Summer Day, an ancient pagan festival and popular celebration that has become a tradition, was marked through a series of activities in the central city of Elbasan. Prime Minister Edi Rama visited Elbasan on occasion of this holiday. Accompanied by Elbasan Mayor Gledian Llatja, the government head visited first the local fair showcasing various local products, with farmers, many of them beneficiaries from the national agriculture support schemes, exhibiting their locally grown organic produce.

Elbasan castle and the surrounding area is one of the city’s most renowned destinations, which is set to host a series of important investments, including a project designed to transform the main space within the Elbasan castle, a 15th-century fortress in the central Albanian city, into a tourist area with many guesthouses, services, a museum, historic addresses as cultural heritage sites.

“Our goal is to revive the Castle under the Korça bazaar model,” lawmaker Taulant Balla said while accompanying PM Rama during a visit to one of the businesses operating in the area.

PM Rama was then welcomed by a traditional family residing in the Castle area, with the hosts voicing confidence that the area will develop through well-designed projects. “All the Castle needs is an investment to turn the site into an important tourism destination, as foreign tourists come here to visit the church and the mosque. But investments are also needed to promote craftsmanship and agritourism for the whole Castle area to fully develop,” the family head said.

“We will implement the castle’s whole transformation project now. We will do what we have actually already done in Korça, Vlora. We will transform this castle to fully exploit its potential,” PM Rama said.

It is its features that set the Elbasan Castle apart and draw interest of the international visitors “Elbasan castle is the largest fortress in the Balkans. But what distinguishes our castle is that it is a symbol of the interreligious coexistence. I don’t think there is any castle anywhere around the world, where the mosque, the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and synagogue are all located in a distance of just 400 metres from each other,” Balla said.

On his part, Mayor Llatja said that the Castle’s development project is almost ready and the project is designed to revitalize whole area around the fortress. “We have designed a project on revitalization of the whole area, including some main streets and buildings. It is time for us to intervene and invest in rehabilitating the infrastructure and the buildings’ facades and allow local businesses to develop the internal space of the site,” he said.