Museum "Ghega" in Austria

By: Pjetër Logoreci

The mountain region of Breitenstein is located in the administrative division of Lower Austria, in the area of ​​Semmering, which is classified as a World Cultural Heritage, as a result of the special railway infrastructure that crosses the mountain at heights of 705 to 1.545 meters. The first world-famous mountain railway, designed and implemented by Karl Gega, crosses the entire province, making these places very attractive for tourists from all over the world.

Karl Gega started designing the southern railway in 1842 and in 1857 he made it a reality for travel on the Vienna-Trieste section. For his many skills and talent as well as for the realization of this great work, Karli was honored by the imperial family with the title of "Knight". He was internationally known as the railway genius, Carl Ritter von Ghega.

The museum, which rises in the middle of a special valley in terms of the beauty of nature, has in its inventory many objects from life on the construction sites, 40 photographs, documents, sketches and drawings of Gega, various invoices or parts of the correspondence of with his friends and colleagues extracted from the central archives of the monarchy of that time or the funds of any family or private person. The museum building is also the center of the Friends of Gega Club, whose members contributed a lot with their work and funding to bring the centuries-old building to the state it is today.

From the entrance of the building, the visitor comes into contact with historical elements and objects of the railway field, from lanterns, bells or signal bells of stations or locomotives and shining emblems of the enterprise of construction and exploitation of the imperial railways. On the ground floor, a small alcove on the right wing is prepared with documents that acquaint you with the background, family, childhood, school and everything related to the "Italian" period of the character Karl Gega. School documents, built models or Gega's first drawings that continue with the uniforms of railway employees that were used in public.

What really impresses you is a project - a sketch made by Gega during the period when he was a student and intern in the USA, the drawings of a project-idea for the Baltimore-Ohio railway. Also the miniature of the largest steamer in the world built in 1837 by Isambard Kindom Brunel, called Great Eastern, with which on April 2, 1842 the young engineer Karl Gega, accompanied by his colleague Moritz Löhr, traveled to America for to return to Vienna in August of the same year, but with new ideas on the construction of railways and locomotives, according to the needs of the Austrian mountainous terrain.

In the second room of the museum that presents Karl's creative and successful period, our group was joined by a couple of foreign-looking visitors whose attention was drawn to a stand displaying three postage stamps. Two of the stamps were issued by the Austrian post office and one was issued by the Albanian post office. Cicero argues the existence of the Albanian stamp there with the Albanian origin of Gegë, which apparently "surprised" the two visitors who, when they heard the word Albanian, gave their faces a mocking look while emitting comic sounds. I felt bad and hurt in my pride, but I controlled myself. When we approached the photos showing the billionaire financiers of the railway project, among them the photo of Baron Sina, it was my turn to "revenge" (I have always been convinced that the truth and the right do not take long to come out). The attendant showed their names without delay, "leaving a path" for me to clarify further...

"Perhaps you don't know", I intervened proudly, but with permission, "this here, is Baron Sina, the most famous man of Austrian finance who, like Gega, is from the Albanian lands, from Voskopoja. His activity, like Karl's, has left an indelible mark on the construction of modern Austria. It was Sina who proposed and financed Karl in the railway project. It is known that they were friends and that Karl Gega lived, until he died, in the palace of the Sina Barons, in the center of Vienna".

The director of the museum who accompanied us was surprised by my knowledge of Gega and Sina, which he had not known before, and passing his hand over his mustache, he seemed satisfied that the arguments "punished" the discriminatory behavior of the newly arrived couple.

In the other environment, which was a 4×4 room, important objects of the architect were lined up with taste. His work desk and chair, sketches and measuring tools that were his discoveries, license document, notepad filled with complicated calculations and formulas, writing implements (among them a quill), a statue of To the famous Lady Mariazell who holds the Christ child, a candlestick and a candle for lighting as well as two 20 shilling banknotes bearing the portrait of Karl Gega.

On the left side, a walnut wood shelf closed with glass where coffee cups or teapots and other elements used for feeding are kept. On the opposite side, the first-rate chinaware that Karl used to wash his hands before eating gleams. What really caught my attention was a document (photocopied from the original), bearing the coat of arms of Knight Karl Gega.

According to imperial law, the museum guide explained to me, any person who enjoyed the title of Knight could have and use among his documents the personal coat of arms which was approved by the Emperor. This here is the coat of arms of Gega which symbolizes with its figures the power of the empire through two lions, as well as the prosperity and the beautiful nature of the mountains (Semmering) through the tree that appears in the center of the coat of arms, which is surrounded by the row of its fruits, symbol of the railway with its tunnels and stations.

In continuity, all objects have beauty and curiosity that keeps you tense. At the end, in a special environment, on large tables and stands, there are books, brochures, newspapers and photo albums published for Karl Gegë's recent work. A symbolic shop closes the museum, but with many objects reminiscent of the genius Gega, which the tourist, as a souvenir of the visit, can take with him for a few euros.

Before leaving the museum, in private, I thanked Cicero (who is also the head of the museum), telling him that I am Albanian and that I have searched and written about the famous architect Gega. We exchanged business cards and I suggested that he watch a documentary about Gega which RTM (Macedonian Radio Television) had brought to light and which was the work of the well-known Albanian journalist Reshat Kamberi, which is now also on YouTube with the title "The genius of railways".

I wish and hope that as many Albanians have the opportunity to visit this valuable museum, as well as the natural paradise of Semmering, where the first mountain railway in the world, built by a genius of Albanian origin, Karl Gega, winds its way. /word/