Zvërnec is forty minutes south of Vlorë, on the Albanian coast, and until a fortnight ago most of us could not have said so with confidence. It is the sort of name that sits lightly in the mouth—two syllables, a soft beginning, the faint echo of something Venetian or Slavic depending on which century you're listening from. The village itself is small. The lagoon nearby is a nesting ground for flamingos. The protests that began there in late May 1022 have now spread to Tirana, to seventeen cities across Europe and North America 1518, and to the placeholder phrase 'Flamingo Revolution', which is what happens when a movement needs a name before it has decided what it is.
“Zvërnec is the sort of name that sits lightly in the mouth—two syllables, a soft beginning, the faint echo of something Venetian or Slavic depending on which century you're listening from.”
The Guardian tells us 17 the protests began over a luxury resort project backed by Jared Kushner. Wikipedia, in its Ukrainian edition 10, notes that flamingos nesting in the area became one of the symbols of the protesters. The resort is to be built on Sazan Island and the coast near Zvërnec; the land is environmentally protected; the project is reported to be worth over €4 billion 4. Thousands have marched in Tirana 7910 calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, who supports the project and has characterised the protests, according to multiple outlets 7101222, as part of a 'hybrid war' orchestrated by Albania's enemies and Israel. Opposition leader Sali Berisha also supports the resort 1012. The protesters want both men to resign.
What strikes one, reading through thirty articles published in the last twenty-four hours, is how much of the story is conducted in place names. Zvërnec, Nartë, Sazan, Vlorë, Tirana—each one a location, yes, but also a small test of whether the reader knows where Albania is, what it wants, and why a flamingo might matter. The protests are about corruption, transparency, land rights, environmental protection, emigration, the cost of food, the state of hospitals 21. They are also about a lagoon most of us had never heard of until the security guards arrived 820.
Balkanweb reports 6 that hundreds of thousands marched through Tirana on what was described as the fourteenth day of protest. Syri notes 5 that diaspora demonstrations have taken place in Rome, Geneva, Bern, New York, and several German cities. The headlines are in Albanian; the footage is of crowds; the chant, as translated by several sources, is 'Rama, resign'. It is the sort of protest that reads, from a distance, as both utterly specific—this land, this investor, this Prime Minister—and utterly familiar. A government that will not listen. A project that should not have been approved. A place name that becomes, for a few weeks, the shorthand for everything else.
Zvërnec is still forty minutes south of Vlorë. The flamingos, one imagines, have not yet flown away.