An agreement was signed on July 25, between the Municipality of Gjilan and Cultural Heritage without Borders (office in Kosovo) for the establishment of the Regional Museum of Gjilan.

The signing of this agreement was made between the ​​Mayor of Gjilan, Mr.Lutfi Haziri, and director of Cultural Heritage without Borders in Kosovo, Mr.Sali Shoshi, in the very museum building, which until recent was the seat of the mayor. Bequeath of this building has been an electoral promise of Mr. Haziri in local elections of 2013, a promise that was came to being few weeks ago.

“I am exceedingly honored that on this day of July we finally formalized the foundation of the Regional Museum of Gjilan as one of our joint endeavours and one of the great shortages the town of Gjilan and our region has, as we have said – a city without museum, without cinema and a city lacking cultural institutions. I am grateful to the Cultural Heritage without Borders and Mr. Shoshi who, together with his team, is present here today for support they are providing to the Municipality of Gjilan for the cultural heritage agenda, in general,” mayor Lutfi Haziri said on this occasion. He further continued they will try to make this museum a landmark house of Gjilan to be visited by people, citizens, children, visitors and everyone coming to Gjilan, and, of course, to becoming one of the most visited houses in the municipality.

On his part, Sali Shoshi, director of CHwB office in Kosovo, thanked mayor Haziri on the great cooperation he has shown throughout these months being the mayor of Gjilan. “Today we stand here at the founding ceremony of the Museum. The focus of the cooperation in Gjilan, materialized today with this agreement, will further be expanded with collection of artefacts, their cataloguing and interpretation and beyond – to developing exhibitions in museum. In addition to this, to have the museum staff trained and to have the Museum of Gjilan become part of the museum network of the Balkans, where they will benefit through activities that will take place in all Balkan countries, through museum-related training subjects.I deeply thank the mayor on fruitful collaboration we have had during this period, and I also do thank the Local Cultural Heritage Forum of Gjilan for their ideas, proposals, which have already started to be implemented. This plan, apart from the museum, envisages a long list of actions as well that should be undertaken for the protection and treatment of cultural heritage”, Shoshi said.He also added that Gjilan has exhibits, a culture that can be collected and interpreted, hoping that by the end of this year they will come out with the first exhibition and with the first product that will be presented to the tourists and to the citizens of Gjilan as well.

This project is one of the priorities of the Local Cultural Heritage Plan of Gjilan, a plan which was drafted by CHwB, Municipality of Gjilan and other central level institutions. This plan is part of the Program of Local Cultural Heritage Plans in 7 different municipalities of Kosovo.For detailed information about this program click here.