The Photo Collection of Edith Durham

Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo, 1903 - 1913

ED006_RAI 400.13132 Albania. Berat. View of the town and fortress of Berat (Photo: Evan MacRury, ca. 14 April 1904). “Berat is in an extraordinarily lovely situation, and scrambles down the hillside all bowery and flowery to the brink of the Beratit; quaint wood-and-plaster houses overhang the river; the ruined fortress crowns the height above; the huge mountain range of Tomor (alt. 2,416 metres) towers square-headed, barren and snow-clad on one side, and the slopes of the neighbour hills are gray with olives. The river, all unbanked, has wrought terrible devastation. Great tracts of land lie denuded, stagnant water festers in the hollows, and all the summer fever rages. Only the Christian quarter on the hill-top is fairly free… The Muttasarif, a cheery, stout old Turk, received me affably, and said I was the first Englishwoman in Berat within the memory of man.” (Edith Durham, The Burden of the Balkans, 1905).