Selenica

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Selenicë
Selenica
Selenica coat of arms
Selenica (Albania)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg

Coordinates: 40 ° 32 '  N , 19 ° 38'  E

Basic data
Qark : Vlora
Municipality : Selenica
Height : 60  m above sea level A.
Area : 561.24 km²
Residential place : 2235 (2011)
Bashkia residents : 18,476 (2011)
Population density (Bashkia): 33 inhabitants / km²
Telephone code : (+355) 0392
Postal code : 9427
Politics and administration (as of 2019 )
Mayor : Pëllumb Binaj ( PS )
Website :
View from the north (2014)

View from the north (2014)

Selenica ( Albanian  also  Selenicë ) is a small town in southern Albania about 15 kilometers as the crow flies northeast of Vlora . The city has 2235 inhabitants (2011 census). Local authorities give a much higher number of around 7650 inhabitants. Selenica belongs to the Vlora Qark .

geography

Selenica is located on the western bank of the Vjosa a few kilometers above the confluence of the Shushica . There is no bridge over the Vjosa to the national road SH4 running there, and there is also no continuation of the 34 kilometer long road up the valley from Vlora. Selenica is thus a dead end.

Surname

The name Selenica was first recorded in writing in the 16th century. The place is called Selenizza in Italian .

history

Antiquity

The bitumen and oil deposits of Selenica were already known in ancient times. Strabon , Aristotle and Pliny the Elder reported on the mining of bitumen in Nymphaeum by the Illyrians . It was used all over the Mediterranean , including for oil lamps. Whether Selenica is really at the site of the ancient Nymphaeum has not been proven, but descriptions of the location and the occurrence of bitumen, crude oil and gas suggest a close connection. The worship of the nymphs was of great importance in ancient Apollonia . Cassius Dio reports of an oracle  in Nyphaeum . The predicting priests had let themselves be misted by the bitumen and gases.

Modern times

Ali Pasha Tepelena paid the Sublime Porte  dues for the use of the mine. Ismail Qemali transferred its use to an English company in 1875. Later, French and Italian companies removed the natural asphalt - the country's first well-known industrial company. In the beginning it was mainly opencast mining, later also underground. Mining was particularly profitable under Italian aegis before the Second World War and increased from 2,000 tons in 1923 to over 12,000 tons in 1938. The bitumen has a high degree of purity and good properties for further processing. The following winged words about the well-known Albanian bitumen made the rounds for a long time: "The streets in Europe and the Middle East were paved with bitumen from the Selenica mine."

Second World War

The mine was completely destroyed in World War II. After the reconstruction, the population of the mining town grew rapidly from 3200 inhabitants in 1955 to 7100 inhabitants in 1990.

A small mine railway, the Ferrovia Decauville a Valona , was the first railway connection in Albania since the 1920s to connect the bitumen works with the port city of Vlora. At the beginning of the 1980s, the last few kilometers to the port were shut down. There have been no trains at all since the early 1990s.

today

Today a French company mines the bitumen and sells it across Europe. The production is around 8,000-10,000 tons per year.

In the small mining town there is now a middle school, two primary schools and a health center. Selenica is a center of the Aromanians who settle in this region.

On August 11, 2018, Ridvan Zykaj shot and killed his eight family members because of a dispute over family property. There were also two children among the victims. It is considered the worst massacre in Albania for 20 years.

politics

Since 2015, various municipalities in the northeast of the former Vlora district have also belonged to Bashkia Selenica . Were incorporated arms (2965 inhabitants), Brataj (2,849 inhabitants), Kota (3516 inhabitants), Sevaster (1,720 inhabitants) and Vllahina (3111 inhabitants). The extended community has a total of 16,396 inhabitants (as of 2011).

Personalities

Web links

Commons : Selenicë  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ines Nurja: Censusi i popullsisë dhe banesave / Population and Housing Census - Vlorë 2011 . Results Kryesore / Main Results. Ed .: INSTAT . Pjesa / Part 1. Adel Print, Tirana 2013 ( instat.gov.al [PDF; accessed April 14, 2019]).
  2. ↑ a b c d Guida e trashegimnisë kulturore të Qarkut Vlorë. In: Këshilli i Qarkut Vlorë. P. 13 f. , archived from the original on December 18, 2012 ; Retrieved July 7, 2013 (Albanian).
  3. ↑ a b c d Aferdita Osmanllio, Dhurata Thanashi: Antique Culture in Albanian Mines . In: Reports of the Federal Geological Institute . tape 41 , 1997, ISSN  1017-8880 , pp. 155 ff . ( Issue as PDF ).
  4. ^ A b c Karl Schappelwein: Mining and energy industry . In: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrsg.): Albanien (=  Südosteuropa-Handbuch ). tape VII . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-36207-2 , pp. 376-390 .
  5. ↑ a b c Neritan Ceka : Apollonia . Migjeni, Tirana 2005, ISBN 99943-672-5-0 .
  6. ↑ a b c d James Pettifer: Albania & Kosovo - Blue Guide . A & C Black, London 2001, ISBN 0-7136-5016-8 .
  7. ^ Gian Paolo Caselli, Grid Thoma: La storia economica albanese 1912-1939 e lo stabilirsi dell 'egemonia italiana. Modena October 2000 ( PDF; 1.1 MB ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )).
  8. ^ Michael Schmidt-Neke , Örjan Sjöberg: Population structure . In: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrsg.): Albanien (=  Südosteuropa-Handbuch ). tape VII . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-36207-2 , pp. 464-490 .
  9. ↑ SIMS - Societa Italiana delle Miniere di Selenizza. In: HSH Albanian Railways - Hekurudha e Shqiperise. March 7, 1998, accessed July 8, 2013 .
  10. ↑ Selenizza SLN - plaquette de presentation. (PDF; 645 kB) Selenice Bitumi Sha, accessed on July 8, 2013 (French): "Selenice Bitumi Sha, filiale à 100% d'un groupe Français"
  11. ↑ Carlo Giavarini: La nuova Albania e l'asfalto di Selenizza. (PDF; 398 kB) Rassegna del bitume 65/10, 2010, archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; accessed on July 8, 2013 (Italian): "I problemi legati al mercato del bitume da distillazione potrebbero renderlo più competitivo e far aumentare la produione, oggi attestata sulle 8,000-10,000 t / a."
  12. ↑ Man (24) executes eight relatives. In: look . August 11, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2018 .