Vlora, twenties of the last Century. Known with the name of AVLONA since ancient times, this port located at a strategic spot on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, witnessed many Rulers over the Centuries. In relation to its splendour of old times, by the Twentieth Century very little remained for the city or its inhabitants to boast about. However, the complicated threads of destiny that weave history made this city the capital of the newly proclaimed State of the Albanians in 1912. In the photo, there is only the one object that existed five Centuries ago, you could see it eighty years ago when this photograph was taken, it is still there to this day as I write these lines and I would say that it will probably still be there after the grass has long grown over our graves. I am referring to the Mosque if Murradije (1) built back in the 15th Century.
A sizable park with trees, encircled by a wall, behind which large buildings can be seen (2) is discernible further on. This is the estate of the Vloraj Family, the most distinguished family of the city for more than the last three hundreds years of the Ottoman Rule. So little remains from the heritage of the Vloraj Family, the lands and buildings on them have disappeared altogether. In the yard of the Northern building (precisely point 3). The Flag of Independence was hoisted on 28 November, 1912. This fact did not appear to be of any special importance to the authorities of the city, who in 1926 razed them to the ground mercilessly, creating the b1ig central park of the city.
On the other side of the road, is the Building of the Italian Military Command (4). This building went up during the years of WWI, constructed by the Italian Armed Forces, to be inherited by the Albanian State later on and demolished by this State to make away for the start of the construction of the absurd hotel which, to this day, has not been completed and stands in all its ugliness in the worst of spots possible.
Building 5, following an entire reconstruction a few years after this photograph was taken, assumed the appearance that it retains, more or less, to this day, serving the function of the city’s museum.
The photographers are seen pausing to rest after climbing up the ridges prior to ascending the highest hill of Kukuz Babai. They are taking a breather in a tiny clearing, where you can see the pillars of old Ottoman graves scattered over the ground.
On the far side of the city stretch the swamps and marshland shrubbery, which end in the distance on the shore of the sea. Vlora of that time was a hybrid. It had descended the Mountain of Kanina, where the city had been located in the Middle Ages, but it had still arrived on the sea shores, from which these last few kilometers of swampland divided it.
