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Beyond the National Road, nothing new!

Beyond the National Road, nothing new!
Illustration

Ndue Dedaj

The few people of the mountains, even those of the cities among the mountains, are waiting with frozen hearts, will there be an end to the flight? Abandonment? Rushing to the whole world, but not returning to the mountains? In other words, will there be an end, an end? The mountains no longer pleased even the mountaineers themselves, let alone the investors, including the strategic ones. And the governors are found where the votes are "concentrated", not in the rest of Albania, the one without votes. Let the "other" have the natural resources, but she has no votes!? Not even in the elections of May 11, 2025 will it happen differently.

People are put in power with votes and beaten with votes, and they are far from the country, in Milan, London, Thessaloniki, Stuttgart, New York, but not in our mountains anymore. The "history" of the Albanian transition is so simple: the mountains have been occupied by the barrenness of the vote and thus they cannot be (re)born. Necessarily, not everyone has given up their place; they are a handful of idealistic, good-willed people, but they are not enough. It's as if the "ground" is slipping under their feet day by day.


The elected people of the local government, when they belong to the government, take the road to Dukagjin and they do well, while when they are not of it (the majority), they cannot even take it to Orosh, 10 kilometers across Rguga e Kombit! Also, the religious missionaries are always there, like the forerunners who wrote the "Baptism Formula", but whom the mountains could not baptize with their unparalleled enlightening spirit. There are some sons of the country who, after working for several years in emigration and learning the culture of work and business, returned to their country of birth to make agrotourism successful. There are also some rare foreign donors, who still believe in the future of the Albanian mountains, be it Tranga in the heights and Uraka Canyon in the depths.

They are the folklorists who sing to their land with passion, sometimes glorifying the town and the tower, the tribe and the bajrak. But, the young people are no longer there - even though they have the love for the mountains of their ancestors - as soon as they grow taller, they "fly" out, without finishing high school. Beyond these, the others who climbed the mountains are the "hunters" of the treasures of nature, fauna, flora, forests, waters, minerals, etc. Exoticism in itself is not worth it, but the belief that investments in these assets bring well-being to the residents, but to their investors, has not yet been created. And trust is not created by promises, but by visible works for the benefit of the community. As you travel through Mat by car, you pass the line of chrome-laden trailers coming from Bulqiza and going to the port of Durrës.

One of the locals said that with so much chrome that passes here almost every day, for more than ten years, this road should have been paved with gold and not be impassable on the Burrel-Rrëshen axis. Even where the roads are important and loud, nothing new beyond them. For 15 years, there could hardly have been a more suitable agro-industrial area than the one on both sides of the National Road. But, it has not been seen as such.

From Milot to Kukës, about 100 kilometers, there are no tourist resorts and guesthouses, places for skiing, wild animal reserves, etc., although the mountains of Oroshi and Fan are unusual in terms of the variety of relief, the natural wealth of beauty, but also with some rare archaeological and monumental jewels such as Domgjon's stone and Dwarf's stone. Having nowhere to stay - in Nnšejt, Djuxhë, Laja e Kačinari, Munella a Kunore - there are Mirdita families who will look for the snow in Kolaš in Montenegro at the end of this year, since many of our mountains have guest houses, including those of Kosovo, they have visited before. Without any idealization, the valley of Fan in Mirdita could be and should be the most prosperous in Albania, next to that of Vjosa. An agro-processing center is being completed in Rubik, while there could have been several.

And, not only the valley of Fan, but also the slopes of the Luma e Hasi. Nikolin Jaka, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Tirana, says that the corridor of Rguga e Kombit should be transformed into an agritourism "construction site" for the employment of people in hotels, restaurants, agricultural production, livestock breeding, etc. People expect the state to be the instigator, supporter and promoter of rural progress. However, we do not know how many officials and employees of the Ministry of Agriculture went up to the mountains of Pashtrik to "meet" the famous goat of Has, which the passionate journalist Rudina brought to us so well through her show "Cattle and Agriculture" Mucha. The shepherd of one of the herds had been an immigrant for two years in Greece and two in Germany, and in the end he had chosen his horse to work, which may not make him very rich, but it will enrich him spiritually. The farmers there also bred cows, chickens, etc. One of the residents, who has set up a livestock farm by the lake, intends to build an agrotourism and bring his two sons from England to work in his homeland.

This is as much the legacy of the ancestors as it is the contemporary Naimian call of the birthplace. Lucky that we have television cameras that look much further than the capital, drowned in the routine of the black media and political chronicle. The news of Tirana opens and closes, who entered SPAK today and tomorrow, how the expertise of the cold weapon with which the crime was committed turned out, the details that are needed by the court investigation but never the public, which, on the contrary, such news with knives, bombs, tritol, cans shock him!? Like the daily sessions with insults and even physical collisions of deputies in the Assembly.

In our mountains, you meet both sides of the coin, both people who work looking to the future, and those who have not yet decided to stay, even though they do not see any opportunity where they want to live. Nikolla from Shëngjergji has dared, like few others, to raise a cow farm at the height of the mountain, 50 kilometers away from the city, with over two hundred large and small heads, about 50 heads of pigs, 70 beehives, while there are 13 dynym of vineyards in the area with white "Kallmet" grapes.

With his own means, he takes care of and maintains about 15 kilometers of mountain roads, which the state should do, as the latter does not offer anything to the 62-year-old for the expansion of his family business that employs several people. Ermali in Perlat collects and cooks organic mushrooms in his agro-tourism resort, valuing every plant or other asset that the area has. Memory also takes care of his bees to produce honey without "tricks". Albani in Bruç cultivates trout with the water of Shutrri, where he has also created a welcoming family resort. However, they and others spend their days with the "curse" of the road, which leaves their businesses out of reach, even though people take the road from Tirana.

While drinking a coffee at the bar "Tarzani" in Burrel with friends from Mata, we expressed our satisfaction that the paving of the road to Macukull, the village of towers at the foot of Dejës, will begin, which in 1992 had 610 students in nine-year and secondary education. However, one of them was skeptical, suspecting that it was not about "electoral asphalt", since the road to Uraka, just a few kilometers across the city, is all pit! One of the interlocutors "gets carried away" and raises his voice as if he is in front of the masters of work, who do not do "small" jobs: "O governors, fill the potholes of the roads, from South to North, and don't wait for them to become impassable, then tender them with fat tenders"! We also join the citizen's voice for the roads, some of which belong to the mother and some to the stepmother, namely the government and the municipality. This has caused the "ball" of blame to be thrown here and there. The road bureaucracy is unparalleled, with letters and counter-letters between central and local institutions, about who should maintain these or those roads, classified as national or rural, etc.

Residents do not want to know about these divisions; if you don't make a way for them, they will run away. The government has announced the year 2030 for Albania's entry into the EU, but with this state of infrastructure in the mountainous areas, Europe will hardly turn a blind eye! When we talk about the roads, the first is the main road, that of the Nation, with which the others connected. Can it be an economic "free zone" between Albania and Kosovo? If so, then, after a few years, those comparisons of the mountains of Mirdita, Kukës and Puka with Switzerland, Austria, etc. would make sense. Well, it's not only agrotourism, but also Rubik's basalts, Spaçi's copper, Kalimash's chrome, etc. But do you know any free economic zones, so that you can hope for this? There was talk of one in Kashar five years ago, which the mayor of Tirana himself declared, on an area of ​​about 50 hectares. But nothing new, no trace of any such enterprise. It is only the "free zone" of endless palaces, which were extending towards Vora.

No green park for the hundred thousand inhabitants of Astir and beyond. No school, kindergarten, nursery school, social center, library, bookstore, etc. Long live the free zone of construction greed in the capital, are you saying that Tirana will be the refuge of the Balkans!? When you think that the National Road starts from Tirana and Durrësi, to arrive in Pristina, then you say that the two governments could have a joint project for strategic investments throughout this national strategic space.