Albania, a small forgotten state on the Adriatic Sea that was sealed off from the whole world like North Korea nowadays in the decades after World War II. No one was allowed in, no one was allowed out. That has changed in the meantime.
But still the country with its population of not even three million is a piece of mysterious terra incognita in the middle of Europe. Part 1 of the story is here, part two here. The number 3 you can find here and four + five + six + seven + eight. Here are the nine and last of all, the 10.
Today we are on the road in the area around Lazarat, a landscape that does not look much different from all the countryside between Qeparo, Limar and Sheper. What's special about this corner of the country shows up only in the form of old plastic pipes peeking out of the undergrowth.
In addition, there are suddenly many fences, most of them, however, kicked down and collapsed, small houses without pastures next to them and rutted paths on which deep tire tracks of heavy SUVs can still be seen.
Black Afghan from Albania
No wonder, because all the mountains here, but especially the hidden valleys, were long considered the center of cannabis cultivation in Albania, indeed, in all of Europe. The clubs of the big cities were supplied from here. The "Black Afghan" that people smoked in Western Europe, it didn't come from the Hindu Kush, but from here during the dark years when Albania was a criminal republic where the mafia ruled everything.
It was huge! The Italian Guardia di Finanza flew over the area at the height of the Albanian hashish hype and they discovered cultivation areas of over 300 hectares, where more than 1,000 tons of cannabis worth 4.5 billion euros grew per year.
Fighting for the harvest
For poor Albania, this was a boon that was equivalent to almost half of Albania's gross domestic product. In Lazarat, a tiny nest without any other industry, the locals at times fought at gunpoint against the Albanian authorities, who wanted to spoil their business. A police post was destroyed, and the drug gangs controlled the access roads to the village.
Today there is not much left of these wild conditions, at least nothing that hikers can discover. Because in the early morning of June 16, 2014, Albanian police began to take Lazarat, destroying the drug fields and restoring state order. This involved heavy fighting with machine guns, bazookas and shells fired. A real battle on mountain ground. 900 Special Forces officers were needed to break the last resistance.
Hiding the cannabis plants
Meanwhile, residents set fire to their crops and they tried to hide their cannabis plants. Since then, police have controlled the place, but deep in the mountains, cultivation is still going on, albeit on a much smaller scale in areas in uninhabited mountainous areas that can only be seen from above. Every now and then we too come across a few plants, secret fields or forgotten last harvest? Nobody knows.
Apart from these wild stories, the Vjosa Valley, where our destination Permet is located, is a breathtakingly beautiful landscape. In the morning, when the valley is shrouded in fog, you get an enchanting view of the ordinary fields and the gently rolling landscape in front of the high mountains. In between flows the river Vjose, which springs from a spring in the Pindus Mountains in Greece.
Along picturesque villages
Here you can also go wild water rafting, but we stay on our feet, walk past an old cemetery, along shepherds with their sheep, discover a small store in an old bunker and admire the picturesque villages in the area, which date back to Byzanthine and we see pretty little churches and monasteries built during the country's golden age.
Permet, on the other hand, is a real town with about 6000 inhabitants, spread out along the river. It is known for its traditional folk music and as the birthplace of the famous clarinetist Laver Bariu, at least in Albania. The center of the municipality is designed like many Albanian places: A large square with many memorials and monuments to all sorts of local heroes from various wars, including a significant statue commemorating the Rilindja movement, which fought for independence between 1870 and 1912.
Mad rage against the faith
Next to it stands the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas (in Albanian "Shen Nikolle"), a survivor of the communists' mad rage against the faith. It showed itself particularly drastically here in the mountains, were the communist power that be burned down several churches in the town.
Permet, called "Permeti" in Albanian http://www.visitpermet.com, is often called the "city of roses" because the people here on the mountain range of Trebeshine and Dhembel (2050 m a.s.l.) have a great fondness of flowers. There is a bridge over the Vjose River only to the east, from which we reach immediately the main square of the town.
A few years later, in 1997, there was a war here now known as the pyramid crisis. After a financial shell game burst, an anti-government movement formed, which raged through the country, angry and heavily armed. The bankruptcy of many pyramid schemes had robbed the Albanians of around $1.2 billion in savings, and now those armed with heavy weapons are demanding the government's resignation.
Victims of the uprising
Parts of the army also took part in the uprising, which then fought against other parts of the army - especially in Permet, where a memorial stone still commemorates the victims of the fighting.
Nearby is a mosque, and not far away is the biggest sight of the town: right on the riverbank, a little below the bridge, rises a huge, freestanding, cube-shaped rock. On the Gur i Qytetit (City Stone) there are even some remains of walls from Ottoman times. This monolithic boulder is the landmark of the city, you can even visit it, because a staircase leads up to the 84 meters high rock.
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