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I came here looking for information not prepared to contribute it but this town near the border with Kosovo was relocated as part of a hydroelectric scheme and is without much charm. The old Kukes sits at the bottom of a lake, held back by crumbling Chinese-build dams. Kukes sits in a lawless and improverished district with poor road connections. Kukes was briefly on the world staage during the Kosovo conflict when many hundreds of thousands of Kosovan refugees crossed the frontier and were housed in camps in and around Kukes. This is when I was there. There is a mosque and was then a closed alpine-style hotel, part of a failed attempt to establish a tousit industry there. OSCE maintained a villa there. Being close to the border, and this the balkans, the town seemed to exist mainly on the smuggling of people, guns, drugs, stolen cars, etc. The police had somehow got hold of flourescent jackets evidently part of a surplus job lot as they were all emblazoned, improbably, British Gas. The manhole covers had all been nicked so you had to be careful how you walked. The buzzy hub was a place just off the main square called the Bar America where the speciality was animal head. Christiane Amanpour was having dinner there, the night I was there. The surrounding alpine scenery is spectacular. If you are going I strongly recommend a helicopter as the road was terrifying and I doubt it is any better now.

This page probably needs some input from someone who knows about the place. In particular, it is not clear how much of the above is still true, and how much has changed since the anonymous visitor was there. A lot of the past tenses have now been changed to present tenses, but these should be checked. Somehow... -- Oliver P. 22:26 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I visited Kukes a few times in 1994 as part of a Doctors Without Borders mission. That's even longer ago than the visitor above, but I can confirm a few facts.
  1. Old Kukes was indeed flooded by the lake.
  2. Lawless? Well, our truck driver was attacked in front of the hospital by knife-yielding guys in broad daylight. They wanted to steal medical material from the truck, but our fearless driver was able to... well, let's say "discourage" them. Some other people did run off with half our didactical material (used to train nurses). I'd say that's pretty lawless...
  3. Poor road conditions? We needed about a day to drive from Tirana to Kukes in a 4WD (if I remember well that's a distance of about 200-300 km). I also remember reporting from Kukes by radio to the mission coordinator in Tirana saying: "There's no organisation, no transport, no roads, but for the rest everything's fine!"
  4. There is some sort of an alpine-style hotel just above the lake (I slept there), and I would think it's probably closed now. I wouldn't advise anyone walking the lonely road to the hotel after sundown because of the dubious characters prowling around (during our stay an intrepid woman traveller who did exactly that had been attacked and nearly raped), but the view from that place is tremendous.
  5. Smuggling: especially petrol while we were there.
  6. The manhole covers had probably been nicked before 1994, because even then you had to take care where you walked!
  7. I don't know about the "animal head"...
  8. If you can stand a little rough handling, I'd recommend to go in a 4WD. You'll be shaken until your tooth fillings fall out, but the scenery is definitely worth it.
D.D. 16:22 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Oh! Thanks for explaining all that. I'll leave expanding the article to you, then. ;) -- Oliver P. 16:46 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to, but as you can see, I don't have any "hard facts" from after 1994. And I don't really think anecdotes like the ones above are suited to be put in the article... Anyone with more recent knowledge? D.D. 18:00 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)
PS: By the way, Bajram Curri, further north is even worse... but the scenery is even better! D.D. 20:10 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Most of the above is now rubbish as I went there on August 2007 and roads are better and they are having a new one built, and there were a lot of other bars you could go to, there certainly was a lot more order from police etc, bearing in mind that most of Albania emerged from a communist era this town is doing quite well, also a question to the people above: how can it be a really a hostile town if it hosted that many people?

To everyone who is interested. Now conditions in Kukes are much better than before. Only to mention, there is a highway now connecting Kukes with the capital Tirana in less than 2 hours, which can be a great trip as of the scenery around. There is an airport now which will be soon in function. And,, it is much more safe to go and stay there now.... welcome!!!!

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