Travel Guide Kodžadžik

This Turkish village is associated with two great figures in Balkan history... who never set foot here! The first is Skanderbeg. In 1448, the Albanian national hero ordered ten thousand of his men to hold the hill of Svetigrad against eighty thousand Ottoman soldiers, while he negotiated help from Venice. The second is Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey in 1923. His ancestors are said to have lived here for several decades, and the Turkish state has set up a house in memory of his father, Ali Rıza Efendi. None of this is based on serious studies: we're in the blur of a double propaganda of Turkish and Albanian identity. In any case, it's a great way to travel through a beautiful, little-known region. Beware, however, that the roads are in a sorry state.