Vlora

Vlora or Vlorë is a town of Albania, 2nd port of the country.

Geography

The city is located at 135 kilometers in the south-west of Tirana on the Adriatic coast with 72 km of Italy and 125 kilometers of Grèce.
Its geographical coordinates are the following ones: .

Economy

Vlora is a seaside resort expanding, as well as the second port of the country. In growth, its population rises with nearly 100.000 inhabitants.

History

Vlorë is one of the oldest cities of Albania. It was founded with the VIe front century J. - C. as a Greek colony called Aulon, one of three colonies on the coast of It, mentioned for the first time by Ptolémée (Geographia, III, XII, 2). Other geographical documents, such as " Tabula" of Peutinger and the " Synecdemus" of Hierocles, also mention it. The city was an important port of the Roman Empire, when it belonged to the Nouvelle Epire. It became an episcopal see in 553 (sacrum of Farlati, " of It; , VII, 397-401). The diocese at this time belonged to the Patriarchate of Rome. In 733 it was annexed, with all the Eastern It with the oecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, but one does not mention it in any " episcopatuum of Notitiae" of this church. Évêché had been probably removed, because although the Bulgarian ones were in possession of this country during a certain time, Aulon is not mentioned in l'" episcopatuum of Notitiae" patriarchate of Achrida. Valona played a central role in the conflicts between the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the Byzantine Empire during and 12th centuries. During the Latin domination, one évêché catholic was established, and Eubel mentions (aevi medii of catholica of Hierarchia, I, 124) several of its bishops. Several of the Latin bishops mentioned by Quien (christianus of Oriens, III, 855-8), and that Eubel (CIT COp, I, 541) mentions under the head office of Valanea in Syria, belong is in Aulon in Greece (now Salona) or in Aulon in Albania (Valona). Serbia conquered Valona, or Vlora, its name of then, in 1345 which then passed under domination Othoman E in 1464; and after having been a possession Venetian in 1690, it was taken again by the Turks in 1691, becoming a caza Sandjak of Berat in the vilayet (province) of Janina. The city, which has a port on the Adriatique, has approximately 10.000 inhabitants; there was a catholic parish, which pertaining to the archdiocese of Durazzo.
In 1851 it suffered severely from an earthquake.
It is in Vlora that Ismail Qemali declared the independence of Albania the November 28th 1912, during the first war Balkan. The city became the first capital of Albania but was invaded by Italy in 1914 and was occupied until in 1920. Italy again invaded Vlorë in 1939, while the Nazi Germany occupied the city until in 1944. During the Second world war, the island of Sazan in bay of Vlorë became the place of a German and Italian underwater base; this one was bombarded by the Alliés.
After the war, the Soviet Union made use of the installations rebuilt to profit from a naval base in the Adriatic. But it gave up it following the rupture of the relations between the two countries in 1961. Under Communism the port was rented in Soviet Union as bases sinkable, and played a big role in conflict between Enver Hoxha and Khrouchtchev in 1960 - 1961, because the Soviet Union had made considerable investments in the naval equipment and had been strongly opposed to their loss consequently of the denunciation by Albania of the USSR like 'Révisionniste 'and of its catch of the Chinese camp in the crack of the movement Communiste of the world. The Soviet Union threatened to occupy Vlora with the Soviet troops in April 1961, and to cut all the economic aid, military and technical Soviet in Albania. The threat was not put at execution, because of the simultaneous development of the cuban crisis of missiles, but Hoxha realized at which point Albania was vulnerable, and, after the USSR had invaded the Czechoslovakia in 1968, it built tens of thousands of concrete blockhouse in all the country (those always appear in the Albanian landscape).
Under Hoxha, Vlora was an important recruitment center for the Sigurimi, the secret police. In 1997, Vlora, as well as other cities of Albania of the south, was the seat of popular riots after the collapse of several fraudulent pyramids of investment; what led to the fall of the administration of Sali Berisha, and almost precipitated the country in a civil war.

Famous people born in Vlora

Dhimitër Anagnosti, realizer of cinema

External bonds

site of the city
demography
general information on Vlora

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