Berat facing tough challenges four years after UNESCO inscription

TIRANA, July 9 – Four years after its UNESCO inscription, the southern UNESCO town of Berat faces a series of challenges with the preservation of its monuments, illegal constructions and road infrastructure. Fadil Nasufi, the Berat Mayor, says around 500 monuments are endangered in the town. “There are 107 monuments of the first category and 383 monuments of the second category which since several years have been waiting for funds and need treatment based on the conservation and marketing criteria but with the symbolic current budgets they risk degrading. There are 83 deserted houses at the historic centre which give a signal of oblivion. The byzantine walls in the Berat castle have collapsed and some church frescos are losing their traces of origin,” said the Mayor in a press conference.
What’s more the poor condition of the national Berat-Fier and Berat-Lushnje roads are the best image of the attention central government is paying to culture and tourism in Berat, says the Mayor, worried over lack of central government investments which during the past two years have almost been inexistent in Berat.
Despite problems, the UNESCO inscription in 2008 has benefited Berat a lot. The town has been involved in a series of foreign-funded projects and the number of tourists visiting Berat has considerably increased. The local fortress is being rehabilitated under a Euro 1 million fund by the European Commission and several other organizations such as the Albania-American Enterprise Fund, the World Bank, USAID and Turkey’s TIKA are being involved with funding in cultural heritage.
Data from the municipality show Berat was visited by 10,400 foreigners during the first six months of this year, up 45 percent compared to the same period in 2011.
Since 2008, Berat has been inscribed as a rare example of an architectural character typical of the Ottoman period. Located in central Albania, Berat bears witness to the coexistence of various religious and cultural communities down the centuries. It features a castle, locally known as the Kala, most of which was built in the 13th century, although its origins date back to the 4th century BC. The citadel area numbers many Byzantine churches, mainly from the 13th century, as well as several mosques built under the Ottoman era which began in 1417.
Berat bears witness to a town which was fortified but open, and was over a long period inhabited by craftsmen and merchants. Its urban centre reflects a vernacular housing tradition of the Balkans, examples of which date mainly from the late 18th and the 19th centuries. This tradition has been adapted to suit the town’s life styles, with tiered houses on the slopes, which are predominantly horizontal in layout, and make abundant use of the entering daylight.