The Lolomani dwelling, formerly the
home of the Ottoman period family of that name, was once an impressive sight in
the mountainside town of Gjirokastra in southern Albania.
Now the house lies in ruins, like
dozens of others in the "City of Stone," defined by its castle, steep
cobblestone roads and silvery-coloured limestone structures with views of the
Drino Valley near the border with Greece.
Many of the centuries-old, fortified
buildings, which won the town a place on the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage
List in 2005, are a tourist attraction but are at risk of disappearing.
Some are deserted or have not been
maintained for years, others underwent changes that have destroyed their
historic value, or have too many owners to agree on the necessary work or they
are simply too poor to afford the repairs.
Authorities in the Balkan nation
don't have the means to restore them either.
"I feel pain for every stone,
every wall that is getting damaged," sighs Email Nacaj, a 58-year-old
house painter, who remembers the collapse of the Lolomani house in winter 2016.
Below, the roof of his own house has
half fallen in.
"I'm scared here, but my mother
does not want to leave," he says.
Even if he had the money, he
couldn't do anything – his cousin, who lives in the capital, Tirana, and is a
co-owner, refuses.
Out of 615 monuments in the town's
historic centre "more than half are subjected to illegal or out-of-context
constructions, while 169 are in critical condition or at risk of
collapse," warned Europa Nostra, a pan-European federation of heritage
NGOs, early this year.
Once upon a time
Most of the buildings date from the
17th and 18th centuries, although the town's origins go back further and its
walls were built in the 3rd century.
Albania's most famous writer Ismail
Kadare famously described his native Gjirokastra as the "slanted city, set
at a sharper angle than perhaps any other city on earth."
"It was surely the only place
in the world where, if you slipped and fell in the street, you might well land
on the roof of a house," he wrote in his 1971 novel "Chronicle In
Stone."
Massive emigration has compounded
the buildings' fate, as Gjirokastra has not been immune to the trend plaguing
Albania.
The town's population has dropped
from 34,000 in 2011 to less than 25,000, according to Engjell Seriani, head of
tourism at the town hall.
Its houses are named after their
original owners, dignitaries of the Ottoman Empire such as Lolomani, Karaulli,
Fico, Zeko, Babameto, whose power was measured by the number of chimneys on
their homes.
Today, Sokol Karaulli, a descendant
of one of those noble families, says his way of life is a far cry from the
ostentation of his home's substantial five chimneys.
A former soldier but not yet
eligible for his pension, he says they only survive thanks to the salary of his
pastry chef wife.
"The day when we will say 'Once
upon a time there was Gjirokastra' can happen," the 60-year-old warned.
Karaulli cut off the electricity on
the first floor and placed plastic washing-up bowls to collect the leaking
water that had already rotted the wooden frame of his crumbling house.
Worsening daily
Around the town's bazaar, the clean
facades are down to a three-million-euro ($3.5-million) restoration footed by
an Albanian-US association and the World Bank.
Small stalls tout souvenirs to
tourists, 77,000 of whom visited the citadel last year. Their numbers grow 10
to 15 percent annually.
"However Gjirokastra is not
only the bazaar and those emblematic places," said architect Lejla Hadzic,
of the NGO Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB).
Elsewhere, "the situation ...
is getting worse day by day," she said.
In 2014, the NGO had warned of the
"rapid destruction" of the historic districts of the town, where
Albania's former communist dictator Enver Hoxha grew up.
Of the 650 buildings it took into
account, CHwB said 40 were in a very poor condition, 34 were in ruins, while 15
were on the verge of collapse.
Now, the number in ruins has gone up
to 47, it says.
'Only one Gjirokastra in the world'
Today about 80 houses are
uninhabited, raising the possibility that a leaky roof will affect the wooden
structure.
"Every day, I see something
that is wrong, as if the building is whispering to me to do something,"
said deputy mayor Vangjel Muco.
But with a total overall budget of
2.5-3 million euros, his municipality cannot tackle the issue properly.
Albanian Culture Minister Mirela
Kumbaro insists the town "is no longer in danger" and that the
government has taken the problem in hand.
Since 2013 structural changes to
Gjirokastra houses have been banned. She also has high hopes for a newly passed
law on cultural foundations, as well as for tourism after the conversion of
about 20 houses into hotels.
But the CHwB believes that
Gjirokastra can hope for "no more than 10,000 euros" from the
national budget.
And renovating the Babameto house
alone cost 160,000 euros which came from Sweden.
Just to reinforce all the ruins
would take another 1.2 million euros, according to Hadzic.
"All the actors dealing with
cultural heritage should really take it seriously and intervene as fast as
possible because there's only one Gjirokastra in the world," she warned.
Source: AFP
