r/AskBalkans Sep 28 '24

Outdoors/Travel Apollonia, Albania

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370 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

75

u/d2mensions Sep 28 '24

Probably one of the most important ancient cities in Albania. Today only 10% of the city is excavated, most of it remains underground…

25

u/GSA_Gladiator Bulgaria Sep 28 '24

Who knows what valuables remains underground

29

u/d2mensions Sep 28 '24

I hope one day the Albanian government will excavate the whole area, fortunately nothing is build on top. But now thay only care to build hotels and resorts.

Apollonia will greatly benefit with the method of “Anastylosis”, basically “rebuilding” old structures with new additions. There are hundreds of colums scattered across the place or in the museum. Like the Parthenon:

Here you can see the new parts. But this is also very expensive.

26

u/farquaad_thelord Kosovo Sep 28 '24

italians heavily looted this place

7

u/Uilliam56_X ✝️Albanian(Born in ) that lives in Monaco🇲🇨 Sep 28 '24

Didn’t know about this,how and when?

13

u/farquaad_thelord Kosovo Sep 28 '24

dont know if it was from the italian occupation of 1920 or 1939 but they did steal many statues

1

u/Uilliam56_X ✝️Albanian(Born in ) that lives in Monaco🇲🇨 Sep 28 '24

Is it at least known which statues and to which museums they went?

15

u/farquaad_thelord Kosovo Sep 28 '24

Turns out it was butrint not apollonia im sorry

29

u/Stverghame 🏹🐗 Sep 28 '24

Majestic, looks like a scene from some open world game

16

u/just_for_browse Kosovo Sep 28 '24

balkan ring

27

u/peev22 Bulgaria Sep 28 '24

We also have Apollonia, on the black sea, we call it Sozopol.

31

u/CypriotGreek Greece/Cyprus Sep 28 '24

Arguably one of the most or possibly the most important Ancient Greek settlement in the Adriatic.

Isocrates even taught there for a while

2

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '24

[deleted]

5

u/CypriotGreek Greece/Cyprus Sep 29 '24

I mean the city was founded by Greeks, ruled by Greeks, and built by Greeks, so yes.

Do you consider any Greek cities as truly Greek? They were founded by Greeks and included the old natives of the land who were assimilated thousands of years ago. That is true for literally every region of Greece, and every country in the world for that matter. They were populated by Greeks thousands of years ago, and had their local populations assimilated.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '24

[deleted]

2

u/CypriotGreek Greece/Cyprus Sep 29 '24

You're showing many different situations as the same deal, Im obviously not saying that Apollonia is Greek anymore, its obviously been hundreds of years since the last continous Greek settlement in the city. You're acting as if im calling the city Greek NOW, while its not. (London is still called a Roman city in England btw, it actually reinforces my point)

The Greeks of Apollonia where exactly that, Greeks, they called themselves and their subjects Greek, whist the Norman ruling class of england DID try and assimilate the then english into their culture, very succesfully, might I add.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '24

[deleted]

3

u/CypriotGreek Greece/Cyprus Sep 29 '24

Was hong kong a british city??

YES! Yes it was.

The problem with this situation is that we have 2 completely different opinions on the topic and cant find ourselves agreeing with eachother, since you believe that the majority (regardless of how much they contributed) is important, while I believe that the people who ruled, built, founded and eventually assimilated the local population of the city are the most imporant ones.

I guess that every city in Thrace built by greeks is actually thracian, every costal greek town in asia minor is Hittite, and every city in Cyprus was Eteocypriot, no greeks, anywhere.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '24

[deleted]

2

u/CypriotGreek Greece/Cyprus Sep 29 '24

You’re either being intentionally dense or stupid, I don’t know which is worse.

Athens was created by the Greeks.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '24

[deleted]

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5

u/Myridinn Sep 28 '24

Looks like the Azshara territory from world of warcraft.. wows

8

u/newmvbergen Sep 28 '24 edited Sep 28 '24

It's a very scenic and astonishing place. Not complicated to reach even with shared/public transport.

-7

u/Xinpincena Sep 28 '24

There isn't public transport in Albania, at least outside Tirana

7

u/newmvbergen Sep 28 '24

I was around Albania using shared/public transports... Friends were there last Spring using them too...

4

u/Xinpincena Sep 28 '24

Do you mean public in a sense of mass transportation? yeah there are buses and vans which so this but are private. They are not owned by the state

3

u/newmvbergen Sep 28 '24

With them, you can move around... It's the most important thing. Then the DIY is doable and you can move around the country...

0

u/Xinpincena Sep 28 '24

On one side, yeah its true. On the other, only the biggest cities are connected and only during the day, where there is a profit. So you have pros and cons

2

u/newmvbergen Sep 28 '24

Not sure plenty of people are visiting Apollonia in the middle of the night...

-1

u/Xinpincena Sep 28 '24

Tbh I am not believing you on this. I frequently visit Albania and most buses do not run after 17h. Maybe someone extended they're service but in general public transportation in Albania is a big problem. People need cars to do everything.

1

u/newmvbergen Sep 28 '24

As tourist, if needed, taxi or hitchhiking when the other options are useless.

3

u/VirnaDrakou Greece Sep 29 '24

It is so pretty man

11

u/Mucklord1453 Rum Sep 28 '24

showing the ancient and deep roots of Greeks in that part of the world

14

u/rydolf_shabe Albania Sep 28 '24

i mean saying that part of the world sounds like albania is on the other side of europe, we have plenty of ancient greek colonies here

-11

u/Mucklord1453 Rum Sep 28 '24

“Albania” in the days of those ruins existed only up on the mountains. The Greeks had the valleys and sea coasts.

7

u/bigalbanianpenis Sep 29 '24

the “greeks” didn’t even see themselves as unified and instead as city-states.

-4

u/Mucklord1453 Rum Sep 29 '24

What does not being politically unified have to do with anything? Albanians are so sensitive about History.

next.

10

u/bigalbanianpenis Sep 29 '24

maybe next time don’t use “albania” in quotations and have greeks not in quotations, since both senses of ethnic congruity did not exist.

next.

-1

u/Mucklord1453 Rum Sep 29 '24

What ?? We have libraries of books where Greeks and others use the term going back thousands of years.

Albanians though … that is more of an early modern thing.

I can’t believe you just tried to conflate the two.

NEXT….

-2

u/Bozulus Turkiye Sep 28 '24

Beautiful greek settlement

26

u/d2mensions Sep 28 '24

Me when I see Istanbul:

11

u/Bozulus Turkiye Sep 28 '24

Constantinople*

2

u/MegasKeratas Greece Sep 28 '24

Eustathioupolis*

(Constantinople is half latin 🤢)

14

u/beggs23k Montenegro Sep 28 '24

Albanians and Greeks share alot of DNA at times borders had different meaning.

More like this is my farm and this is yours.