Summer School of Albanian Alps III moves farther north – documentation of the cultural landscape continues in Kelmend

Understanding mountain settlements, requires more than just observing the houses or the current landscape. It is also essential to recognise how highland communities have historically utilised land, pastures, and natural resources across the seasons. For a long time, Budaç served as a high-mountain pasture, where families from Nikç and Brojë brought their livestock and lived temporarily in seasonal huts in the summer. During the 20th century, some families began staying through the winter, gradually transforming it from a seasonal settlement into a permanent one. This transition is evident in the buildings, land parcels, oral histories, and daily practices of the area. It makes Budaç an important site for documenting. During the third edition of the Summer School of Albanian Alps organised by GO2Albania, it provided an opportunity to trace the landscape’s transformation.

The programme ran for seven days from 3rd to 9th July 2026, divided between Budaç as the fieldwork site and Lëpushë as the base camp and laboratory. The first day featured lectures by Agim Dardha, Director of the Shkodër Protected Areas Administration, and Tonin Macaj, Head of the Management Sector there. Eltjana Shkreli, a PhD candidate at the University of Genoa, delivered a lecture on cultural landscapes, while architect Liridona Ura guided participants on documenting settlement features.

Following GO2Albania’s methodology, participants were divided into two groups for the fieldwork. The study area covered around 40 hectares on both sides of the Budaç stream, where the settlement has existed since the mid-20th century. The stream valley, shaped by erosion, human activity, and sediment deposition, forms relatively level plains and steep terraces on the slopes. These terraces, once cultivated mainly with potatoes, now serve as grazing land for small flocks of sheep belonging to the few remaining year-round residents.

As in Nikç a year earlier, the cultural landscape documentation included all structures, residential and service-related elements such as fences, dry-stone walls, cultivated land, crops, plants, and trees. Budaç is among the most beautiful settlements in Kelmend, with a rich landscape dating back to the early 20th century, increasingly visible over the last sixty to seventy years. The land parcels, which dominate the landscape, were documented alongside traditional agricultural practices.

The fieldwork identified about 100 structures and hundreds of landscape features; bridges, bunkers, huts, fountains, haystacks, and fences, built with a mix of traditional and modern materials. The process involved observation, photography, measurement, drawing, mapping, and conversations with locals. Despite current uncertainties, partly due to recent laws and government actions, most residents welcomed the Summer School groups, sharing stories about their ancestors, settlement development, and daily life. These accounts, recorded digitally and in notebooks, were analysed each afternoon in the ‘Summer School laboratory’. The data will be organised into files and added to GO2Albania’s GIS-based archive for the Albanian Alps’ largest valleys: Valbona, Shala, and Cem. The Kelmend tribe in the Cem Valley has received the most detailed documentation so far.

This ongoing process, spanned over five years, encompasses the natural environment, built structures, oral histories, interviews, and demographic data from the 20th century. It includes first-person narratives about dozens of families’ origins. Preserved digitally and physically, this documentation will enable future generations to understand Kelmend’s history and development.

Recent policies, devised in Tirana’s offices, may threaten this cultural landscape by erasing traces of ancestors, overbuilt graves, wells, fountains, and places of collective memory now hidden beneath houses, roads, and neighbourhoods. Yet these landscapes, modest as they seem, were created over centuries through sustainable interaction with the environment. Highland communities relied on natural resources in a balanced way, shaped by daily practices involving land, forests, water, pastures, livestock, and natural elements such as snow, rain, wind, as well as cultural beliefs like mountain fairies and guardian spirits.

Beyond their idyllic appearance, these landscapes embody the spirit of the people who shaped them.

Participants’ Experiences

Summer Schools and Camps offer young professionals a valuable chance to learn practical experiences that often escape formal education. Many participants apply to gain professional skills, explore new places, and encounter different lifestyles, sometimes experiencing ‘cultural shock’.

Anisa, a participant in the third Summer School, wrote: “The way people speak, live, perceive life, the hardships, and the peace found through sacrifice – this is what I discovered here.” Velisa noted: “I met at least seven inspiring characters, and I was welcomed by kind villagers and families who shared their daily lives. Budaç is a blessed place; it remains inhabited because of its people.”

For Flaviana, the experience involved professional growth, social integration, and enjoying the Alps’ natural beauty, while Viola remarked that “the work undertaken ensures this way of life will remain tangible for future generations.” Like many others, Shkurte appreciated the chance to see and learn in real life what she had studied about cultural heritage at university.

By: “GO2”