Berat

Pottery from the 7th century BC shows that Illyrians settled the rocky hill above the Osum, and the town is identified with ancient Antipatrea, a walled city fought over by Illyrian rulers and Philip V of Macedon. In 200 BC a Roman commander stormed it, killed its men and burned it. Under the early Byzantines it was called Pulcheriopolis; the First Bulgarian Empire took it in the 9th century and named it Bel[i]grad, the White City, from which Berat comes. Byzantines, Bulgarians, the Despots of Epirus, the Angevins and the Serbian Empire held it in turn, the Muzaka family ruled a principality from it at the end of the 14th century, and in 1417 it became Ottoman. Skanderbeg besieged it without success in 1455.

After a long decline Berat recovered in the 17th century as a craft centre. By 1750 it had twenty-two guilds, led by the tanners and cobblers, alongside silversmiths and silk-makers, and Ahmet Kurt Pasha made it the capital of a pashalik in the 18th century. Ali Pasha of Ioannina defeated Ibrahim Pasha of Berat in 1809 and absorbed the pashalik. The town rose against the Ottomans in 1833 and 1839, and supported the League of Prizren in the national revival.

In the Second World War families of both faiths hid Jews in their homes. In October 1944 the partisan congress in Berat proclaimed a provisional government with Enver Hoxha at its head. Under communism the town was a place of internal exile — Ismail Kadare was sent here in 1967 — and in 1961 Hoxha declared it a museum city, which kept the old quarters intact. UNESCO listed it in 2008.

Berat's identity rests on its houses and its icons. The town is known to Albanians as the city of one window above another, and also as the city of two thousand steps, for the lanes that climb between the houses. Its great artist is Onufri, the 16th-century painter who signed one church inscription "I am Onufri, and come from the town of Berat", and whose shiny red the French called Onufri's red. His work, his son Nikolla's and that of later painters fill the icon museum and several churches of the castle quarter. The Codex Beratinus, a 6th-century Gospel book written in silver ink on purple vellum, is named after the town.

The town has been mixed for centuries. Mangalem below the castle was the Muslim quarter and Gorica across the river the Christian one; the castle was Christian, with about twenty churches and a single mosque for the garrison. The Albanian Orthodox Church proclaimed its autocephaly here in 1922, while the Halveti Tekke belongs to the Khalwati Sufi order. Aromanian and Greek speakers and a small Romani community also live in the town and nearby villages.

Mount Tomorr, which closes the view to the east, is a holy mountain, and in the second half of August pilgrims climb to its Bektashi shrine. A local legend says the mountain was a giant who fought another, Shpirag, over a young woman, and that her tears became the Osum. Women in the castle quarter still make and sell lace, and the football club is KS Tomori.

About 62,000 people live in Berat municipality, according to the 2023 census; the town is the seat of Berat County and ranks as the ninth most populous city in Albania. The municipality was formed in 2015 by merging the town with the surrounding communes of Otllak, Roshnik, Sinjë and Velabisht.

The economy mixes old and new. Albania's military industry is centred nearby, with the Kuçovë air base and a disused factory at Poliçan, and tourism has grown quickly on the strength of the UNESCO listing, turning many family houses in Mangalem and Gorica into guesthouses. Wine and raki come from the villages around the town. The private Albanian University in Berat ended its programmes in 2019, leaving secondary schools as the main places of study, and like the rest of southern Albania the town has lost many people to emigration.

Most residents live not in the old quarters but in the flat modern town of apartment blocks along the river. The day is shaped by the heat: early coffee, a quiet afternoon, and in the evening the walk along the promenade beside the Osum, where much of the town turns out at sunset.

Berat eats as southern Albania does. Tavë kosi, a national dish, and fërgesë, made with green and red peppers, skinned tomatoes and onions and often served with meat, are on most menus, as is byrek, the savoury pie. Japrak, vine leaves stuffed with rice, beef and onion and served cold with tarator, a sauce of cucumber, garlic, olive oil and yoghurt, is a common starter. Rice with turkey is a local dish to look for, and the town has a pastry called Mont Blanc, named after the white peak of Mount Tomorr. Figs and olives from the area are sold in season.

Meals usually end with coffee — in 2016 Albania became the country with the most coffee houses per head — or with mountain tea, which grows in the Albanian mountains. Raki is the most popular spirit, made most often from grapes, plums or blackberries; in Berat a version flavoured with walnuts, raki me arra, is a local speciality.

The hills around the town are wine country. Wineries in the nearby villages grow international varieties alongside native grapes such as Pulëz, and the restored stone houses of Mangalem, Gorica and the castle quarter hold many of the restaurants that serve Albanian home cooking.