Sources from within the Municipality of the City said on Friday that the project on the study of the danger of the collapse of the historical centre of Gjirokastra is nearing completion. The sources quote one of the Italian experts working on this project Piero Picconi, who declared that the adaptation of concrete data for the majority of the 1200 buildings has been completed, whilst it is expected that the remainder will be done within four months. The main outcome of this project will be the drafting of a plan on the seismic danger to the historical centre of Gjirokastra, which is thought will be completed in June this year, together with its overall presentation. A special contribution has been made by the Italian engineers and experts of the Region of Le Marche and the Municipality of Grottamare in Italy, which is the main partner of the Municipality of Gjirokastra in several joint initiatives to develop the city in stone.
Gjirokastra in Albania and Grottamare in Italy-this is the joint project
For a year now there have been eight students of the Technical Institute of Grottamare who are the main players in the analysis of the study to re-draft the relief of the historical zone of the city. According to the specialist Piccioni, up until the completion of the entire project, it is thought that training courses will be run for the technical staff of the urban offices, for the partners of the project. The main subjects will be related to the recuperation and valuation of the cultural and architectonic-historical wealth of the urban centres. For the Mayor of Gjirokastra this project is fruit of early cooperation between the Municipalities of Gjirokastra and Grottamara, which have been twined for years now. The Municipality of Gjirokastra has paid 50 thousand Euro towards the implementation of this project and the Italian partners from the Region Le Marche and the Municipality of Grottamara 400 thousand Euro. These funds are financed by the INTERREG cross-border project and the European CARDS program. The same work, which is being carried out in Gjirokastra is planned to be undertaken in Grottomare too. The main activity of this project expected to last until June 2008 will be the activation of work groups, drafting the relief and investigating, analyzing the seismic danger to the historical centre etc. According to the experts at the end of this project a Web-GIS internet portal is expected to be created o which the results of this study will be made public. The project for the protection of historical centres of the Italian specialists and Albanians, is the continuation of the plan to recuperate the historical centre, presented in May 2006.
