FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
It is the largest monumental and engineering work built around the 1870s in the Balkans, by the Ottoman Empire. It was named "Vezir's Bridge", in honor of Mehmet Pasha Bushati, vizier of Shkodra, who on a trip to Kosovo was hosted at a working dinner by the nobility of Spas, Pista, Trun, Lajthiza and Sakati at the house of Halil Agë Sakati. At this meeting, the representatives of these villages asked their Vizier to build a bridge over the United Drin River. After a positive response, he sent his best specialists to study the site and draft the bridge project, based on the position where the object would be placed.
After a short time, work began on collecting the necessary materials, especially building stones and limestone. The latter, according to oral records, after being burned in ovens and quenched with water in pits, were covered with soil, and left to age for five years, a time sufficient for the lime to harden. It is said that during use, the lime was also mixed with egg whites.
The works on the Vezir Bridge lasted 7 years and hundreds of workers and specialists participated in its construction, some of whom were from Dibra. The bridge was 200 m. long and was built with 5 arches of different sizes. The three middle arches are the largest and widest.
But here too, the middle arch, in relation to the other two, stands out both for its size and height (20 m.), while the two side arches were smaller and supported on the slopes of the mountain. From a technical point of view, it was calculated that through these spaces the entire amount of water that the Drini could bring would pass.
The bridge legs were placed on solid gabbro rocks. On the supporting legs (piles) were opened 13 windows of different sizes with boat-shaped arches that also served to discharge excess water in cases of high flows. The track, the part of the bridge crossing, was not designed flat, but with ups and downs due to the two bumps in the main arches of the bridge.
Along with the bridge, on its southern side, a one-story building was also built, which initially served as a shelter for the workers and craftsmen who worked there, and then, during the Ottoman rule, served as a customs point and finally as an inn for travelers, which is why it was called; "The Inn of the Vezir Bridge".
Legend tells us that the residents of the surrounding area were forced to pay a special tax, the bridge tax, for the construction of this bridge. Very close to the Vezir Bridge there was also a spring of drinking water called "Kroi i Hanit".
At the completion of the Vizier's Bridge, built at the most important and strategic junction of the time where the largest roads such as the Shkodër - Prizren road, the Shkodër - Gjakova road and the Fanda - Qafë Kumbull - Shkodër road, etc., were connected, the Vizier not only kept a promise made to the people who asked him, but he built a work of economic, strategic and military importance, with prospects for the movement of travelers, merchants, and caravans.
In her memoirs, Edith Durham (1909) wrote: "The Vizier's Bridge, a magnificent bridge with seven arches, all different, but the overall effect was amazing. It is a work of a great artist, for nothing more harmonious with the surrounding panorama can be imagined."
In 1914, Serbian forces, on their invasion journey towards Albania, pursued by the Austro-Hungarian armies, mined the Vezir Bridge and partially destroyed it, making it impassable. In 1968, the structure of the Vezir Bridge was modified by placing a wooden bridge to connect the cities of Krumë and Kukës by road.
This is where the second destruction of the Vezir Bridge began, which was followed by its final destruction (with TNT) in 1978, as a result of the construction of the Fierza Lake and hydroelectric power plant, the establishment of a shipping line from Kukës to Fierza and vice versa, the creation of a fishing enterprise, and the clearing of the entire watershed area of the basin of this lake from trees, bushes, and other constructions.
As a result, one of the most beautiful monumental works of the 18th century was destroyed, which unfortunately we will no longer have, except in photographs or in some film chronicle that may have remained in the archive of the former "New Albania" Film Studio.
I say this with great pain, because we have no choice but to tell: "We once had a bridge, the Vezir Bridge, in Malzi - Kukës, the largest, best and most accomplished engineering construction of that time, built over the United Drin River that no longer exists today. We have definitively lost a rare work of Albanian monumental culture!…/ Memorie.al
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