Sheshi Skënderbej/ Skanderbeg Square

Welcome to Skanderbeg square!
This place looks very different today compared to when the square was initially constructed, indeed. In the times of Albanian monarchy this used to be a place with a number of beautiful buildings constructed in the beginning of the 20th century with the help of Italian and Austrian architects. But unfortunately, as you can see if you look around the square today, few, if any signs of that era remain. The clock tower and the mosque that we will just had a closer look at used to be here in the 1930s as well but the rest was all demolished.

Just where you are standing there used to be a fountain and a roundabout, over there where you now see Tirana International hotel there used to be an Orthodox Cathedral. So what happened, you might wonder? Communism happened! When the city came under communist rule in 1944 and Enver Hoxha led the country for the following 40 years little of its former architecture was spared. Privately owned cars were banned, and so was religion, hence both roundabout and church had to give way to according to the communists, more purposeful buildings.

So what you are looking at today is instead the work of the communist party that re-planned and re-built the city. But not entirely! After 1991 when Albania opened up and the communism had fallen the monuments of the communist era were removed and replaced by the statue of the Albanian National Hero Skanderbeg. Skanderbeg is by far the most important figure in the history of Albanian Nationalism and is seen as the single most important person in the struggle to hold back the Ottoman invasion of the Christian Albania in the 15th century. Can you imagine that where that statue stands today there used to be a statue of Joseph Stalin?

And of course the communist leader of the country wouldn’t lack representation in the main square of his own capital, so an Enver Hoxha statue used to throw its imposing shadow onto these grounds as well. Until 1991. Then guess what? The students, hungry for freedom and fed up with the limited choices of communism, the isolation politics that had kept Albania away from international influences and locked out from the development of the surrounding countries had finally gotten enough! The revolt and the student led demonstrations were a fact and the statue representing the communist leader was symbolically torn down by the masses.

Since 2010 when the former mayor of Tirana started a renovation project of this square its looks has improved further, and the aim to give it a more European feel is visible. Now the pedestrian area makes this a nice square to stroll around on and the green parts have been made bigger, so do enjoy this very centric spot of Tirana before we continue to our next stop of this tour.

Photo Sheshi Skenderbej 2013 by AltynAsyr is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0