By Ardit Konomi: How Korçë looked to me yesterday!

December 11 today.

This piece was supposed to come out yesterday, but yesterday didn’t feel right.

Yesterday, this is how Korçë looked to me.

As it looks to visitors.

Like a lively town where the streets sell both charm and character.

This morning, since the fog had lifted, I began to remember that Korçë was created as a cosmopolitan city.

It was built by the people of Korçë, Mborja, Vithkuq, Vaqëfllin, Voskopojë, Opar, Drenovë, Boboshtër, Dishnicë, Dangëlli, Kolonjë, Devoll, Frashër, Leskovik, Grabovë, Përmet, Skrapar, Fushë, and many others.

Perhaps the first of its kind in this part of the Balkans.

It is one of the few cities in its history that has been both metropolitan and provincial.

It was the place that gave Albania its language.

It gave the school.

It gave the anthem.

It gave patriots.

It gave the independent church.

It showed how to sing to the motherland, how to sacrifice for it.

It gave the first example of how a state is built and how administration functions.

It taught how to create a middle and upper class, and later how the lower class rises.

It showed how to protest.

It taught commerce and industry.

It showed how to build.

It gave philanthropy.

It showed how to give and help in order to be together better.

Korçë also built post-war Albania—the Albania we have today.

The teachers, the doctors, who spread to every corner of the country.

The engineers, technicians, drivers, and operators who built the hydroelectric plants.

The assemblers, welders, who built industrial works, and everything else.

In one way or another, Korçë is everywhere.

Korçë sometimes warms you, sometimes chills you, but I’ve never thought that Korçë was born by chance and now lives by weakness until it dies out of necessity—like a friend who yesterday, for the first time, frightened me with how existential it seemed.

I don’t think the people of Korçë fell from the sky either, but for certain reasons, they still retain the ability for social interaction—even when they see each other askew and don’t speak aloud.

An ability that most of the country has lost (or perhaps never had) because of the fragmentation of society.

From the very beginning of its history, the founders of this city decided not to overshadow one another. The houses of Korçë can be distinguished by the richness of their construction style, the decoration, the gates, the railings, or the flowers in the yards.

But no wealthy person built their house so tall as to block the light from the poorest neighbor.

Because conscious cities and societies function like an organism, where well-being must spread everywhere to be enjoyed.

Today, we are no longer so civilized.

We are neither so optimistic nor clear-minded.

For a while now, we’ve been spinning like headless flies, unable to find the path to the light.

We have become provincialized.

In fact, I think metropolis and province are always within us, regardless of where we live.

It only depends on where we choose to nurture and where we allow to die.

This is what we must do with ourselves and with Korçë.

We have all the possibilities.

More than enough to become the pilot project of a good era that is coming.

Korçë can once again become the style that today’s Albania can barely stitch together.

And one thing is certain: later, slowly, others will imitate it, but only after seeing it dressed first.

“KORÇA BOOM”