‘Magnificent’ frescoes can be found in the ‘Paris of the Balkans’: NatGeo

January 5, 2023

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Deep in southeastern Albania, a tiny hamlet holds five churches that have one of the most magnificent concentrations of Orthodox Christian fresco art in the world.

From the outside, the churches in Voskopojë resemble stone barns, a reflection of their 18th-century heritage as Christian gathering places in the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Inside, however, they reveal painted masterworks of brilliant blues, reds, and yellows that come to life in themes both awesome (Christ the Almighty, or Pantocrator) and eccentric (St. Nicholas outsmarts the goddess Artemis). “For us, it’s like the Louvre,” says Albania’s Minister of Culture, Elva Margariti.

There are no other sites in Albania or in the world quite like the Voskopojë churches and their 43,000 square feet of frescoes. The government designated them Cultural Monuments and recognized the village center where most of them are located as a Historic Ensemble.

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Perhaps more importantly, the frescoes are a striking East-meets-West artifact of a multicultural, multireligious Albanian identity many feared would be extinguished under the former Communist regime.

As tourism in the area rises, a cadre of dedicated researchers and restorers is racing to save the churches. In November, the Ministry of Culture unveiled an ambitious proposal that would bring art preservationists from all over Europe and conservation architects to restore them before it’s too late.