Independence monument plaques robbed

TIRANA, April 2 – Four months after its inauguration, the Independence Monument situated in a park in the capital’s central boulevard has not managed to escape thefts and damage. Some of the bronze plaques of the monument inaugurated last November on the country’s 100th anniversary of independence have been stolen for scrap. Officials say the plaques, worth Euro 380 each, have been sold at a low 20 Euro each in scrap collection points.
Culture Ministry officials described the robbery of the monument plaques in downtown Tirana as shameful saying that public monuments in highly frequented downtown areas cannot be guarded.
“I don’t think policemen are needed for each monument, because this is something unprecedented. Nowhere in the world monuments are guarded by police,” said deputy Culture Minister Abaz Hado calling for more frequent police patrols in public monuments.
Rubens Shima, the director of the National Gallery of Arts says “this is not an act of vandalism because of the monuments content or aesthetic values, but an act of robbery because the material’s value.”
In another attempt to remove bronze plaques from the monuments, police arrested two teenagers.
The monument placed in the Rinia park next to the capital’s central boulevard was inaugurated on November 28 on Albania’s 100th anniversary of independence.
Austria’s Valenta erected the Albanian independence monument based on a design project selected last summer. The monument’s construction cost is estimated at Euro 355,000 excluding the Euro 35,000 reward for the two winning artists.
The independence monument was designed by two Munich-based architects, Kosovo’s Visar Obrija and Germany’s Kai Roman Kiklas, who were inspired by the Albanian traditional house. To express the idea of independence, the authors bring an open building composed of two parts of a cube with one half holding the roof and the remaining one the platform. This structure has been perceived with length, width and height that allows people to freely walk through. In the inner sides of the monument, there are laser drawn elements such as the “Declaration of Independence’ the national symbol of the double headed eagle and human portraits. The open building symbolizes the independence of the Albanian nation, the jump from isolation to freedom and the look into the future.
Some 81 design projects to erect a monument dedicated to Albania centenary independence were submitted in early 2012 by dozens of Albanian and international artists.
Tirana is also featuring statues dedicated to some of the most Albanian prominent figures such as independence leader Ismail Qemali, and patriot Hasan Prishtina, U.S President Woodrow Wilson and King Zog.
Albania’s fifty-one most important churches have been included in a camera surveillance project after an ancient fresco was vandalized and robbed in the first days of 2013.
Most of the damaged and stolen frescoes at the small village church in Elbasan district were the work of Onufri, a painter of the 1500s considered to be Albania’s Michelangelo for his work on Orthodox churches in central and southern Albania.
The thieves used an ax-like tool to go after the heads of the saints in the frescoes, leaving behind the bare walls. Many of these parts were taken — likely for illegal sale — and some were left destroyed because they had crumbled on the floor.