The story of the “Kulla Hupi”
The “Hupi” family lives since generations in one of the most impressive houses of central Albania. Not far from the mining town of Bulqiza, in the village of Lapurake, their fortified house of soon 150 years impresses whoever lays an eye on it.
With its fortified structure and small windows to shoot (a rifle) from, this house classifies as a “Kulla”, so the traditional tower houses built with conflict in mind (wars, blood feuds etc.) and to be found mainly in Albania and Kosovo.
Looking at the house this was once a rather rich and powerful family. But together with the tumultuous, often painful history of Albania, things changed for the worse, and during the communist period the Hupi family was engaged in dangerous and tiresome work inside the chromium mines of nearby Bulqize. The early years of market capitalism then were again a struggle, with members of the family forced into emigration as well as continuing work inside the mines.
Around 8 years ago finally a positive process started, a “rebirth”: The energetic son of the family, Luli Hupi, with just a few words of English but a lot of “let’s do it” attitude started to approach the seldom tourists in nearby Bulqize and offered them to view his unique tower house free of charge. This happened with genuine Albanian hospitality and some homemade fruit juice from his mother as a gift. That`s also how we/Ride Albania experienced our first encounter with the magnificent “Kulla Hupi”, and it`s how a long and lasting cooperation started.
Soon after we integrated this location into our week-long bike route, and started to stay with our clients at the (then still very basic) Kulla for the night. Next we helped the Hupi family to set up a presence on a major online booking platform, and today they use this successfully to attract visitors from all over the world. Over the years we and the Hupi family have built a relationship of trust, which is the key to success. We had several discussions along the way, some of them rather intense, on topics like modernization vs preservation, how fast growth should go (or not), how prices should develop etc. So far we always came out of these discussions finding a way forward together – and with more trust.
Today the “Kulla Hupi” is a thriving all-year-round tourism destination in the center of Albania, often fully booked. We are happy and also rather proud to be part of this success story. These days we are preparing the next step: together with various partners we are developing a project for the gentle tourism development of the whole region around the “Kulla Hupi”. So that a whole area may profit from this work already started, and with a foundation (the guesthouse) already built.
This was the story of Kulla Hupi. Now to more such positive developments – together with you!
The house in 2016
And the house in 2023