The three-day event scheduled for August 21 to 23 will bring dozens of events including performances from the city band, exhibitions of young and veteran painters, contemporary art video projections in the ancient city’s characteristic cobbled neighbourhoods, concerts, movie screenings, handicraft and agri-business trade fairs, cultural heritage conferences and other events involving the local Roma and Egyptian communities.
TIRANA, Aug. 7 – The cultural, ethnographic and architectural heritage of Berat in southwestern Albania, known as “the city of 1,001 windows” will be showcased for three days in late August in the first multicultural festival promoting this popular international destination which since 2008 has been a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Renowned cellist Mario Guralumi, who is the organizer of the festival, says the three-day event scheduled for August 21 to 23 will bring dozens of events including performances from the city band, exhibitions of young and veteran painters, contemporary art video projections in the ancient city’s characteristic cobbled neighbourhoods, concerts, movie screenings, handicraft and agri-business trade fairs, cultural heritage conferences and other events involving the local Roma and Egyptian communities.
“The festival is an event targeting to further promote Berat and attract more tourists and art lovers,” Guralumi told local media.
Some of Berat’s local landmarks such as the international Onufri Museum and the ethnographic museum will remain open to visitors until mid-night during the three-day festival.
Internationally renowned Albanian jazz singer Elina Duni and British Bethia Beadman rock ‘n’ roll band are also expected to perform in the festival.
Six 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, local officials say.
Since 2008, Berat has been inscribed as a rare example of an architectural character typical of the Ottoman period. Located in southwestern 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, says UNESCO in its description of Berat.
