Concrete Collaboration in an Ancient Albanian City

Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Ottoman-era city of Gjirokastra hides a secret below its towering stone houses and cobbled streets. Jonathon Eaton, a Title VIII Southeast European Language Training (SEEL) Fellow, is assisting an Albanian NGO to preserve secret tunnels central to the city's history. Eaton -a graduate student in anthropology from the University of Toronto- spent two weeks in mid-October in Gjirokastra working on this heritage preservation project.

Eaton is a participant in the SEEL program, administered by American Councils for International Education and funded by the U.S. Department of State, that enables U.S. graduate students, faculty, and scholars to study Southeast European languages. For an academic year, semester, or summer, participants are enrolled in a language and cultural immersion program in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, or Serbia.

In the 1970s, the Albanian communist regime carved out a vast network of tunnels underneath Gjirokastra's ancient castle. Eaton recounted that the top-secret complex was intended to hide and protect high-level party officials in the event of a nuclear war or invasion by NATO, Yugoslavia, or the USSR, as it was known then. Representing a history of repression and intrigue for many Gjirokastra residents, the tunnels have been looted and left to decay since the end of communism in Albania. But, to one local NGO, the tunnels provide an opportunity to educate Albanians and tourists about the unpopular history of communism in the country between 1946 and 1991.

The Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Organization (GCDO) is creating a Cold War museum to tell the story of the tunnels and their relation to the turbulent communism period. As a volunteer with GCDO, Eaton implemented a survey of the local community, wrote feasibility reports, and coordinated with potential donors and scholars on behalf of the organization.

Eaton's time in Gjirokastra has improved his Albanian language skills and given him valuable professional experience in cultural heritage management, a form of historical preservation. He is currently drafting an application for a cultural preservation grant that would restore the entire tunnel complex to a safe, sustainable condition and open it to visitors as an exposition on the communist period in Albanian history.

Click here to learn more about the Title VIII Southeast European Language Training Program.