1 Post-conflict urban reconstruction of bazaars in Gjakova and Peja, Kosovo Bujar Demjaha Translated by Lumnije Ahmeti Introduction Kosovo is the youngest European country, originating from former Yugoslavia following armed conflict in 1999 and a declaration of independence on 17 February 2008. Located in South-East Europe, this land-locked zone of 10,908 km² borders Albania and the former Yugoslav countries, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia. Gjakova and Peja, the subjects of this chapter, are among the largest urban centres in Kosovo together with the capital Prishtina, Mitrovica, Prizren, Gjilan and Ferizaj. The country has been inhabited since the Paleolithic period, more than one hundred thousand years ago; and evidence for the first signs of life in the territory is found in caves in Radavc and Karamakaza. The nomadic inhabitants of this early period began slowly to group in sustainable settlements, practising agriculture (Demjaha 2016:36). The meaning of ‘çarshia’ Life and work as two closely related categories have always been the main generators in the development of mankind. Since agriculture was more or less the only activity in rural areas, crafts and services were complementary functions serving the population. Çarshia, a compound of workshops and shops, is an urban entirety, a city’s bazaar, a street with shops on both sides, where crafts and trade activities used to be carried out and as such was fundamental to the economic, social and political life of the city. Bazaars were meeting places where selling and exchange of goods took place, information was exchanged and crafts were developed. The old bazaars in Kosovo were public spaces for the production of goods, shopping, meeting, eating and drinking. They were inevitably transformed over time, subject to changing needs and often damaged by fire. But in 1998-99 the bazaars in Gjakova and Peja were more deliberately targeted and comprehensively destroyed in war. Their importance to the life of the city and the identity of the people was acknowledged through their reconstruction. According to Džemal Čelić (Čelić 1980) the word çarshia is of Persian origin and means ‘four sides’, conveying the message that it is a location to which people come from four sides