Hamami i Vjetër

Hamami i Vjetër stands in Vushtrri’s old city centre, among Kosovo’s historic Ottoman monuments. Its massive octagonal dome rises above a spacious entrance hall.

The public bathhouse dates from the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when Gazi Ali Bey commissioned its construction. Men and women used separate bathing alcoves, both paved with white marble and fitted with stone kurna. A central tank supplied hot water, while another room supported heating and cleaning before bathing. The building follows the single-hamam layout, with three lower domes forming part of its original construction. A volcanic-tuff entrance passage was added around the building during the seventeenth century.

Bathing ended in the 1970s, and restoration later repaired the façade and cupola between 2013 and 2014. The women’s alcove shares a design with the hamam in Peja, linking Vushtrri to a wider regional tradition. Each white-marble alcove still centres on a kurna, the stone basin that once received hot water.