The old mill is barely visible among the alder trees on the banks of the Bistrica River, in the western Kosovo village of Gorazhdec/Gorazdevac.
What’s left of its walls, washed away by time and flooding, give an idea of how big the mill once was.
“Most of the surrounding villages used to mill here,” said 77-year-old Jugoslav Dunic- Stevanovic, as he stepped between scattered millstones. “Just three or four nights ago, I dreamed that I had returned to the mill to work with my father.”
According to Dunic-Stevanovic, the village mill is more than 270 years old. He said his family received the tapija – derived from the Ottoman Turkish word tapu, meaning deed or title – from the bey, or governor, who ruled the region.
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