In the Footsteps of Aeneas: A Microcosm of Albania's History: 1993-1998


A Microcosm of Albania's History: 1993-1998	"In the Footsteps of Aeneas: Five Years at Butrint" January 14, 2000

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The Phoenice
(Courtesy Richard Hodges)

Albania's first elected government faced a great challenge to bring this isolated country into the late twentieth century. Albania effectively had no economy, and had to begin at zero, while half a million of its people emigrated to Greece and Italy. Its first prime minister, Alexander Meksi, was a distinguished archaeologist who had excavated at Butrint in 1982. Meksi's government recognized the tourist potential of Butrint, while encouraging the Institute of Archaeology to find excavation partners to pursue research in the ancient city. Not surprisingly, the government attracted developers looking for bargain opportunities on an unknown Mediterranean coast. As early as 1992 half a dozen companies put forward proposals to create holiday villages with supermarkets and golf courses in the immediate vicinity of Butrint. Villa accommodation with tens of thousands of beds was promised on the basis that tourists would be attracted by the combination of important archaeological remains and fine seascape. Ironically, that same year Butrint was inscribed on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites.

The process of striking a deal with the developers of these holiday villages had begun before I stepped through the gates of Butrint. So, coincidentally, had a World Bank coastal zone development assessment. In 1995, during our second season of excavations (of the Byzantine palace and baptistry) and systematic field survey of the environs of Butrint, by good fortune we met Jim Dobbin, the leader of the World Bank team of consultants. Dobbin (CEO of Dobbin Inc., Vienna, Virginia) was already convinced that Albania's coast should be protected as far as possible, and that a careful program of high-quality sustainable tourism linked to investment in the infrastructure should be promoted. Butrint and its setting should be carefully preserved as a major historical and natural attraction; investment should be concentrated in and around the busy little Ionian port of Saranda, the ferry link to Corfu. High level encouragement for Dobbin's proposals came when James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank and a noted proponent of investment in cultural heritage, visited Butrint in October 1995 in the company of Albania's president, Sali Berisha.

A section of the city wall (Courtesy Richard Hodges) [LARGER IMAGE]

In early May 1996, Dobbin and his team staged a high-level conference in Tirana with senior members of the government. Sponsored by the World Bank, the meeting was to generate modern sustainable tourism. For the first time the idea of a Butrint biosphere reserve was floated. By this time, however, I was becoming familiar with the stressful growing pains of this little nation. In order to carry out our excavations in collaboration with the Institute of Archaeology and to develop follow-up conservation measures (funded by the World Monuments Fund) with their rivals, the Institute of Monuments, I had come to understand the many machinations and stressful competition for funds in this sub-communist community. It was hungry for economic support after six years of democracy, and corruption was becoming endemic. It was no surprise, then, that the day after the World Bank conference ended, the deputy prime minister laid the foundation stone for the first of Butrint's six holiday villages, occupying the cliffs overlooking the dramatic entrance to the Butrint channel. Albania's government was listening to the counsel of donors like the World Bank on the one hand, and on the other accepting down payments for land from investors embarking on projects which snubbed this counsel. Meanwhile, oblivious of either the embryonic World Bank proposals or the plans for large-scale mass tourist villages on the Corfu model, peasants from inland Albania migrated to the warmer, more fertile lands around Saranda. Several thousand families arrived in 1996, building simple bungalows with concrete blocks in 24 hours. These new communities, so reminiscent of the makeshift dwellings of migrants in Late Antiquity, began to alter the identity of the region.

Throughout 1996 foreign tourists arrived in a steady stream at Butrint. Saranda's handwritten port-books show that 25,000 visitors came from Corfu, but no accounts exist for Butrint itself. At the archaeological site the entrance revenues disappeared into the pockets of a number of individuals, while the castle and its museum remained closed. As the infamous pyramid investment schemes gathered momentum during our early autumnal field season, appealing, it has to be said, to all our Albanian colleagues, it seemed that Albania was beginning to descend into a frightening spiral of corruption. By this time, as every Albanian in Saranda and the villages at Butrint would point out to us, no investment had been made to improve any aspect of the delapidated and often defunct infrastructure of the region. Living in the village of Vrina, two kilometers south of Butrint, and five kilometers as the crow flies from Corfu, it was awesome to join the queue at the village's solitary water standpoint in the pitch darkness and gaze at the sparkling fairy lights beyond Albania's frontier. This intractable mess was bound to lead to an explosion.

Restored Venetian castle (Courtesy Richard Hodges) [LARGER IMAGE]

The civil anarchy of February and March 1997 was triggered by the collapse of the pyramid schemes. It was fueled, however, by a deep-sown resentment of the fraudulent elections of 1996, which had led to corruption rather than investment. Over 2,000 people died before an international peace-keeping force restored order and a new coalition government was elected. The uprising marked the real end of the old order, but inevitably it frightened off many investors. In these circumstances the Butrint Foundation has attempted to fill the vacuum. Working with UNESCO's World Heritage Center, Butrint was inscribed on the "sites at risk" list after the museum was looted in March 1997, when a number of statues and small finds were taken (several statues have subsequently been found by the Greek police in Athens). A UNESCO assessment mission in October 1997 identified the management problems at Butrint, and pressured the Ministry of Culture to act. $100,000 was awarded for a variety of emergency measures to protect the site. Meanwhile, the new prime minister, Fatos Nano, recognized the need to treat Butrint as a cultural asset, and not just as a place for cheap tourism, as did his successive ministers of culture, Arta Dada (1997-1998) and Edwin Rama (1998-present). As a result, the projected holiday villages have not materialized. Instead, since January 1998, a World Bank team led by Krezentia Duer, fostered by Wolfensohn's personal interest in the project, has been engaged in developing a program of infrastructural investment for the region, contingent upon ensuring that Butrint remains protected within a buffer zone in which there will be no new building. The investment will include developing a board to create modern planning and protection authority, funds for providing services such as water and sewage, and grants for restoring Saranda as a port of entry to the region. A loan of $16 million is now projected. Linked to this are several European Union investment programs supported by the Greek and Italian governments. Plans include a road-building scheme that will connect Butrint and Saranda to northern Greece. (continued)


A Microcosm of Mediterranean Archaeology	A Microcosm of Albania's History 1993-1998