{"id":3012,"date":"2013-08-03T17:22:01","date_gmt":"2013-08-03T22:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=3012"},"modified":"2025-02-26T16:40:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T22:40:43","slug":"in-the-land-of-king-zog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/2013\/08\/03\/in-the-land-of-king-zog\/","title":{"rendered":"In the land of King Zog"},"content":{"rendered":"

August\u00a03,\u00a02013<\/p>\n

In the land of King Zog.<\/p>\n

If you had tried to visit Albania from 1944 to 1990, even in the unlikely event\u00a0\u00a0you had wanted to, you couldn\u2019t, because the country was the European equivalent of North Korea.\u00a0\u00a0Its ruler, Enver Hoxha, who led the Communist resistance to the Italian invaders in World War II, who ruled until his death in 1985, was a communist along the lines of Kim Il Sung of North Korea.\u00a0\u00a0Calling Stalin too mild, he favored the Chinese brand of Mao Tse Tung, and after Mao\u2019s death in 1976, pretty much closed the country off from all foreign contact. There are gun emplacements and turrets along the coast today, remnants of the efforts to keep others out and Albanians in.\u00a0\u00a0Albania had become a country only in 1912, and became a Kingdom when Ahmed Zogu tired of being president, and declared himself King Zog in 1925.\u00a0\u00a014 years later, Mussolini invaded Albania, and Zog joined the ranks of unemployed royalty.<\/p>\n

Although Albania has applied for membership in the European Union, and has been opened to the rest of the world since 1991, the effects of that long period of isolation were readily apparent in our stop at Sarande, one of the major ports on the Adriatic.\u00a0\u00a0Though only a few miles from Greece, the one lane highway (with billboards promising EU support in building more) ran through a city that alternated half-built new buildings (many of them owned by Norwegians we were told) with buildings torn down (the government destroyed a number of buildings that it said were illegally built).\u00a0\u00a0When I went for a walk this afternoon, the two pictures I took were \"\"<\/a>of a soccer stadium\u2014and a cow on the street eating garbage\u2014ala New Delhi.\u00a0\u00a0It is, however, both less developed and less expensive than most of the other countries we\u2019ve visited, which should be (the last part anyway) attractive to the many tourists who flock here during the summer for the great beaches.\u00a0\u00a0Still, as one of our fellow travelers mused, \u201cI wonder what the company got paid to stop here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The major attraction (beside the beaches) is the town of Butrint, \u201cwounded cow,\u201d that encapsulates the history of the area.\u00a0\u00a0It is a world class \"\"<\/a>archeological site. It was originally settled by the Greeks (Corfu island, is a few miles away), and the remains included a theater which could seat 2500 people (the town was estimated at\u00a0\u00a020,000), a temple of Aeschylus,\u00a0 \u00a0the healing god;\u00a0\u00a0then the Romans arrived, and built an aqueduct to ensure water to the island (among other things); the \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>Byzantines then ruled the area until 1204 (that 4th<\/sup> crusade!), with the most striking remains\u2014the largest Orthodox baptistery aside from Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (with a deep well in the center; the Orthodox practice full immersion), with a wonderful floor mosaic (kept covered to preserve it); and a basilica with a partial mosaic that hints at the size and scope of the church. There\u2019s also a Venetian fort and tower, since the Venetians \u201cinherited\u201d many Byzantine areas after the 4th<\/sup>\u00a0crusade sacked the city and ruled it for 60 years; and \"\"<\/a>finally, the Turkish pasha who ruled the area built a magnificent house now used as the visitor center\/gift shop\/restaurant for Butrint.\u00a0\u00a0The Turks made one major lasting addition to Albania\u2014it is the most heavily Muslim country I think in Europe, at least by percentage\u201470% of the 3.6 million people are Muslim in Albania.<\/p>\n

The wars against Turkey went on for nearly 400 years, with one local hero (Skanderbeg, I think was his name) having defeated the Turks 25 times in 25 years, but the country, as I said, became independent only in 1912.<\/p>\n

Seven hours after arrival, we sailed out of Albania, and are now in Corfu, the northernmost island of Greece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August\u00a03,\u00a02013 In the land of King Zog. If you had tried to visit Albania from 1944 to 1990, even in the unlikely event\u00a0\u00a0you had wanted to, you couldn\u2019t, because the country was the European equivalent of North Korea.\u00a0\u00a0Its ruler, Enver Hoxha, who led the Communist resistance to the Italian invaders in World War II, who … Continue reading “In the land of King Zog”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eastern-mediterranean-2013"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3012"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8364,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions\/8364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}