Monthly Archives: November 2012

Five Fallen Stars Rise Again – Dema Monument

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Dema Monument recently repainted

Monument at Dema to Five Fallen Communists

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Five Fallen Stars Rise Again – Dema Monument

The monument at Dema (Manastir), just outside of Saranda in southern Albania, to those who died in the war of liberation against Fascism returns to something close to its original condition.

One of the goals in my travels around Albania is to identify as many of the Communist monuments as I can and to record them photographically, fearing that they might disappear in the not too distant future. On previous visits I came across a number that had definitely been very badly treated, some with such violence if you didn’t know what you were looking at then you wouldn’t know it was a monument at all. I will return to this issue later, when I will look at the fate of these statues and monuments in the context of the whole country.

However, in the Saranda area I have noticed a dramatic change in the fate of one of these monuments, one that stands at a coll between Lake Butrint and the Ionian Sea. This can be seen along the road that leads from Saranda to the archaeological site of Butrint, just before passing through the town of Ksamil. I had seen, and photographed, this monument earlier in the year, in April. When I passed it a few days ago I noticed that it had been painted in the ensuing months and returned to photograph the newer version.

From the road it didn’t look like vandalism and that was indeed the case, what had happened was just the opposite and that someone had painted the five stars red. They were just white, like the rest of the pillar a few months ago. Now whether this was returning the monument to its original colour scheme I don’t know for certain, but that would make sense.

What has made the capitalists see red in Albania, is, in fact, the red. They have a problem with this. The flag of Albania, adopted in the country’s struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire (which celebrates its centenary on the 27th November coming) was the black double-headed eagle on a crimson background. Under Socialism the only change was to add a gold star, just above the heads of the bird.

This star has been the object of attack in a number of cases I have already seen, two of the most notable, and in many senses most public, being the erasure of the red star (which used to be behind the head of the central woman) from the huge mosaic on the façade of the National Historic Museum in Skanderbeg Square in Tirana, and the wall relief of a female Communist inside the Palace of Congress, also in Tirana.

Last April the flag was red, although not as deep a crimson as would have been the case in the past – I believe – but red nonetheless and it must had been touched up over the years. The subsequent painting of the five stars makes the monument much more distinctive, and also helps in telling the story of why the structure was constructed in the first place. Although I had studied the carvings before I had not made the connections which I now do.

So why 5 stars? They represent 5 of the Communists who died in the war against Nazi Occupation. They are Miltiadh Marjani, Selim Myftar, Astrit Toto, Sadik Rusto and Niko Stefani and with my struggling with the Albanian language I believe they died at the hands of the fascist invaders on 2nd October 1943. As I took the pictures at the beginning of November it could well be that the stars were repainted in time for that anniversary (although there were no signs of any flowers, wreaths, etc., in the vicinity of the memorial.)

The text on the monument reads: Dëshmorëve që ranë këtu në përpjekje me forcat naziste më 2.10.1943. Astrit Toto, Sadik Rusto, Niko Stefani, Miltiadh Marjani, Selim Myftari. Which translates as: The martyrs who fell here against Nazi forces 10/02/1943. Astrit Toto, Sadik Ruston, Niko Stefani, Miltiadh Marjani, Selim Myftari.

So now their sacrifice is a little more obvious on their memorial and as once something is out on the internet it is there forever, this posting helps to keep the memory of the anti-fascists alive, especially at a time when the remains of the feudal warlord, despot, dictator, coward and thief, Ahmet Muhtar Bej Zogolli (the self-proclaimed King Zog I, Skanderbeg III) were brought back from France, where he died in exile in 1961, and deposited in a new tomb on 17th November 2012.

GPS:

N39.81197904

E20.01217

DMS:

39° 48′ 43.1245” N

20° 0′ 43.8120” E

Altitude: 35.7m

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Albanian town planning – drastic measures taken

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Town planning decision in Ksamili, Saranda, Albania

Don’t annoy Albanian town planners!

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Albanian town planning – drastic measures taken

Some building developers rub someone in authority up the wrong way and they find their building plans didn’t go quite as they expected.

It’s the late summer, early autumn, in Ksamil, southern Albania. Things are getting quiet now as the bulk of the tourists have left and the bars on the beach are deciding that it’s not worth opening, at least not until next April. It still gets light early and some people, the ones after the worm, are already up. They notice a strange, an unusual sound. Heavy machinery, but not the sort that is normally used in construction.

Amazed they look on as it comes around the corner and heads towards a half completed building. The machine looks angry, aggressive, menacing. At the building it stops, stabilizers are deployed, a long hydraulic arm reaches out towards the defenceless building, approaching one of the reinforced concrete pillars. Huge, powerful jaws open, clutch the pillar and a button is pushed inside the machine and the jaws close with immense force. The concrete and metal are no more than a dry twig to this monster. The concrete crumbles, the bars snap, the building totters.

The machine is unimpressed at the resistance of this shell of a building and moves slowly on to another pillar to repeat the process. Still the building stands proud but looking decidedly shaky. When the third is destroyed the building gives up and the tons of concrete and metal that had taken weeks to construct has become worse than useless. Before any other construction can begin someone has to pay to get rid of all this debris. What started out as a project to make money has become a liability.

This was what happened in the autumn of last year in the erstwhile collective farm of the Socialist era (specialising in olives and citrus fruit) now a nondescript, blot on the landscape, urban sprawl that caters for tourists, both national and foreign, who flock here in the short summer season. These buildings had been started (some almost complete and partially lived in) without the requisite permission and the executioner had arrived to carry out the sentence.

Passing through this town, from Saranda, on the way to Butrint (the Greek/Roman archaeological site a few minutes down the road) and a few minutes after passing the Dema Monument on your right, it was as if you were going through a town that had been hit by an earthquake, buildings leaning at strange and unnatural angles.

A year ago there were many more but in the intervening months some have been completely demolished and, perhaps, construction has been resumed, but this time with the necessary permission. At least in this town those few hours of work in 2011 had taught any prospective developer a lesson.

Why Ksamil? I don’t know. There seemed to be the same treatment meted out to one or two structures on the outskirts of Saranda, the nearest town of any real size, but nothing in the town itself. I can’t imagine that if there was a culture of building where and when you wanted existed in Ksamil it didn’t also exist in Saranda. There it seems that half the buildings are in the process of construction. Perhaps fines were paid or there was a transfer of heavy brown envelopes to the appropriate authorities.

I haven’t come across anything similar in any other part of Albania (where construction seems to as random and uncontrolled as in Ksamil) but someone must have been upset as these machines had supposedly come all the way from Tirana, not an insignificant journey for such heavy plant.

I don’t get the impression that town planners, as such, exist in Albania but if such officials are around and have these power I’m sure they would be the envy of their counterparts throughout the world.

2019 Update

This information is now of historic interest alone as on a recent visit to the town I was unable to see any of the toppled buildings. Being a popular tourist resort there would have been pressures to dispose of these ‘modern sculptures’ as quickly as possible. However, the issue itself – i.e. of illegal constructions – is one that is ongoing in different parts of the country. There seems to be an effort by the present government to redress the total anarchy that existed towards the late 1990s and even quite long established buildings are being demolished. Apart from clearing waway a number of scars on the landscape some public land is being reclaimed as pavements and roads disappeared under bricks and mortar.

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Korça dark beer – a welcome respite from bland lager

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Korça Beer bottle with a glass half full!

Korça dark beer bottle and half full glass in a bar in Saranda, southern Albania.

Korça E zeze beer, Leke 150 – in a bar in the centre of Saranda, 4.5%

There is a normal blond, more available, lager type of Korça beer that I prefer to most of the other beers on offer, but this dark beer is in a different league.

It reminds me very much of the home-brewed beers I made a number of years ago (the practice to which I have recently returned).

It’s a dark beer with a burnt caramel smell and taste, which is a pleasant relief if you are a bitter drinker and are fed up with the lager beers you get presented when out of the UK. It’s a light beer when compared to the likes of British stouts, not as opaque and allows the light to pass through so it looks like fresh and sparkling. Not being a stout it doesn’t have that creamy sensation that comes with drinking something like a pint of draught Guinness and therefore the after-taste doesn’t linger as long.

On the other hand, in comparison to British Brown Ales (if you can find them) it’s not as sweet and I think you could drink a few more of the Korça before the UK brown ales became too much of a challenge. (This point is based upon memory as I can’t remember the last time I even drank a bottle of brown.) And, importantly, as a bottled beer, it’s not too gassy and doesn’t make you feel bloated. (As I re-read that I realised that most out-of-Britain piss poor lagers are not as unpalatable as their cousins in the UK. I can only assume that in Britain CO² is cheap, that’s why we get a surplus of it.)

On the Richter scale it’s not a strong beer but it gives the sensation that it’s much more powerful than indicated on the bottle.

Not as readily available in bars as the lighter, lager version from the same brewery and you might have to look for it, but I think you’ll find the search worthwhile if you’re successful.

My favourite beer, so far, in my three visits to Albania BUT still coming a poor second to a good British Bitter – my only concession to British nationalism.

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