Krujë

Krujë was inhabited in antiquity by the Illyrian Albanoi. In 1190 it became the capital of the first Albanian state of the Middle Ages, the Principality of Arbanon, founded by Progon, and it was later a capital of the Kingdom of Albania. The Ottomans took it early in the 15th century and called it Ak Hisar, the white castle; Skanderbeg himself served as its governor in 1437–38.

On 28 November 1443 Skanderbeg regained the town by deceiving its governor with a forged letter from the sultan and raised the Albanian flag the same day. In 1444 he brought it into his League of Lezhë, and its fortress held against Sultan Murad II in 1450 and against Ballaban Pasha and Sultan Mehmed II in 1466 and 1467. After Skanderbeg's death in 1468 Venetian troops reinforced the garrison, but the town fell in 1478 after a siege of more than a year.

Under Ottoman rule Krujë became a centre of the Bektashi order: the Dollma tekke was completed inside the castle in 1779–80, and a shrine to the dervish Sari Saltik stands on the mountain above. The Toptani family were the local rulers until they moved to Tirana. A local revolt in 1906 preceded independence, and in 1914 Essad Toptani made Krujë a centre of his short-lived Republic of Central Albania before it returned to the Principality of Albania. The communist dictatorship destroyed much of the tekke; the Skanderbeg Museum opened in the castle in 1982 and the ethnographic museum in 1989.

Krujë is the symbolic home of Albanian resistance. Skanderbeg's defence of its fortress against the Ottoman armies is a founding story of the nation, and the Skanderbeg Museum, built in the castle and opened in 1982, is one of the most visited museums in the country. The bell that announced Skanderbeg's death is displayed there.

The town also has deep Bektashi roots. In the early 20th century its population was described as appearing almost entirely Bektashi, and the Dollma tekke inside the castle walls and the shrine of Sari Saltik on the mountain are still places of pilgrimage. A church dedicated to Saint Alexander once stood near the mountain, and the Bektashi shrine was built close to it, a sign of the layering of faiths for which the region is known.

Crafts are the town's other identity. The old bazaar, roofed in wood and lined on both sides with workshops, was home to leather workers, silk weavers, woodcarvers, potters, tailors and wool workers, and today's shops sell handmade goods, carpets and antiques collected from Krujë and the surrounding area. The ethnographic museum, in a villa of the Toptani family built in 1764, shows craft objects between 60 and 500 years old.

About 8,900 people live in the town's municipal unit, and about 51,000 in the wider municipality of Krujë at the 2023 census. The municipality was formed in 2015 by merging the town with Fushë-Krujë, Bubq, Cudhi, Nikël and Kodër-Thumanë, which lie on the plain below, and it also takes in Tirana's international airport at Rinas.

The old town lives largely on visitors. Day-trippers from Tirana arrive by bus, car and coach, climb through the bazaar to the castle and the museums, and eat in the restaurants with terraces over the plain; shopkeepers in the bazaar sell crafts and antiques. The newer town further down the mountainside is where most people live, shop and catch the furgons to Fushë-Krujë and the capital.

The rhythm of the day follows the visitors: quiet early mornings, busy middle hours as tour groups and families arrive, and calmer evenings when the bazaar shuts and residents take their evening walk. Weekends and the summer months are the busiest, and the views from the castle stretch on a clear day from Mount Tomorr in the south to the coast near Ulcinj in the north.

Krujë's restaurants, many of them along the bazaar and near the castle gate, serve the traditional food of central Albania to visitors and to Albanian families on day trips. Tavë kosi, regarded as one of Albania's national dishes, is mutton and rice covered with yoghurt, eggs, butter and flour and baked; fërgesë, peppers, tomatoes, onions and gjizë, a salted curd cheese, cooked slowly in olive oil, is the signature dish of Tirana and central Albania.

Byrek, a savoury pie, is a staple of the Albanian diet. A meze of salads, pickled vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, prosciutto, salami and feta is served at festive meals and in restaurants, with wheat bread or cornbread, and dhallë, a drink of yoghurt blended with water or milk, is a traditional accompaniment. Traditional dishes of Krujë include kabuni, rice with cinnamon and ram's neck meat, and fërgesë made with curd and milk.

Coffee in the Turkish style is common, and raki, the most popular spirit in Albania, is most often made from grapes, plums or blackberries. Cafés and restaurants line the bazaar street, and more stand near the shrine at the top of the mountain.