A special corner has also been dedicated to late Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, who ruled the country for 40 years, from 1945 to 1985
TIRANA, Oct. 3 – The history, culture and traditions of Gjirokastra and its Drino valley are featured in the newest museum that has opened at the southern Albanian town which has been under UNESCO protection since 2005. Situated in the indoor premises of the local Argjiro fortress, the museum documents Gjirokastra’s 2000-year-old history, bringing evidence of the life of its inhabitants, its most prominent figures and archeological remains discovered in the Drino Valley, especially in the Hadrianapoilis Park.
Cerciz Topulli, Musine Kokalari, Ismail Kadare are some of the local heroes displayed in the museum stands. A special corner has also been dedicated to late Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, who ruled the country for 40 years, from 1945 to 1985. Some of the dictator’s photos featuring him visiting his hometown of Gjirokastra and some of his political writings are displayed in a special stand for those who look back nostalgically to the communist regime.
Sadi Petrela, the head of the Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Organization says the opening of the museum enabled the restoration of collection of arms and traditional Gjirokastra costumes.
The museum was inaugurated at the end of last September when a local handicraft and heritage fair was also held in Gjirokastra.
“The new museum is aimed at complementing the two other existing museums, which unfortunately have been left out of attention for years. The museum targets taking a panoramic look of the culture, tradition and history of Gjirokastra in the past 2,000 years, but also in the local Drino valley. We think this serves tourism and informing the younger generation better. In fact, its construction is part of our strategy to further develop tourist information in town, which during the past five years has almost been missing. Now we have flyers, maps, guides, explanatory notes about museums websites etc in a new system which is being updated,” Sadi Petrela tells reporters.
The museum was initially thought to be named Chronicle in Stone after a novel written by internationally renowned Albanian writer Ismail Kadare but was later named Gjirokastra.
Albanian and foreign restorers were engaged in the restoration of the items that will be displayed in the new museum. Archeological remains, weapons of the pre-independence period, and traditional costumes of local areas were some of the restored items.
The museum will be the third in Gjirokastra after the arms museum in the local fortress and the ethnographic museum located in the house of late dictator Enver Hoxha.
Inscribed on UNESCO as a rare example of an architectural character typical of the Ottoman period, Gjirokastra, in the Drinos river valley in southern Albania, features a series of outstanding two-story houses which were developed in the 17th century. The town also retains a bazaar, an 18th-century mosque and two churches of the same period. The 13th-century citadel provides the focal point of the town with its typical tower houses.
The historic town of Gjirokastra is a rare example of a well-preserved Ottoman town, built by farmers of large estates. The architecture is characterized by the construction of a type of tower house (Turkish ‘kule’), of which Gjirokastra represents a series of outstanding examples, according to UNESCO.
