Delvinë

View over Delvinë, left in the background the castle hill

Delvinë (Albanian Delvinë or Delvina, is a small town in Vlorë County in Southern Albania, 16 km northeast of Saranda. Delvinë is the principal place of the district of the same name. Delvinë has lost over a third of its citizens since 1990, leaving a population of 4,200 (2004 estimate).

The city is on a mountain slope. It has a mosque and an Orthodox church. Nearby are the remainders of a medieval castle. To the south west of the city is the site of ancient Phoenice, which was declared an Archaeological Park in 2005 .

There is little local employment apart from that provided by the State and Delvinë benefits little from booming tourism in Saranda.

In the middle ages, Delvinë was part of the Despotat of Epirus. In the middle of the 14th century the aristocratic Delvina family ruled Delvinë. In 1354, Mehmet Ali Pasha Delvina was testified as the owner of the castle and the city.

Boom time under Turkish control

The Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Delvinë around 1670 and gives some information about the city in his travel book. He reports that in the Middle Ages Delvinë was in the hands of the Spanish and later the Venetians. In his own time, Ajaz pasha - a native Albanian - governed the Sandschak Bey of Delvinë. The Sandschak covered 24 Zeamets and 155 Timare. There was a Turkish garrison, whose command on the castle was from Delvinë. According to the description of Çelebis, the small fortress had a good cisterne, an ammunition depot and a small mosque. In the city there were about 100 brick-built houses. These stood relatively far apart and nearly every house had a tower. He noted that a town wall was missing. There was several mosques, three Medreses and about 80 stores as well as an open market place.

In the 17th century, Delvinë was a flowering eastern city with a predominantly Muslim population. Orthodox Christians probably lived in the adjacent villages, where there are still some old churches.

Jewish community

Until the Second World War, a small Jewish community existed in Delvinë. It consisted of Jews from Spain, who had come to Delvinë under Osmanian rule and had close connections to the large Jewish community in Ioannina. After the war, nearly all the Jews emigrated to Israel.