9 May 2008 | Russia will join UNESCO in its efforts to restore Orthodox churches in Kosovo, as an extension of its policy towards Kosovo, Serbia and the region as a whole, national media reported recently.

UNESCO has chosen seven Orthodox churches and six Muslim monuments in Kosovo for restoration in the near future.

The assistance of Russia, which will agree with UNESCO on a list of monuments it will restore, will not only be financial. According to Yakovenko, it “will provide the necessary organisational and expert resources and will, in particular, dispatch to the Serbian province highly skilled architects, designers and engineers, as well as artistic experts for arranging the restoration works.”

“I am convinced that Russian assistance in the restoration of Orthodox Church monuments will be highly appraised in Belgrade. It is a logical continuation of the Russian policy in the Balkans,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta published on Thursday.

The said Russian policy includes support for Serbia and Kosovo’s Serb minority and a refusal to recognise the independence of the former UN protectorate since it was declared in February. The restoration of Eastern Orthodox monuments in Kosovo seems to be just another way in which Russia is trying to extend its influence in Kosovo, Serbia and the region as a whole.

According to UNESCO’s website, in Kosovo there are “monuments of major historical significance, representing both Islamic/Ottoman and Serbian Orthodox traditions, [which] were targets of intentional destruction and vandalism in the past years of tension and outbreaks of violence.

In March of 2008, the organisation held a tender for companies to provide restoration works at the Monastery of Dečani, Kulla in Dečani, the Patriarchate and the Deftedar Posque in Peć.

Read more on BalkanTravellers.com about Kosovo’s search for new symbols and the spots in Kosovo, including some Eastern Orthodox monasteries, that now have the potential to turn into attractive tourist destinations, after being inaccessible for decades due to the ethnic conflict in the territory.