The history and glory of the Valbona bar / By Roland Beqiraj

2023-09-30 22:08:00, Qyteti im CNA

Enver Hoxha went as a guest and then confiscates it.
Pilo Peristeri, who made the railings of the bourgeois villa, used to boast like a rooster during communism.
This villa of the Kondili brothers, named "Valbona" ??by the communist regime, still today represents the Italian architecture of this city, which flourished in the 1920s and 1930s. This villa has carried the history of its owners for almost a century
. , then from the communist leaders of the time, even Enver Hoxhe himself, and for 70 years, many memories have remained there and from the corcars, and not only, since they have been serving as a coffee shop for 7 decades.

Arqile, Aristotle and Lefter Kondili, in 1928, decided to build a residential house, then in the suburban area of ??the city, with the architecture of the houses of the Italian aristocracy. Since two of the brothers had studied in Vienna, they entrusted the design and implementation to an Austrian architect.
For the architect and researcher Ilir Voci, the architect was clear about what he would build, where he would build it and what this building would represent, which, neither more nor less, is a typical building of the new bourgeoisie that had just been born. in this place.

The building was completed in 1933, simply as a residential house. The Viennese designer amazed the citizens with this fascinating building, everyone wanted to enter it just to see it, as the furnishing was typical Italian, the marble stairs came from Venice, the floor tiles were also Italian, doors and windows made according to Italian model, authentic and today.
The heirs of the family show that one of the frequent visitors to their family in those years was Enver Hoxha, as one of the Kondili brothers, Lefteri, was a classmate at the French Lyceum. They remember that Enver Hoxha, then a young man, sat at a table by the window and watched the outside.

No one thought that not many years later, Enver Hoxha would be the head of the Albanian state. In 1945, 1946, he returned to this house together with Koçi Xoxen, then his loyalist, and stayed in the best room of this villa.
The people in euphoria surrounded the villa with cheers. Enver Hoxha greeted the people from the balcony of this villa, while the communist office of Korçë sang the verses in chorus: Enver Hoxha is on the balcony, the office is looking for him.

And during the period of communism, this villa remained the favorite of the communist leaders of the time.
One of them was Pilo Peristeri, a member of the Political Bureau. During the construction of the villa, Peristeri, in the role of an ironworker, made the fence with railings, which still exist today, since molten lead was used to fix them in concrete.

Ne vitin 1950, kjo vile e ndertuar me aq dashuri nga familja Kondili, nderron pronaret dhe historine e vet. Me vendim te qeverise komuniste, pronaret largohen nga shtepia, ndertesa kalon ne prone shteterore dhe adoptohet si turizmi qytetit, ku natyrisht frekuentuesit dhe klientet kane qene te zgjedhur sipas filtrave të kohës.

I tille lokali Valbona ka mbetur deri ne vitet 1970, derisa ne qender te qytetit te Korces, u ndertuan objekte te reja, ku ndertesat e arkitektures italiane ne kete qytet po zvendësoheshin me ndertesa të modelit sovjetik me qëllim për te sfumuar ndikimet e ashtuquajtura borgjeze.
Por per qytetaret e Korçës, lokali mbeti i preferuar dhe ne vazhdim, tashme sherbente si bar, restorant dhe embeltore. Ky vend sherbente si pike takimi pas shetitjes, por dhe si vend organizimi festash familjare, si dasmat, fejesat apo datelindjet.

It was also liked by the country's most prominent cinematographers. There are dozens of feature film sequences such as "I teti ne bronz", "General Gramafoni" and many other films.
And today, after 70 years, Valbona remains a bar, being the oldest coffee bar in the city, not to mention the only one that has withstood the years.

A piece from this story was also ABC NEWS, with the architect Ilir Voci, who also talks about the influences of Italian architecture in this city.