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Albania Gift -  Berati Ancient City Fridge Magnet

Berat is a town located in south-central Albania. As of 2009, the town has an estimated population of around 71,000^[1] people. It is the capital of both the District of Berat and the larger County of Berat. The old town was inscribed on the World Heritage List in July 2008.

Berat lies on the right bank of the river Osum, a short distance from the point where it is joined by the Molisht river. It is a remarkable Albanian town, with a wealth of beautiful buildings of high architectural and historical interest. The pine forests above the city, on the slopes of the towering Tomorr mountains, provide a backdrop of appropriate grandeur. The Osumi river has cut a 915-metre deep gorge through the limestone rock on the west side of the valley to form a precipitous natural fortress, around which the town was built on several river terraces.

According to an Albanian legend, the Tomorr mountain was originally a giant, who fought with another giant, called Shpirag over a young woman. They killed each other and the girl drowned in her tears, which then became the Osum river.

Mount Shpirag, named after the second giant, is on the left bank of the gorge, above the district of Gorica. Berati is known to Albanians as The City of a Thousand Windows a similar epithet to that sometimes applied to Gjirokastra, or The City of Two Thousand Steps. It was proclaimed a 'Museum City' by the dictator Enver Hoxha in June 1961.

[edit] History

The entrance of the citadel of Berat, with the 13th-century Byzantine church of the Holy Trinity

The river Osum, flowing through Berat, with the hill of the citadel on the left

Antipatrea (Greek: Αντιπάτρεια) was an ancient Greek polis in the region of Epirus, now Berat. It was founded by Cassander as Antipatreia, who named it after his father Antipater at 314 BC^[2]. A fortress-settlement of the Greek^[3] Dassaretae tribe existed in the area^[4] as the early as the 6th century BC. It was captured by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. Livy (31.27.2) describes Antipatrea as a strongly fortified city in a narrow pass that the Romans sacked and burned. The city was composed of two fortifications on both sides of the river Osum.

The town became part of the unstable frontier of the Byzantine Empire following the fall of the Roman Empire and, along with much of the rest of the Balkan peninsula, it suffered from repeated invasions by Slavs and other "barbarian" tribes. During the Byzantine period, it was known as Pulcheriopolis.

The Bulgarians under Simeon I captured the town in the 9th century and renamed it "Beligrad" (White City).They were eventually driven out in the 11th century. During the 13th century, it fell to Michael I Ducas, the ruler of the Despotate of Epirus.

Latter in the 13th century Berat again fell under the control of the Byzantine Empire. In 1280-1281 the Sicilian forces under Hugh the Red of Sully laid siege to Berat. In March 1281 a relief force from Constantinople under the command of Michael Tarchaneiotes was able to drive off the besieging Sicilian army.^[5] In 1335-1337, Albanian tribes descended and for the first time reached the area of Berat^[6][7] while in 1345 the town passed to the Serbs.

The Ottoman Empire conquered it in 1450 after the siege of Berat and retained it until 1912. However, it did not retain direct control for the whole of this period – in 1809, the tyrannical Ali Pasha, who was himself of Albanian origins, seized the town and refortified it. In 1867, Berat became a sanjak in Janina (Yanya) vilayet. During Ottoman rule, she was known Arnavut Belgradı in Turkish) at first, after Berat.

During the early period of Ottoman rule, Berat fell into severe decline. By the end of the 16th century it had only 710 houses. However it began to recover by the 17th century and became a major craft centre in the Ottoman Balkans specializing in wood carving. During the 19th century, Berat played an important part in the Albanian national revival. It became a major base of support for the League of Prizren, the late 19th century Albanian nationalist alliance. In November 1944, the communist-controlled Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council of Albania declared in Berat that it was the provisional government of the country, signaling the beginning of the long dictatorship of Enver Hoxha.

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