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Broken Mosaic of Prespa Lake

44 images Created 5 Sep 2014

The waters of the Prespa Lakes are shared among three countries: Albania, Greece and the FYR Macedonia. The two lakes located in a mountain plateau are separated by various political, cultural and social borderlines after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the creation of nation states and the Cold War. The once inter-connected communities around the Prespa Lakes have long been disrupted. A once homogenous area has been transformed over the course of the last century into three highly segregated cultural communities.
While familiar with the Greek part, I have only recently visited the Albanian and the FYR Macedonian parts of the Prespa basin. It was then that I witnessed first-hand the sharply contrasting pieces of the Lakes’ mosaic. The immediately visible difference was in the natural landscape; the Albanian part still marked by the serious deforestation during the communist times; the FYR Macedonian part with the protected woods of its National Park; and the underpopulated Greek part with a wild, uncontrolled spread of nature. Invisible at first sight, the sharpest contrast was evident in the people, upon whom history sculpted three different temperaments. During the Greek civil war, Prespes hosted the headquarters of the Communist-led army. After the collapse of the front, most of the locals had leave, for some time the area was underpopulated until people from other regions of Greece settled there, resulting in a hybrid culture. In Albania, the harsh communist regime of Enver Hoxha suppressed all Albanians but especially the lake villagers that were ethnic FYR Macedonians and more likely to defect to Tito’s Yugoslavia. The situation in the FYR Macedonia was much more relaxed until the breakup of Yugoslavia. Since then, due to the economic downturn, the standard of living is steadily decreasing.

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  • Todora Burmo (73) in her field near Kallamas, Albania
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  • Fields in Stenje, FYR Macedonia
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  • The beach of Dolno Dupeni, FYR Macedonia
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  • Alexander and Risto (40) , Car Mechanics, Resen, FYR Macedonia
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  • Road signs to the now closed border crossing to Greece, FYR Macedonia
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  • Dimitre Stavre (75) with his donkey in Liqenes, Albania
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  • Kico Kitan (70) in his field near the village of Tuminec, Albania
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  • Communist monument to partisans in Šulin, Albania
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  • Zugra Marko (64) in Pustec, Albania
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  • Trees in Vrontero, Greece
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  • Zhare on his tractor near Konjsko, FYR Macedonia
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  • Men walking to the lake in Stenje, FYR Macedonia
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  • Ilia Themelko (40) working in a field near the village of Lemos, Greece
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  • Reeds in Nakolec, FYR Macedonia
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  • Helvis (15) from Tren at the very end of small Prespa lake, Albania
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  • Helvis (15) from Tren at the very end of small Prespa lake, Albania
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  • The Lake from Nakolec, FYR Macedonia
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  • Matteo (1) and Renato (23) outside their house in the village of Rakicke, Albania
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  • Sign to old factory "Prespateks" in Resen,  FYR Macedonia
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  • Man fishing in the small Prespa near the village of Tren, Albania
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  • The beach of Dolno Dupeni, FYR Macedonia
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  • The yard of the now abandoned kindergarden of Vrontero village, Greece
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  • Vasko Ivanovski (50) near Stanje, FYR Macedonia
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  • Building in Nakolec, FYR Macedonia
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  • The abandoned kindergarden of Vrontero village, Greece
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  • Dirt road in fields near the village of Nakolec, FYR Macedonia
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  • The lake from the estuary of Stara river in Lemos, Greece
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  • Themistocles (65) resting in his field near the village of Lemos, Greece
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  • Flooded football pitch near the village of Rakicke, Albania
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  • Mateo Kape (18) from Tren at the very end of small Prespa lake, Albania
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  • Jovan Malevski (71) in his field near the village of Glloboçeni, Albania
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  • Grave with Albanian flag engraved in Bela Crkva, FYR Macedonia
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  • Apple farmer Husein Retzepovski (28) near Bela Crkva, FYR Macedonia
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  • Unfinished house from the early 1990's near Drmeni, FYR Macedonia
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  • Pece (22) on his tractor, near Resen, FYR Macedonia
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  • The former village hall of Aghios Germanos, Greece
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  • Unfinished building in Stenje, FYR Macedonia
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  • Rodina and Stefan Burmo (70) in the village of Tuminec, Albania
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  • Pola Burmo (70) in the village of Kallamas, Albania
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  • Cow near Aghios Germanos, Greece
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  • The road to the ruins of Agathoto village, Greece
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  • Ilija Traikovski (15) at his grandmother's barn in Dolno Dupeni, FYR  Macedonia
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  • Maki Mihail (66) in his field near Kallamas, Albania
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  • The road from Kula to Lemos in Greece
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