Bulgarians in Gora still preserve their language and culture, but need support from the homeland - Part I

The village of Cërnalevë in Gòra region

Photo: Krasimir Martinov

Recognised as a national minority in 2017, Bulgarians in Albania live in the country's larger cities as well as in smaller settlements, some located in hard-to-reach mountainous areas. This is the case of the villages in the historical-geographical region of Gòra, not far from the municipal centre, the city of Kukës, in northern Albania. A team of Radio Bulgaria visited the village of Cërnalevë.

To access the village, we head northeast from Kukës, a town with a population of about 17,000. Anyone who has visited Albania by car has seen the very high standard of road construction. We veer off the main road and take a narrow dirt road with no guardrails to get to Cërnalevë.

The mayor and teachers of the village school give us a warm welcome. Mayor Husenai Mahir tells us that the mosque was renovated about a year ago. The school and the road to the village also need repair. Cërnalevë is seeking subsidies from both Albania and Bulgaria. The village is home to 255 people living in 50 houses. Public transport to the city is provided once a day. The kombi (shuttle minibus) leaves at 7 a.m. and returns at about 3 p.m. If you miss it, you're cannot come back and you're stuck down there," says the mayor.

"Our life is hard. The road to the village is very narrow, which is a big problem. We need money to repair it, but there is no support. People would come here and the locals could easily buy materials and repair their houses or build new ones if the government repaired the road.

At the moment, people in Cërnalevë mostly use horses to bring building materials to the village. This makes it difficult to carry out repairs, while the school, which has 150 pupils, also needs to be renovated.

Broken windows and doors, outdated equipment, lack of insulation and cold classrooms - that's what we saw when we visited the school at the end of October last year. A team from the Bulgarian Embassy and the Association of Bulgarians in Albania then drew up a list of the most pressing problems. A month and a half later, the school has been partially renovated, the doors and windows have been completely replaced and new heating equipment has been delivered. Parents and teachers are now much more relaxed about the children, who are no longer freezing and are learning in slightly better conditions.

The teachers at the local school are mostly young people. Three of them are about to start their Masters studies in Bulgaria. Their aim is to bring what they have learned back to their families in Gòra.

Alex Lukovi is 28 years old. He is a native of Cërnalevë and has only been away from the village once - when he was a student in Tirana. Alex has one brother and four sisters, but they all live far away from where they were born. He is the only one who stayed here with his mother. "Life here is not easy," he tells us:

"But that's life in the villages - there are good things and there are drawbacks." Nature is beautiful and lifts the soul. The worst thing is that we have no hospital. By the time you call for help, by the time the ambulance arrives, the person may be dead.

Alex is currently a maths and art teacher at Ramsey Jafferai Primary and Secondary School. He teaches children from grades 6 to 9:

"Most of the students are from our village, but some come from further away. They come to school on foot. The children speak Bulgarian with each other and at home, and they learn Albanian at school. The local people grow beans, potatoes and so on. They also raise animals, but much less than before.

Alex has spent most of his life in the countryside and has never visited Bulgaria. That's why he and a few other teachers have applied for a Bulgarian language training programme and are about to have a long-awaited encounter with their ancestral homeland. After completing his studies in Bulgaria, the young teacher plans to return to his home village to contribute to its development.

"This is our place. We all love it, but everyone is looking for a better life. If things get better here, no one will want to leave," says Alex.

(To be continued...)

Photos by Kostandina Bello, Krasimir Martinov

Translated and posted by Elizabeth Radkova

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