Once known as "the North Korea of Europe", Albania is turning to its millennia-old sites and rich cultural heritage to recast its image. After a period of turmoil, places often talk about looking towards the future. However, 40 years after the death of communist dictator Enver Hoxha , Albania is, in many ways, looking to its distant past.
A period of extreme isolationism from the 1940s to 1991 led the Balkan nation to close its religious institutions, neglect many of its historical sites and to become known as " the North Korea of Europe ". But today, Albania is working hard to reclaim its cultural heritage by preserving its natural landscape and embracing its ancient roots. The more-than-2,500-year-old ruins of the city of Butrint is one such example.
Dating back to roughly 800BC, the site has long stood in the centre of the Western world, surviving conflicts, absorbing different cultures and leaving multiple layers of history to explore. It was likely a Greek city-state before the Romans expanded it into a bustling town complete with a bathhouse. Later, the Byzantines and Ottomans both left their respective marks on it.
Butrint's history tells the story of the Mediterranean's shifting politics and its many cultures and religions – all of which have shaped modern-day Albania. "In 1992, [Butrint] was the first place in Albania declared a Unesco World Heritage site ," explained BBC Travel Show host Qasa Alom in a recent episode. "[It preserves] some of the rich cultural hist.
