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| P E S H K O P I |
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| COURTESY OF ILIRIAPRESS |
| Falemnderit p�r vizit�n, dhe mir�sevini gjithmon�. |
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| News Albania Kosova Ilirida Epirus Valley of Morava Plava and Gucija Terror Human Rights Violation History Music Literature |
| Built since ancient time on the banks of the river Drini i Zi or Black Drini, Peshkopia is located in Eastern Part of Albanian at 41�40'N and 20�25' coordinates. Situated 651m above sea level, Peshkopia is the host of 18,720 inhabitans. The citizens of Peshkopia are people with a strong moral who have facilitated the mutual respect based on canon laws. Every citizen of Peshkopia speaks fluently the native Albanian language. The city is small, and the river Black Drini divides it into two parts. The Drini valley is the lowest part which provides agricultural products, and the summit of Korabi with its� hight of 2763m stands as the protective wall of the city. It captivates huge rocks overgrown with woods or simply naked rising very high. |
| There is the new mosque (xhamia e re) with two minarets. The city has variety stores and merchandising shops that provide services to the citizens. For centuries, the craftsmen were famous, especially, goldsmiths and silversmiths, and mostly woodcarvings. The city was an important crafting and trade center and had a very significant role throughout history of this region.There are planty of restuarants and two hotels, Hotel Veri and Hotel Tourism. The region is rich in mineral ores such as chromium, sulphur, marble, gippsium, and small quantities of gold. The city of Peshkopia is also known as Little Dibra. It is old town with old tradition and culture practiced in a fanatic way even today. The marriage celebration lasts three to six months. These cultural customs have been reserved since ancient time, and distinguishes the Illyrian customs. Even thought there have been influences from other cultures, the citizens of both Little and Greater Dibra still nourish their old customs, their songs, plays, games, their clothing and the other ethnographic symbols. |
| The city has several elementary and high schools and a small public library. The football or soccer club "Korabi" was found in the year 1923 in Dib�r. Nevertheless, the city was divided by the border in 1945. The citizens of Peshkopia or Little Dib�r founded the same club in 1945, which participated for first time at at Albanian Superliga in 1963. The football or soccer team Korabi Peshkopi currently plays on the Albanian third division. His home ground is "Korabi Stadium" with capacity of 3 000 seats. The city of Peshkopia tends to have cool and pleasant weather. The weather is Mediterranean and Continental characterized by very dry summers and wet winters although there are exception in mountainous region. The city is mainly under the influence of continental air and is characterized by mild summers owing to the high elevations and cold winters. Longtime residents claim that there used to be several feet of snowfall every winter.The climate in Peshkopia averages 73� F (23� C) in July and 30� F (-1� C) in January. |
| Peshkopia has good transportation services. There are busses, taxis, and minivans, and transportation companies that provide trasnoprtation to the public from Peshkopia to Tirana, Kuk�s, Durr�s, and Dib�r e Madhe. Buses for Durr�s and Dibra e Madhe leave from a spot on the boulevard next to the Turiz�m hotel. It's best to get on the bus by 7am in order to be sure to get a seat. The buses for Tirana are regularly lined up in the treg (market) neighborhood on the section of street that slopes downhill from the new mosque. The buses for Kuk�s are available from the yard in front of the pedagogical high school, �Nazmi Rushiti.� The capital Tirana is only 187km far, and Kuk�s is 90km far. Traveling between Peshkopia and Dib�r one will find how porous the border is, and how much is shared by communities on both sides of the line. |
| The flora and fauna of this region is very rich. The region is rich in water, and the soil is aluvial. The region is exsposed in seismological ectivities. During the history, the region experienced savere earthquakes. The worst earthquake happened in 1967. With an initiative of the people of Little Dibra and local communist government, the town has been rebuilt. |
| Peshkopia or Little Dib�r and the region of Dibra is active since ancient time. The archeological sites found in the region symbolise the Illyrian activities in the region. The Illyrian Tribe Parathyni, Paiony, Penesteti and Enkeleoni lived in this region. It seems that the region was a border line of the tribes. Paiony lived near the river Vardar, and Penesteti lived in Draudak or today Gostivar. Dib�r in ancient time was known as Deborus. The city for first time appears in recordings of Herodotus in the 5th Century BC. The same city appears again in ancient writings of the geographer and historian Strabo, born in 63 BC. Strabo was the first ancient person who draw or made the map of Europe. Also the city appears in the writnigs of Pline in 1st Century AD. Dibra is mentioned under the name of Deborus in the map of Ptolemy from the 2nd century AD. The other documents about the existence of Deborus originate from the time of Byzantine emperor Basil II, where it is noted as a settlement within the Archbishop of Manastir. The settlement was created of the Illyrian tribe Dober who were mixture of Illyrian tribes Penesteti, Parathyni, and Enkeleons. The name Dober is derived from two Illyrian words or Albanian words, �Do� meaning like, and �ber� meaning to fall. The entire word �Dober� in English language means like to fall. The name Peshkopia appears after the settlement of five Albanian or Illyrian bishops in Little Deborus. In the Albanian language, the bishop is peshkop. This has happened in 5th century AD. Since the bishops moved into five houses, the town was called Peshkopi. Nevertheless, the Little Deborus existed long before 5th Century AD. The Little Deborus was created around 2nd Century BC when the first epidemic of a waterborne disease appeared in the city of Deborus. |
| The epidemic of a waterborne disease probably was caused by uncontrolled septic wells who were relieved in waters upstream. In addition, the people of Deborus shared water, handled unwashed food, stepped in excrement from casual discharge or spread as manure, used urine for dyes, bleaches, and even as an antiseptic. Perhaps the entire city was decimated, or maybe the panicked survivors packed up their gourds and fled from the "evil spirits" inhabiting their town to the other place. The ancients Illyrians had no inkling as to the true cause of their misery. People believed divine retribution caused plagues and epidemics, or else bad air, or conjunction of the planets and stars, any and all of these things. The only survival was to flee the city. As long as people lived in the other place isolated from others, they survived. During the time, the place remained small. Some people returned into Deborus, and few remained. The other place was called Little Deborus. The city of Deborus was occupied by Roman Soldier in 100AD. The city of Deborus was on the main Roman road, Via Egnatia. The Roman Soldiers passed through the city when returning back to Rome from their mission in near east. Some of the soldiers were infected with transmited disease. They brought pandemic in the city known as the Plague of Galen, either of smallpox or measles. The epidemic claimed the lives of two Roman emperors , Lucius Verus, who died in 169, and his co-regent who ruled until 180, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whose family name, Antoninus, was given to the epidemic. The Antonine Plague in 180 caused five million deaths in the Roman Empire. At this time, more people moved to the other place. The disease broke out again nine years later, according to the Roman historian Dio Cassius. People of Deborus that moved in the other place remained, and the other place was called Little Deborus. Claudius Galenus in his records described the plague in 129 AD. The infected person had fever, diarrhea, and inflammation of the pharynx, as well as a skin eruption, sometimes dry and sometimes pustular, appearing on the ninth day of the illness. The describtion provided by Galen diagnoses the smallpox in the modern medicine. At this time, many reputable families moved to the Little Dibra. The Roman Soldiers called it "Patricius.� |
| During the lifespan, the city witnessed many pandemics including the Plague of Justinian which aflicted the entire Byzantine Empire and its capital Constantinople, in the year 541 AD. The outbreak may have originated in Egypt and moved northward until it reached metropolitan Constantinople. The grain arrived in Constantinople by ships which may have been the original source of the disease. The rats in the ships infected the grain. The traders from Deborus imported massive amounts of grain mostly from Constantinople. The Byzantine historian Procopius records that, at its peak, the plague was killing 10,000 people in Constantinople every day and there was no room to bury the dead; the dead bodies were left stacked in the open which contributed more in epidemics. The most commonly accepted cause of the pandemic was bubonic plague, which later was known as the Black Death. Modern historians named it after the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I, who was in power at the time and himself contracted the disease. It ultimately killed perhaps 50% of the inhabitants of Deborus. The initial plague went on to destroy up to a quarter of the human population of the eastern Mediterranean. At this time, the people left Deborus, and they moved to Little Deborus. Five bishops running for their lives moved in the little mountenous place. Since this time, the Little Deborus was called Peshkopi. The enperor Jusianin built 58 fortified houses to save the close relatives of him. In the village of Bulke, Justianin built a castle for himslef. The custle was rebuilt in 1020.New, frequent waves of the plague continued to strike throughout the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries AD. It is estimated that the Plague of Justinian killed as many as 100 million people across the world. The city was called interchangebly Little Deborus and Peshkopia. More conservative religious people called the city as Peshkopia, the other called it Little Deborus. The Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. The modern medicine believes the plague might have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis or Ibola virus. The Black Death or Bubonic plague has returned to Europe every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700 AD. During the timeline, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe. However, everyone could not afford to move. Some of the citizens of Deborus became immune to the disease. As both cities became crowded, they also became the nesting places of waterborne, insect borne and skin -to-skin infectious diseases that spurted out unchecked and seemingly at will. Typhus was most common. The other diseases were typhoid and relapsing fever, plague and other pestilential fever, smallpox and dysentery�s-the latter a generic class of disease that includes what's known as dysentery, as well as cholera. |
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| The name Korab is derived from Albanian word Kor meaning harvesting or cutting and rab meaning a wagon or horse wagon. It has to deal with the harvest and cutting the harvest. Peshkopia and Korab are wonderful and dream lands for hikers and climbers. This ascent will be forever memorable, and you will love it. The surroundings is full of thermal mineral water springs which have important medicinal values. The water of the mineral springs contain such a combination of mineral substances, that can cure many illnesses such as, rheumatism, skin illness, female illnesses etc. The mountainous region is an attractive ground of wilderness full of chamois, bears, roe deer and even of lynx, and the canyon is covered with a significant floral carpet. This whole region is an exceptional hunting ground. The Black Drini River with its emerald waters, small and big waterfalls and sandy oases, is visited by numerous fishermen in summer and winter time. |
| Author: S.K. Shkupjani August 25, 2008 |
