Mussolini loved it and built a house there, Enver Hoxha made it a military base isolated from the world. Today Ivanka Trump wants to transform the Albanian island of Sazan into a bunker for millionaires, luxury villas and breathtaking views.
It is little less than a part of the country's history, which the daughter of Donald Trump is preparing to transform, with the blessing of the Albanian Government, which has made tourism a cornerstone of the country's development.
If it sees the light, the project will consist of several dozen villas dug into the island's cliffs.
Various authorizations are still needed, but on the coast there is talk of an agreement already signed.
"We can't wait for it to start, because this causes chain reactions for the city's economy", explains the mayor of Vlora, Ermal Dredha, during a trip where Albania became the new trending tourist destination on this side of the Mediterranean, one million tourists landed in Tirana in July.
There are no beach shops or restaurants with multilingual menus in Sazan. For now there is nothing. Wild figs as far as the eye can see, bright green pines and turquoise water. In the middle of this garden of Eden without water and without electricity, thousands of bunkers, the remains of buildings eaten by plants and the deafening song of gypsies. These ruins are all that remain of the homes of the thousands of soldiers who were stationed here during the socialist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, one of the harshest, closed and paranoid regimes in the world.
More than 2 thousand lived in these 5.7 square kilometers, with women and children, a cinema, a school, a hospital, enough to keep them cut off from the world for six months, while the rest of Albania lacked everything.
Ylli Mecaj, 78 years old, was one of Sazan's soldiers. He spent 18 years on the island, his children were born there and his wife taught. He left a few months before the fall of a regime for which he is among the last to have nostalgia.
The vast majority of the Albanian population above all preserves the memories of the deprivation of clandestine emigration at the risk of life and surveillance.
"The island was filled with 2.840 bunkers with heavy machine guns and other automatic weapons. There were also kilometers of underground tunnels and installations, slide shelters and enough to house ammunition and food supplies,” he recalled this naval officer to the AFP news agency.
"After the fall of the regime, in the early 90s, I returned to Sazan, my heart ached, I started to cry seeing it destroyed, abandoned, humiliated", recalls the former sailor with a hood on his head, climbing the stairs that lead to his old apartment, the balcony of which looks out into the blue as far as the eye can see.
"Sazan is no longer Sazan", he said, "there are no more weapons, no cannons, no anti-aircraft machine guns, no ships, the bunkers are in ruins, whoever wants to occupy it.
The fall of the regime, the crisis and the reopening
After the fall of the regime, the island was saved from complete destruction, but with the collapse of the Albanian economy in 1997, all the reserves and military depots located there were looted. It was reopened to the public only in 2015. Strategically located at the entrance to the Channel of Otranto, between the Adriatic and Ionian seas, the island served as an outpost for all those who conquered it: the Byzantines, the Venetians, the Germans, the Italians... It is still administratively considered a military zone, during the high season it is visited every day by tourists who come by boat to walk the winding paths and admire the island's only inhabitant: a small gray donkey.
No details have been revealed on how the Trump family's luxury hotel will be built, only a few plans released on Instagram and hints during an interview in July. In it the entrepreneur explains that the isolation of the island makes it a gem.
"Bringing the materials to the island is not an easy task, but we will do it", promises the daughter of the former US president and the new candidate for re-election, all with "the best architects".
If the plans of Ivanka Trump and her husband come true, no one knows if tourists will still be able to stop there. Or if the bunkers will take on another face, that of luxury villas sheltered by the curious. (AFP/Translated by TCh)
