services.

St. Sava

St. Sava was born Rastko Namanjic in 1174 in what is now Podgorica, Montenegro. When he became a monk he took the monastic name Sava and founded the monasteris of Hilandar on Mount Athos (a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Greece) and Zica (in Serbia). In 1219 he was named the first Archbishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church by the Patriarch of Constantinople. That same year, he authored the constitution of Serbia. He is considered the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church and is canonized by it. The Ottoman Turks, under Sinan Pasha, burned his wooden coffin on April 27, 1595 on a pyre on the spot where the Temple of St. Sava is currently located. This was in response to the Serbs using icons depicting Sava as their war flags.

St. Sava is on the unfinished iconostasis just right of center.

Statue of St. Sava

Serbian Orthodox Church

The Serbian Orthodox Church is the dominant church in Serbia, Montenegro and the Republic of Srpska which is a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, it has a presence in other nearby countries, such as Croatia and in many other countries where Serbs have emigrated. It became an autocephalous church in 1219. The patriarchate was abolished by the Ottoman Turks in 1463, restored by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557, and abolished again in 1766.  Many Christians converted to Islam, but many Serbs also migrated to the Habsburg Monarchy where they were granted autonomy and the Serbian Metropolitanate of Karlovci became a patriarchate in 1848. In the early 1800s Serbians started to push for independence and in 1879 when Serbia was recognized as a separate state, the church was known as the Metropolitanate of Belgrade. After World War I, in 1920, all Orthodox Serbs were united under one ecclesiastical authority and the Patriarchate of Karlovci, the Metropolitanate of Belgrade and the Metropolitanate of Montenegro were unified into a single Patriarchate of Serbia. The Macedonian Orthodox Church was created in 1967 despite the resistance of the Serbian Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church still does not recognize the Macedonian church. Because of the War in Kosovo, and the enmity between the Serbs and the Albanians, the primary occupants of Kosovo, many Serbian Orthodox churches in Kosovo have been occupied only by clergy and protected by NATO troops. It is estimated that there are currently 6.5 to 7.5 million Serbian Orthodox, with about 6.4 million in Serbia, 1.5 million in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 568,000 in Germany, 460,000 in Montenegro, 385,000 in Austria, 200,000 in Croatia, 100,000 in Canada, 95,000 in Australia, 69,000 in the U.S. and 39,000 in Slovenia.

The church is currently divided into 5 metropolitanates, headed by metropolitans: (1) Belgrade and Karlovci (headed by a metropolitan who is also the patriarch); (2) Dabar and Bosnia; (3) Montenegro and the Littoral; (4) Zagreb and Ljubljana; and (5) Australia and New Zealand. It also has 34 eparchies, the equivalent of dioceses, headed by episops, the equivalent of bishops. Some of the eparchies include Austria and Switzerland, Buenos Aires, Canada, Central Europe, Nis (Serbia), Britain and Scandinavia, Banja Luka (Bosnia), Sabac (Serbia), Western Europe, Eastern America and Western America. 

Mountain Hare Stew

I did a previous post on baked mountain hare, one of my culinary disasters. Mountain hare, or blue hare, is the European version of the American jackrabbit. It is hard to imagine an animal that could be more gamy and stringy. Well, my first attempt at baking one covered with bacon was so bad that I took a few bites and tossed the rest, it was horrible. However, sometimes you learn best from your failures. I found a recipe called "Juniper Marinated Hare" by Karen Eagle that called for marinating the hare for two to three days in a juniper apple-cider brine. I decided to get some more hare and see if this new recipe could work some miracles. 

I got the wild mountain hare from Exotic Meat Market. They get it from Scotland. It is a purplish blue color. I cut it up into five pieces: two back legs, two front legs and ribs, and the backbone. When I make it again (it is that good), I will cut it into smaller pieces which will make cooking it in a pot easier. 

mountain hare

mountain hare cut into five pieces

I halved the marinade recipe and made a few modifications. I put the following into a large tupperware container: (a) 8 cups of water (2 quarts); (b) 1 cup of apple juice; (c) 1/2 cup of kosher salt; (d) 1/4 cup of sugar; (e) 3 teaspoons of minced garlic (the equivalent of 6 garlic cloves); (f) 6 crushed juniper berries; (g) 6 crushed peppercorns; (h) 1/2 tablespoon of red pepper flakes; and (i) 1/2 tablespoon of cayenne pepper (I could not find any ancho chile powder). I tasted the brine and it was salty with a bit of heat. The hare pieces went into the brine and into the refrigerator (it barely fit into the tupperware container). 

juniper berries

brine with hare marinating in it

I put the hare into the brine on Thursday around noon. Two days later, on Saturday at noon, I decided to grill one piece just to see what kind of an impact the brining had on the meat. It was obvious from handling the meat that the brining had broken it down significantly. I pulled out a front leg and rib piece and grilled it as-is, without any other preparation. The grilled meat came off the bone quite readily and it was much more tender than on my previous adventure. The saltiness and heat from the brine had infused into the meat and it was actually quite good. 

brined, but un-cooked hare front leg and ribs

grilled hare front leg

meat of the grilled hare front leg

Saturday evening around 6:00 p.m., after two and a half days of marinating, I pulled the rest of the hare out of the brine. I put some All-Purpose BBQ Rub into some flour, coated the hare pieces and fried them in 1/2 cup of canola oil until they were brown. The recipe called for a frying pan, but as I looked at the volume of what I was cooking, I had concerns about fitting it all into a pan, so I opted for a pot which has a smaller cooking space for frying, but greater volume. 

brined hare after 2 1/2 days - brine has darkened

hare pieces that have been patted dry

hare has been coated with flour and is being fried until brown

browned hare

I modified the recipe somewhat again. I chopped up two locally grown Maui onions, about six or eight smallish locally grown carrots and about 8 very large Brussels sprouts. I sauteed them in the remaining canola oil left over from frying the hare. Knowing what I know now, I would be less concerned about getting the vegetables softened up and would spend less time sauteeing and preserving the moisture. I then added four tablespoons of the remaining spiced flour and mixed it up with the vegetable to make a roux. 

vegetables sauteed in remaining canola oil

vegetables with added flour to make a roux

I slowly added two cups of chicken broth. Here again, I spent more time than I needed, as I was scrambling for some ingredients I'd not prepared a head of time. I think I lost some moisture here. Then I added a cup of sparkling grape juice (in place of white wine), six juniper berries, two tablespoons of reconstituted sun-dried tomatoes and the browned hare pieces. Then I let it all simmer for three hours.

vegetables with added chicken broth

hare and grape juice added to the mix

After 2 1/2 hours, much of the moisture has evaporated and the meat is pulling back from the bone

By then it was 11:00 p.m. Saturday night, but I had to try it. The vegetable mixture pretty much melded together into a vegetable sludge with only the carrots having any kind of recognizable form. Thus, no real need earlier in the process to make sure that they are properly sauteed. After three hours of simmering, they are going to be soft. I pulled out a leg piece. The meat pulled right off the bones. The three hours of simmering had softened up the meat even more from what I'd tried earlier in the day. The cooking had also taken away the salty hot flavor that the hare had had earlier in the day. The hare was fully cooked, pretty tender and tasted absolutely fantastic. I loved the vegetable sludge (stew) that came with it. If I were to make it again, I would consider putting in more vegetables and a little more liquid. 

Hare hind leg with vegetables

Meat removed from the bone and mixed with vegetables

Sunday morning I had to try some more. I pulled out the backbone, pulled the meat off - again it came off quite easily, and put it in the microwave. Incredible. Very, very good. The heat is gone and I even added some salt. Great stuff. I can highly recommend the recipe with the hare, or as Karen Eagle mentions, it would be good with other wild game. 

Backbone piece (top) and vegetable sludge - just out of refrigerator

Meat pulled off the backbone