The air in Kosovo was our actual enemy. It was awful.

Back when Kosovo (along with Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia) were part of Yugoslavia, the government of Josip Broz Tito had power plants made across the country. One thing they had easy access to was coal, so they played to their strengths and made coal power plants all over.

Kosovo inherited a big lignite-coal burning powerplant near Prishtina; it is their primary source of power. There is a growing effort to get more solar, wind, and hydropower underway but the process is slow going. Meanwhile, the coal plant from the 1960’s is operating at it absolute maximum potential and has no room for error, and it is starting to get creaky. They are trying to phase in upgrades in small ways but it is a long and tedious process.

Meanwhile, Prishtina in particular is on record as having some of the worst air quality in Europe, and respiratory ailments are common. So going to the store and buying some (properly filtered) cigarettes may actually give your lungs a break in comparison.