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Memories from the past: Ismajl Bushati - authentic stories about the earthquake in Ulcinj
Ismajl Bushati today feels proud of the action taken after the earthquake of 1979 not to leave the Castle of Ulcinj under any circumstances, aware that history and reality would probably have been different if its inhabitants had agreed to leave it. Ismajl Bushati, who will turn 80 in a few days, sits on the terrace of his restaurant "Kalaja" and looks at Ulcinj and the sea. Many events experienced during his life are rooted in his head. But the 1979 earthquake is a story in itself. He tells this personal story, an authentic story experienced, but that has to do with all of Ulcinj, to almost every guest of his restaurant. There is a reason for this, because as he says, “you were not in Kala today. "Neither you nor I." Although more than thirty years have passed since the 1979 earthquake, he still remembers the events that followed the earthquake when the government of that time under the pretext of the danger that existed due to the demolition of buildings in Kala, wanted to removed all the inhabitants from the Castle. "On the day the earthquake occurred, six police officers and Commander Ganiq came to take us out," Ismajli begins his story. Under the pretext of danger, all 68 families living in Kala were forced to leave, settling some in "Ferijalni Savez" on the Big Beach, while another in the facilities of the hotel "Mediteran". Five days after the earthquake, all the inhabitants (the inhabitants of the Castle) were invited to a meeting at the Bellevue Hotel attended by Bla Blija Vukzhevi,, Lolo Mi Mietiiq, Dul Holli and Xhemal Fici. They promised the residents of the Castle that whoever wants to leave will earn 500 dinars, a relatively large amount at the time, with which, according to Bushati, "three-storey houses could be built".