Kushner-linked luxury – For the 10th straight day, thousands have rallied outside Prime Minister Edi Rama’s office in Tirana, denouncing a proposed luxury resort tied to Jared Kushner. Opponents say a protected coastline home to hundreds of bird species is being opened to large-scale
On June 10, protesters packed the streets outside Albania’s prime minister’s office in Tirana for the 10th consecutive day of demonstrations against a proposed luxury tourism development linked to Jared Kushner.
Chanting “Edi Rama out!” thousands flooded the capital, calling for Rama to resign as the dispute shifts from one coastal project to a broader indictment of how the government handles public land and environmental protections.
The plan traces back years, according to Ivanka Trump’s own account. She said she and her husband Jared Kushner had been vacationing on a friend’s boat on the Adriatic Sea off Albania when they stopped for a swim. “Effectively, that’s how we found it,” Trump said earlier this month on podcaster David Senra’s show. She described swimming to Sazan. an uninhabited island off Albania’s Adriatic coast. hiking barefoot to the top. and feeling “captivated” by the place.
That trip, over time, turned into a proposal to build a luxury resort on a stretch of coastline across from the island.
Albania’s government has given the project preliminary approval. That approval has now become the spark for daily protests outside Rama’s office, even as the country debates what kind of development should be allowed—and who benefits.
For protesters gathered near the coast, the story began long before the rallies. Eden Hosha said the conflict started when a national area was “closed off to the public” and “big lorries and trucks” began working in a protected area. The site, Hosha said, is Zvérnec, the coastal zone across from Sazan that protects an inland lagoon. Hundreds of species of birds nest there in winter.
As the demonstrations have grown, anger has sharpened into a direct challenge to the government itself. “We’re tired of these guys stealing from us,” Hosha said. “Stealing our resources. Selling things that are not theirs to sell.”
Sazan Island sits just across the sea from Zvérnec. For decades, Albania’s then-ally the Soviet Union used Sazan as a submarine base and testing grounds for biological and chemical weapons. Even now, Soviet-era masks still litter the island.
Ivanka Trump has described both the island and the nearby coastal plot as part of her and Jared Kushner’s landholdings. In the David Senra podcast that aired earlier this month. she told Senra that “Not only the island. but we have five miles of beachfront directly across from the island.” She described the peninsula as having “a lagoon on one side. the ocean on the other. ” with “beautiful white sand beaches.”.
Trump also portrayed the project as restraint and care, saying the couple had “developed the opportunity” to transform the land. For her. she said on the podcast. “this feels more like a challenge than anything else. ” describing it as the culmination of her real estate experience. her travel. and her “reflection on how I want to live.”.
But on the ground, opponents describe something else—habitat at the edge of the construction zone, and a coastline they say is already being treated as off-limits.
Ornithologist Taulant Bino. head of the Albanian Ornithological Society. says his team has identified more than 250 bird species in Zvérnec. a protected coastal area where the government has approved construction of a luxury resort. Standing along a desolate dirt road surrounded by wetland. Bino watches the landscape closely with binoculars and calls out the names of the creatures living there.
“This is a black-winged stilt,” he said. He also pointed to common terns and little terns, a little egret, and flamingos, which he said he saw “at least one but there should be more in the lagoon.”
Bino described the coastal strip as part of a protected ecological area called Vjose-Narte—a lagoon next to what he called salinas. or salt flats—where. in his words. white fields of salt sparkle like gemstones. He said salinas are important for breeding birds, while Narte Lagoon is critical for wintering birds.
But construction access is already appearing. Bino pointed across the water where a construction company has built an access road into the protected area for bulldozers and equipment.
“Birds are the first to suffer,” he said, frowning as he watched the site. He argued that building an access road in the middle of the breeding season is “horrendous” for many species. He said it not only interrupts breeding, but could also “crush also animals like amphibians and reptiles.”
Trump’s vision for the future does not match that concern. Environmentalists say the scale being discussed is closer to a new city than to a limited resort.
Bino said what he sees from project ideas points to tall buildings “up to 10,000 rooms,” meaning the plan is “for a new city rather than an environmental project.”
That dispute has moved into the courts. A group of environmental organizations has joined together to file legal challenges against Albania’s government.
Their lawyer. Dorian Matlija. said the case hinges on the claim that the land for the resort is protected under international treaties. including the European Union’s “Natura 2000. ” which he described as an ecological network of protected areas in the EU. Albania is an official candidate for EU membership, Matlija said, meaning the network’s rules apply.
“All of these say one thing: that you don’t develop anything big,” Matlija said. “You can only use the land or the area itself for agriculture, traditional agriculture, not intensive. You could also use it for fishing, but also traditional fishing, of course.”
In 2024, Matlija said, Prime Minister Rama ushered in a new law that stripped away Albania’s protection of the ecosystem, allowing for five-star hotels on the land. Matlija said the legislation violates both Albanian and EU laws.
“So this is also endangering our longtime dream [of] joining the EU as well,” he said. “So now there is this problem. So basically, if somebody will try to go to the court against that, they have high chance of winning and that’s a big problem for the investors.”
Anti-corruption pressure has added another layer of uncertainty for developers. On June 2, Albanian anti-corruption prosecutors froze the bank accounts of a firm that purchased land along the ecologically protected coastline. The move, in an investigation into fraudulent property titles, involves a company named Albania Land Development.
The firm is owned by the prominent Qatari brothers Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, who are helping finance and build the Kushner and Trump luxury resort. NPR reached out to the Al-Khayyat brothers for comment, but they did not respond.
Kushner’s Affinity Partners was also asked for comment. In a statement, a representative of a company called Sazan Real Estate Development responded with remarks from Asher Abehsera, a businessman Kushner has teamed up with to build projects in New York.
“Our focus remains on responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation, and creating long-term value for local communities,” the statement said.
The representative also said Kushner’s Affinity Partners has no role in this project and that “partners are involved as investors in their personal capacity.”
But opponents say tracking ownership has been difficult.
Lindita Cela. one of Albania’s most decorated investigative journalists. said that from Albanian documents it is “impossible to find out” who the investors are. For months. she has been tracing what she calls a string of shell companies from Albania to the Netherlands that she says are connected to Kushner and Trump’s project.
“You see one company, and you’ll see that ‘who owns this company?’ and it’s another company,” Cela said. “If you go to this company, then another one, and then you’ll find another one. This other company still brings to you not to any names, but to another company. You just need to keep digging, digging, digging.”.
She compared her investigation to opening Russian matryoshka dolls, one after another. She said she found that several of the shell companies share the same address in Amsterdam and that each of them is worth a single euro.
The smallest company. Cela said. is Interroyal BV. established with 18. 000 euros in 2004 by a Russian citizen named Nikita Maximovich Vinogradov and a Bulgarian citizen named Zoya Georgieva Gyurova. She said each controls 25% of the company, though she said she has been unable to track either individual down. Neither has a public profile. Still, she said the pair owns hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Albanian property.
Back on the coastline, protesters say their objection is simple: the land already belongs to people, not to a small slice of ownership.
On a recent weekend at the proposed site in Zvérnec, hundreds of Albanians converged to protest the project. Among them was Albi Batozi, a 34-year-old software engineer.
“I don’t want anyone to build here because this is our land,” Batozi said. “Public land is for everybody, not for just the small 1% of people.”
Batozi said Rama is treating the land as if it is his to sell. while he insists it belongs to all Albanians. He said he grew up going to the beach. describing it as a place where all Albanians. regardless of social background. could visit freely. If Kushner and Trump’s resort is built. he said. it would become part of the country’s coastline that is closed off to most Albanians.
Rama’s office responded when NPR reached out for comment. In a lengthy statement. the government said. “The government understands that major investments can generate public debate and differing opinions.” It also said. “The ambition is to create a new benchmark for sustainable Mediterranean development.”.
Batozi believes the prime minister is fixated on five-star luxury resorts. and he pointed to a contradiction he sees as Albania remains among Europe’s poorest countries. “The problem is that we are comparing ourselves to big countries like they are investing and why are we not investing?” he said. “But Albania is like a studio apartment that barely holds place for Albanians. Where do we put this, these visitors?. It’s not that we can afford to build these big resorts like in Greece, for example.”.
Even with legal challenges pending, the daily rallies are already reshaping how the project is being discussed—less as a vacation vision and more as a fight over access, environmental protection, and what the country owes its own people.
Albania protests Edi Rama Kushner resort Ivanka Trump Sazan Island Zvérnec Natura 2000 Vjose-Narte anti-corruption prosecutors Albania Land Development shell companies environmental legal challenge