Tirana. Monument to the national hero of Albania - Skanderbeg

Photo reports and reviews about the trip and visiting the Skanderbeg Monument. Photo report about Monument to Skanderbeg, history, location

Monument to Skanderbeg: detailed information

The sculpture represents the Albanian hero Skandeberg in armor, riding a war horse. In his right hand, the warrior holds a saber, his gaze is strict and resolute. The horse beats with its hoof and wants to rear up. Against the backdrop of the mountain slopes, Skanderbeg looks like a brave warrior rushing into battle. This is how he was in reality.

Georgi Skanderbeg was a protege of the Ottoman Empire, as he was a representative of a strong and wealthy Albanian family. Oh also showed himself well in hostilities on the Turkish side. However, the pressure that the inhabitants of the Albanian lands experienced from the Turks forced him to take drastic measures. He renounced Islam, became a Christian and led an uprising against the Ottoman Empire.
By then, all of Europe was trembling at the thought that the Turkish conquest might spread further west. European kings gave him all kinds of support, so Skanderbeg can be perceived not only as the liberator of Albania, but also as a defender of Europe.
In 1486, Prince Kastrioti fell ill and died of malaria. All his army was left without a leader and means of subsistence. The independence movement faded away, but remained forever in Albanian history. http://www.tgt.ru/

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To visit the Albanian capital, you need to mentally prepare. I still remember my first shock from the dirt, the noise, the lack of street signs and horse riders trying to knock down any pedestrian who dared to step on the roadway. Six months after returning from a trip, I look at the photographs of Tirana and my memories seem far-fetched to me. Tirana is a dynamic, car-heavy city with green boulevards, public parks, a concrete-banked river and a digital map from Google. Only a photograph of a rat along the river gives some truth to my memories.

Monument to Skanderbeg in the main square of Tirana.

Tirana was the first city I visited in Albania. A night bus from Macedonia dropped me off at half past five in the morning on one of the deserted streets of the Albanian capital. The place of disembarkation of passengers, although it seemed to be chosen by the driver that night quite by accident, was obviously guarded by a crowd of taxi drivers who began to importunately offer their services to sleepy passengers, only they began to get off the bus, and grab their hands to draw attention to themselves.

Skanderbeg Square as I saw it at dawn. I was disappointed to learn that Tirana's main square is under renovation.

At night the capital of Albania sleeping. Along the street that led me to Skanderbeg Square, a pack of stray dogs was running next to me. The first impression completely coincided with the well-known stereotype of Albania in Europe.

Monument to Skanderbeg in the main square of Tirana. Skanderbeg is the national hero of Albania. I wrote about his participation in the formation of the Albanian national idea in a report from the fortress of Kruja.

Skanderbeg Square is made in the classical style of the main squares of all the totalitarian states of the world. In such countries, the task of the central square is to create the illusion of importance and prosperity. The huge area does not produce a sense of integrity, as its appearance has been formed over decades. It contains a modern opera house, a history museum, the ancient Ethem mosque, a monument to the national hero Skanderbeg, three-story government buildings and a fifteen-story Tirana International Hotel. Each of these buildings was built in a different period of history, so the existing architectural ensemble looks very inharmonious. I was also unlucky in the fact that during my visit the area was closed for reconstruction, new sewer pipes and concrete blocks were scattered everywhere. The facade of the Museum of Albanian History was covered with scaffolding, and the famous relief on the theme of Albanian history was hidden from view.

The Tirana International Hotel is the tallest building on Skanderbeg Square.

The purpose of the reconstruction is to remove car traffic from the main square of the city and make it completely pedestrian. So the authorities of Tirana want to make their city more attractive to tourists. The construction sponsor is the Bank of Kuwait. In addition to the arrangement of the main square, the Bank of Kuwait pays for the construction of the largest mosque in Albania somewhere nearby.

Albanian Opera House, a gift from the Soviet government to the communist government of Albania. After the break in relations with the USSR in 1961, the building stood unfinished for a long time until the Albanians completed it on their own.

At about five o'clock in the morning, the imam called through a megaphone on the minaret for morning prayer, after which the first "larks" appeared on the square. Over the next hour, the square gradually filled with people. The first policeman also appeared on duty, he came to work on a broken bicycle. Sleepy people in the early morning made a depressing impression. Not only did they not smile at the rising sun, but they also looked very unkindly at a man with a large camera.

Museum of the History of Albania with a bas-relief made in the best traditions of socialist realism.

Thanks to a friend of a friend of a friend of mine, I was placed in a hotel in the western part of Tirana. There was no map in my guide capitals of Albania, so it seemed to me that I live on the outskirts of civilization. Having uploaded photos to the world map a few days ago, I found out that the hotel was at a distance of one transport ring from the center, that is, approximately 20 minutes walk from the central square. Without a map and not knowing the best route, I reached the center in a roundabout way.

A typical apartment building in Tirana. From broken plaster and holes in the windows in the stairwell, one can draw a very accurate conclusion about the average standard of living in Albania.

After breakfast, I went straight to the city of Kruya, twenty kilometers north of Tirana. To do this, I searched for a long time for the courtyard of a residential building in which passengers gather to Kruja. I spoke in detail about the features of a fixed-route taxi in Albania in an overview report from Albania.

Minibuses collect passengers in the courtyards of residential buildings, as there is still free parking there. In the photo above: a minibus to the Kruya fortress in one of the courtyards of the capital.

In Kruja, I visited the museum of the national hero of Albania, Skanderbeg, got acquainted with the national life of a wealthy Albanian family of the 19th century in the ethnographic museum and bought several souvenirs to take home. Upon my return, I fell asleep and slept until 4 pm. So I managed to avoid the heat.

There is a lot of traffic on the streets of Tirana. Drivers not only do not give way to pedestrians, but, it seems, they strive to knock down anyone who steps on the roadway.

Capital of Albania is a very hot city. The average air temperature in August reaches 31 degrees here, and during my trip to Tirana the sun was hot at 40 degrees! I overslept the hottest time of the day, after which I took a shower and went out into the city. I had all the time left to get acquainted with the Albanian capital until sunset, that is, no more than four hours.

Dust, heat and aggressive drivers do not scare off pedestrians who urgently need to cross the opposite side of the street.

Mercedes is the most common car on the streets of Albania. Most of the old "Mercedes" were stolen in Western Europe.

With no map of the city and no street signs, I didn't know where to go. First of all, I moved towards the river, which I saw in the morning. The river crosses the city from east to west and divides Tirana into two parts. In the southern part of the city, there used to be the Blloku district, in which the political elite of the ruling regime lived. Entrance to Bloka was forbidden to ordinary people. Today, Blokku is "open and open around the clock" (c). Here, more often than in other parts of the city, you can meet foreigners, both tourists and embassy employees, as well as golden Albanian youth. In Blloku I dined at one of the most famous restaurants in Tirana, Era. I recommend!

In Albania, a lifestyle familiar to us from travels in the Middle East is common: men can recline in armchairs for hours, discuss politics, drink coffee and play backgammon.

Albanian men play dominoes in the afternoon.

In a cafe in the courtyard of a residential building, all the exchange of valuable information takes place.

The first floors of houses in Tirana are reserved for private business. Small business is booming in the city.

While I still had a few hours before dinner, I began to search for the city center, moving along the river. On both sides of the concrete banks of the river stretched a lawn with mowed lawn, and the river could be crossed over small bridges, many of which were pedestrian. On one of these footbridges, a guy was selling books “off the pavement” and he was very disappointed that I managed to photograph him. Photographers are not liked in Albania.

The Lana River divides the city into northern and southern parts.

Selling books on the bridge over the river Lana.

A rat digs in the leaves on the river bank. Tirana is still very dirty.

Tirana is very dirty. As a result of the turbulent events of the nineties, the population of the Albanian capital grew from three hundred thousand to half a million inhabitants. Near the river, I caught my eye a rat when he was digging in a pile of fallen leaves. There is a lot of dust on the street, the feeling of which only intensifies on a dry hot day. But among all this dirt, highways are separated by boulevards with trees and flowering bushes, and pedestrian sidewalks are tiled. In the morning the roads are watered. In several places outside the center, I came across signs with tourist information on how to get to the most popular attractions.

Bilingual direction signs to attractions on Kavaja Street (Rruga Kavaja).

Many avenues of Tirana are decorated with flowering bushes and green alleys.

Another boulevard in Tirana is on Sami Frasheri Street, the creator of the Albanian alphabet.

The city authorities of Tirana, although mired in corruption and other sins inherent in politics, still pay some attention to the improvement of the city, as much as possible. There are no postal codes in Tirana, and house numbers are not written on the facades. But the old apartment buildings, which it would be appropriate to call barracks, judging by the standard of living, are being put in order, at least from the outside. According to the decree of the previous mayor of Tirana, the facades of many old houses were painted in bright colors and fantastic patterns.

The old quarters are trying to "cheer up" with colorful patterns on the facades. Nothing has changed inside the houses.

Hanging clothes were painted on the facade of this house, so that the hanging clothes would not really be so conspicuous.

Capital of Albania experiencing a construction boom. Modern housing is built as high as possible. The 25-storey TID tower near the central square of Tirana will soon become the tallest residential building in the city.

There is a HUGE income gap in Tirana. It would seem, what should be the gap in income, so that it catches the eye of a Kiev citizen! The problem is that there is almost no industry in Albania, and the beginnings of an economy built on the principles of a command-administrative system of government collapsed along with the dictatorial regime of Enver Hoxha, barely holding out for 45 years of a failed political experiment. Poverty was characteristic of Albania already in the days of communism. Corruption flourished. In addition to poverty, the communist government of Albania led a highly discriminatory policy towards its citizens. Not only did the nomenclature and ordinary people live in separate areas, the entrance to which was closed, so even the car was an item of unimaginable luxury. In 1990, there were only 1,000 cars in all of Albania, all owned by politicians.

Taxi rank at one of the key squares of Tirana, Karl Topia Square (Sheshi Karl Topia).

A brand new jeep "Cadillac" in one of the lanes of Tirana.

As we know, the fall of the planned economy spurs the development of wild (!) capitalism, as it was in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The Albanian path to capitalism was no exception. In addition to institutionalized corruption, theft flourished in the country. In the old days, theft was punished by a prison term; in modern times, it is indirectly encouraged by a shattered economic system. In the turbulent 1990s, the most valuable part of state property was privatized, the rest was plundered and sold for scrap. So, for example, it happened with Soviet submarines, which the population sawed up and sold for scrap during the 1997 civil war. The railroad rails were also actively used for scrap metal.

Shopping area in the center of Tirana. Here you will find clothing and accessories from all global brands.

Shopping street Myuslym Shyri (Rruga Myslym Shyri) in the center of Tirana.

About the civil war of 1997 should be told separately. After the fall of the communist regime, Albania, like all countries, decided to follow the path of democracy. The elected governments changed one after another. All of them were distinguished by a thirst for quick profit and corruption. In 1997, the patience of the people broke when it turned out that two-thirds of the country were victims of financial pyramids organized by several politicians. Desperate people took to the streets to protest. Aggressive protest acquired an armed character, people began to throw stones at the police, smash shops. Foreign governments urgently evacuated their embassies. For several months, Albania plunged into chaos and confusion. The mess lasted six months. As a result of the events described, two thousand people died.

One of the abandoned factories in Tirana. Now on its territory there is a bus station of the southern direction.

During the riots, the separatism of the southerners added to the discontent of the deceived MMM depositors, which once again emphasized the differences in the economic and religious composition of the country. The mountainous south is less developed than the flat north, and due to its proximity to Greece, Orthodoxy dominates here, while the northern part of Albania is more industrialized and more Muslim. In principle, the religious factor was not decisive in this conflict, since during the 45 years of communism, the people of Albania were forcibly deprived of their religious affiliation. Although Albania is considered a Muslim country, the people in it are no more religious than in any other Eastern European country.

In the courtyards of residential buildings there are "shops" of clothes, shoes ...


... and spare parts.

Albania is a multifaceted country, primarily in religious terms. It is impossible not to notice, walking around Tirana. The Ethem Mosque is located on the main square. Unlike many other temples, this mosque was not destroyed during the years of the struggle against religion.

Ethem Mosque.

Ethem Mosque is the oldest building on Skanderbeg Square. The mosque is famous for being ancient, and there are very few ancient buildings in Tirana, and for the fact that the interior of the mosque is painted “inspired by Jerusalem”.

Behind the trees you can see the construction of a huge Orthodox church.

In the neighboring quarter with the mosque, a huge Orthodox cathedral is being built in the spirit of modern architecture. The construction started in 2007. During my visit, the external decoration of the temple was almost completely completed.

The Orthodox cathedral is being built in the spirit of modern architecture, which indicates the independence of the Albanian autocephalous Orthodox Church from the more conservative Greek and Serbian churches.

A few streets away from the Orthodox Cathedral is the Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul, opened in 2001. The interior of the cathedral is decorated with stained-glass windows with images of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa. In front of the cathedral is a monument to Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian of the Catholic faith, born in Macedonia.

The monument to Mother Teresa is located near the Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul. In honor of Mother Teresa in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, a huge number of streets, squares, schools and stadiums are named.

Tirana is the center of Bektashism, a liberal offshoot of Islam founded in the 13th century. Followers of Bektashism are allowed to drink alcohol, and their women are given a more important role than in traditional Islam.

Expensive shops in the center of Tirana.

In the center of Tirana, you can walk along the pedestrian street. Murat Toptani Street runs along the remains of the Tirana fortress. Through the crack in the gate, you can see that there is something very secret in the courtyard of the fortress. The first pedestrian street of Tirana is tiled, and along the curb, LED lights are built into the ground, smoothly changing color from blue to bright yellow.

Pedestrian street Murat Toptani in the center of Tirana.

Ruins of the fortress of Tirana.

The buildings of the National Assembly and the Academy of Sciences of Albania are hidden in the park next to the fortress of Tirana. The latter was founded only in 1972.

A block from the main square, Tirana's tallest building, the TID Tower residential building, is under construction. Its height will reach 85 meters. The 25-storey building of the Belgian architectural firm will be the first of a series of high-rise buildings in the capital, which should give Tirana a modern face. As far as I understand, construction is being carried out literally on top of the tomb of Suleiman Pasha.

View of the Ethem Mosque and the residential skyscraper TID Tower under construction.

A very elite shopping complex is located on the first two floors of the Twin Towers at the beginning of Martyrs Boulevard (Bulevardi Dёshmorёt e Kombit).

The Boulevard of the Martyrs leads to the opposite bank of the river, ending in Mother Teresa Square, where the building of the Academy of Arts and the main building of the University of Tirana are located. The boulevard itself leaves an ambiguous impression: the roadway here is paved with paving slabs. In my opinion, this is not the most rational solution for a country where banditry is still a means of survival.

Boulevard of the Martyrs.

Next to Tirana's most fashionable quarter and the Twin Towers (in Tirana it is customary to call the most elite residential buildings by English names), young people ride skateboards in the park around the mausoleum of former Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. The pyramid-shaped mausoleum was built according to the design of the dictator's daughter, but soon after his death it was closed. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it housed a disco, but the building is now abandoned.

Pyramid of the "leader" of the Albanian people.

I finished my walk at the Era restaurant and, together with a stream of noisy youth, returned to the hotel. The next morning I had an early departure to the south, to the city of Saranda.

The flag of the European Union covers the facade of the building, which will soon open the EU Information Center.

Albania must be considered according to its history. In Europe, Albanians are clearly associated with car theft, and the abundance of stolen Mercedes on the roads causes an ironic smile. Before forming another prejudice in oneself, it is necessary to remember the poverty that this people went through in the 20th century. The greedy and envious looks that I met on myself that early morning in Skanderbeg Square were not a manifestation of evil addressed to me, but only a statement of the extremely disastrous conditions in which modern Albanians have to survive.

Monument to the national hero of Albania, the leader of the anti-Ottoman Albanian uprising
George Kastrioti - Skanderbeg, is located on the main square of Tirana, which bears his name.
The monument is an eleven-meter bronze statue of a warrior on horseback.
a war horse with a saber in his hand and in the original helmet.
The monument was erected in 1968 on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of the national hero.
The author is the outstanding Albanian sculptor Odise Paskali.

Interesting facts about Skanderbeg taken from Wikipedia.
George Kastrioti was born in Dibra on May 6, 1405.
George was the youngest son of the Albanian prince John Kastrioti, who is mentioned in Venetian documents as "a powerful Albanian lord, an honorary citizen of Venice and Ragusa." In early childhood, George was given to Sultan Murad II as a hostage.
There he was forced, as a prisoner, to convert to Islam.
George made an officer career and became famous fighting in the Ottoman army.
He participated in many battles and showed such courage that the Turks called him Iskander (the name of Alexander the Great has always been synonymous with a hero in the East).

In January 1443, the Polish and Hungarian king Vladislav III was declared
crusade against the Turks, which ended on November 10, 1444 with the defeat of the crusaders near Varna and the death of the king himself.

When in November 1443 the Hungarian commander Janos Hunyadi liberated the city of Nis from the Turks, Iskander Bey (in the Albanian transcription Skanderbeg) renounced Islam, converted to Christianity again and, at the head of a detachment of 300 horsemen, left the Turkish camp.

Arriving in the city of Dibra, he called on the people to revolt for the liberation of Albania.
A few days later, Skanderbeg entered Kruya and on November 28, the Albanian elders proclaimed him the head of the principality of Kastrioti and the leader of all Albanians.
Soon he defeated the Turks on the Black Drin, and then, having concluded an alliance with Hungary, forced
Murad II lift the siege of the Albanian city of Kruja.

Having entered into a military-political alliance with Venice and the Albanian princes in 1444, having a small cavalry detachment, he launched a guerrilla war in Northern Albania, defeating the Ottoman troops in 1449 and 1451.
With no less success, Kastrioti resisted Sultan Mehmed II and, after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, concluded a peace favorable to Albania.
In 1461, Skanderbeg was recognized by Sultan Mehmed II as the ruler of Albania.

The Neapolitan King Ferdinand I granted George Castrioti the title of Duke of San Pietro as a reward for his help against René of Anjou. In 1463, Skanderbeg broke, with the blessing of Pope Pius II, peace with the Ottomans and again inflicted several very tangible defeats on them.

In 1467, Mehmed II moved against Skanderbeg, who was then in Venetian Dalmatia, a large army under the command of Mahmud Pasha Angelovich.
For 15 days, the Ottomans pursued Skanderbeg's detachments.
He, evading the battle, retreated into the mountains, and then went down to the coast and loaded his fighters onto the Venetian galleys.
Mehmed II was ready to move all his forces against the recalcitrant Albanian, but in 1468 George Kastrioti died of malaria.
His death was followed by the death of Albanian sovereignty.

"Once in history, namely in 1444, the great commander George Kastriot Skanderbeg (Catholic Albanian) was able to make Albania a strong and strong country. But in 1478 (11 years after the death of Skanderbeg) Albania was - after Serbia, Bulgaria, Byzantium and Bosnia - conquered by the Turks and lost its independence for a long time."
K. E. Kozubsky

In the city of Kruja on a high mountain, in an ancient castle, there is a museum of the national hero of Albania
Skanderbeg. The museum opened in 1982. Among the exhibits are preserved personal items,
including a copy of the famous goat-headed helmet (original in the Kunsthistorisches Museum
in Vienna).

Photo from internet

The legend says that once after a bloody battle, Turkish troops surrounded the soldiers
Skanderbeg high in the mountains and decided to starve them out by cutting off food.
But the princely army saved a herd of wild goats, whose milk they fed all the time until
the Turks did not decide that the besieged had left the mountains by some secret paths through their posts.
Since then, Skanderbeg has worn a gilded head of a mountain goat on his helmet.

Where is

The Skanderberg monument is located in the very center of the Albanian capital Tirana. It was erected on the square of the same name and every day hundreds of tourists come here to walk and enjoy the views.

How to get there

We came here by sightseeing bus with a group of tourists as part of a one-day tour from Montenegro. But if you came to Albania on your own, then getting here is not difficult. But the locals are unlikely to tell you the right way. The Albanian language is one of a kind, there are no similar and close to it. Only now it has historically developed that some Albanians know Italian and that's it. No one here understands English - sign language will help you!

Where to park

On the square itself, until recently, there was an exclusively pedestrian zone. Now a road with a carriageway passes around it, but parking is not allowed here. Since we came here by bus, they generally have a parking area on the outskirts of the center. From there we were on foot.

Entrance

Entrance to Skanderberg Square and the passage to the monument is free.

General impressions

The monument to Skanderberg is an eleven-meter statue made of bronze. The majestic rider sits on a horse and holds a saber in his hands.

To be honest, in appearance this monument reminded me of the monument to Salavat Yulaev in Ufa.

It is interesting that earlier on the site of the monument to Skanderberg there was a monument to Joseph Stalin. But in the nineties, it was decided to remove and replace. Now the monument to Stalin is located behind the building of the National Museum.

Skanderberg is a national hero. He was at the head of the great Albanian uprising and liberated the country from the Ottoman yoke. There are many legends and folk songs about him. It is interesting that Skanderberg is honored not only in Albania, monuments are erected to him in Rome and Kosovo.

It is curious that cognac and coffee of the same name are produced in Albania. By the way, not cheap, unlike the rest of the country's products.

Either it is made of a truly high-quality material, or it is so looked after, but the appearance of the monument is clean, neat and not even oxidized, like many similar monuments made of bronze. And even the birds do not sit on it and do not dirty! In general, the area is very well-groomed and the monument with all its neighboring buildings and structures are very in harmony with each other. Although, if you break it down into separate elements, then the components of the square are very diverse and from different eras and styles. Here is Hadji Ephem Bay, the Opera House, the National Museum, government buildings (including the Presidential Palace). I looked at the square, standing near the monument, and I associated all this with some kind of salad!

Where to eat

Wherever you go from the monument and the square, there are cafes and restaurants everywhere. There is a place to eat here. Our prices are reasonable and the portions are good. I highly recommend trying the Albanian ice cream. In fact, it is not Albanian, but Italian, but no less tasty! Our guide even made a special stop in the city center to sample the local ice cream. And I advise you to try Albanian coffee. It's different here, really tasty. Unfortunately, we did not have time to try coffee in Albania itself, but we bought a couple of packages to take with us. It turned out to be very tasty. Here, a special technology for making coffee in a Turk also operates: after the first boil, it is not removed from the fire, but removed and waited for the foam to settle, then put on fire again and allowed to boil, and this must be done three times. It turns out that it is very tasty to make coffee this way! It turns out not with a burnt aftertaste, but really soft, delicate and pleasant to the taste!

Skanderbeg Square is the main square of Tirana. It was named so in 1968 in honor of the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg, whose monument was erected here.

During the Albanian monarchy, the architecture of the square consisted of several buildings that were blown up during the communist period. In the center of the square there was a fountain that surrounded the road, the Old Bazaar was on the site of the modern Palace of Culture, and where the hotel complex is now located, there was an Orthodox cathedral. In place of the Skandenberg monument was a statue of Joseph Stalin. The city hall building was occupied by the National Historical Museum. For some time, there was also a sculptural image of the leader of Albania, Enver Hoxha, which was demolished in 1991 during student protests.

At one time, the ex-mayor of Tirana, Edi Rama, took certain actions to give the square a modern European look. Since March 2010, the space of the square has been transferred to a pedestrian zone with limited access to public transport. The water supply of the new fountain involves the use of rainwater to fill it. During the construction, new bypass roads around the square were put into operation. The reconstruction project was funded by Kuwait.

Since September 2011, with the arrival of the new mayor of the city, the previous plan has been revised and changed. Vehicles were returned to the square, bicycle paths were laid. The green park area to the south of Skanderbeg's statue was extended to the north by several hundred meters, planting many trees. Now the square houses the Hadji Efem Bay Mosque, the Opera House, the National Museum, and government buildings.