The ship "Vlora" returned from Cuba to the port of Durres in Albania loaded with sugar. In the meantime, thousands of people arrived at the docks eager to escape from Albania to the "promised land" - Italy. The collapse of the communist regime, the most rigid in Europe, and the scenes of prosperity on the other side of the Adriatic that they could see on satellite channels, made about 7 people board the "Vlora" on August 1991, 20.000. Most of them climbed onto the ship by belaying themselves from the sea with the ship's ropes. Literally every millimeter of the ship was filled with people, and many of them were hanging on ropes during the entire crossing of the Adriatic.
Captain Halim Milaki agreed to head for Italy, fearing what might happen if the refugees took command of the ship. The ship "Vlora" crossed the Adriatic overnight and arrived near the Italian port of Brindisi around 4 am on August 8, but the local authorities refused to allow it to dock under the pretext that a large number of Albanian migrants had already arrived in this Italian city in March of that year.
Milaki decided to change his plan and head for the port of Bari, only 55 miles away. As it was the time of "ferragosta", most of the authorities in the police and border control were on vacation and the office of the mayor of Bari was only informed that morning that the ship was already in the port. An attempt to block his approach with small ships and patrol boats failed because Captain Milaki, aware of the plight of 20.000 passengers who spent 36 hours on board without food or water, was determined to bring this journey to an end. As soon as the ship approached the dock, thousands of refugees from Albania jumped into the sea and climbed ashore using ropes.
DELLA VITTORIA STADIUM
An order came from Rome to immediately return the ship with the refugees back to Albania. Nevertheless, the injured (primarily with sunburns) were admitted to a local hospital, and among the passengers there were also several women in advanced pregnancy. Around noon, the authorities decided to transport the migrants to the Stadio della Vittoria, a station that was not in use since the new Stadio San Nicola was built for the 1990 World Cup.
When word got out in the stadium that the migrants would be deported to Albania, complete chaos reigned. The police left the stadium and left it to the migrants, some of whom were also armed with guns and knives, and food and water were literally, like in a cage with wild animals, inserted from the outside via cranes of fire trucks, about which there are documentary footage that you can find on the internet.
Around midnight, a group of Albanians managed to break through the gates of the stadium and clashed with the police, which resulted in 200 injuries, including 20 policemen. Several hundred of them managed to escape, some hid in the Fiera del Levante exhibition pavilions, while around 2.000 of them were surrounded by police outside the stadium.
The Italian government has finally managed to organize some sort of response to this refugee crisis. Ships accompanied by military vessels were sent to bring around 3.000 refugees back to Albania. In order to facilitate the evacuation, the refugees were told that they would be sent to other Italian cities.
By August 11, about 3.000 refugees remained at the stadium in Bari. Local police chief Vicenzo Parisi managed to convince some of them to leave the stadium with the promise of new clothes and 50.000 lira each, which was a large sum of money for Albanians at the time.
They were promised to stay in Italy, but they were put on buses, transferred to the airport and transported to Tirana.
During a visit to the port and stadium in Bari on August 10, Bishop Antonio Bello was scandalized by the conditions in which these human beings were kept. In the text he wrote afterwards, he harshly condemned the Minister of the Interior for "treating refugees like animals".
The arrival of refugees from Albania continued in the following months and years, mostly organized by mafia gangs. They used fast motor boats to bring the migrants close to the shores of Italy and then throw them out to swim to land.
The ship "Vlora" stayed for 45 days in the port of Bari for repairs. Captain Milaki continued to manage the ship in the following years until 1995. "Vlora" was finally "decommissioned" in 1996 and scrapped in the Turkish port of Aliaga.
Today, the Stadio della Vittoria looks as if this drama of biblical proportions did not take place there. Its history before that summer of 1991, however, is no less dramatic.
It was opened in September 1934 on the occasion of the National Championship of Young Fascists in the presence of Benito Mussolini.
At the beginning of the Second World War in 1940, before the invasion of Greece, an Italian cavalry regiment with a large number of mules was stationed here. One night, the straw used to feed the mules caught fire and damaged a good part of the stadium's interior. But that was just the beginning. During the Allied bombing of Bari on December 2, 1943, two shells fell on the stadium and further damaged it.
Allied troops soon arrive and use the stadium as a parking lot for their military vehicles and tanks. Then, the first American football game on the territory of Italy was played on its grass.
After the war, the Stadio della Vittoria was returned to regular use as the home ground of Bari Football Club. At the end of the eighties, after several renovations, it could accommodate 35.000 fans.
After the dramatic events of August 1991, the Stadio della Vittoria was out of use until the XIII Mediterranean Games in Bari in 1997 when, after an 11 billion lire renovation, it shone again to its former glory. A sculpture was then discovered in front of the stadium Mare Nostrum, the work of local artist Cosimo Giuliano.
That American football game from 1944 was apparently prophetic because since 2006 the stadium has become the home field for the local American football club ("Navy Seals Barrie"), as well as rugby ("Tigers Rugby Barrie").
In addition, concerts are regularly held at the Stadio della Vittoria. Recently, the famous Italian singer-songwriter Claudio Baglioni (72) performed there.
photo: private archive of the author...and San Nicola Stadium, 2023.
SAN NICOLA STADIUM
The second stadium in Bari, the newer and bigger one - Stadio San Nicola - in the same year 1991 became part of the romantic history of the Serbs and the scene of the "last Serbian victory" during the nineties.
After a ten-minute taxi ride from the center of Bari, we arrive at the gates of St. Nicholas Stadium. It was, of course, named after the saint whose earthly remains have been kept in the basilica in the city since the 12th century.
The kind woman at the ticket office informs us that the stadium is closed to tourists, but that we can go to the souvenir shop to the left of the entrance. Journalistic curiosity took me a few steps further, I climbed down the stairs to the second level and before my eyes the view of the field that on May 29, 1991 entered the history of Yugoslav and Serbian football. Bari soccer players were training.
The St. Nicholas Stadium was built in 1990 for the World Cup, which was hosted by Italy. That summer, the Soviet Union and Romania, Cameroon and Romania, Cameroon and the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Costa Rica played on it, and finally, in the match for third place, Italy and England.
A year later, on May 29, 1991, the Final of the Champions Cup between Red Star Belgrade and Olympique de Marseille was held here. After the regular 90 minutes and overtime, there were no goals, so the winner was decided by penalty kicks. It should be noted that the Olympic management promised its players 300.000 US dollars each if they won, which at that time was a truly dizzying sum.
All five players of Red Star were accurate, while Manuel Amoros was the tragedy of the game and missed the penalty for Olympique.
Olimpik player Dragan Stojković Pixi, who entered in the 112th minute of overtime, refuses to shoot a penalty against Zvezda.
That's how Crvena Zvezda won its first and so far only title in the European Champions Cup.
By the way, the Red Star team arrived in Italy unusually early, six days before the final. They settled in the city of Monopoli near Bari, where the players stayed at the hotel "Il Melograno" and trained on the field of the local Monopoli club.
Due to the great interest of rich European clubs in Zvezda's players, the management put them in semi-quarantine, they were separated from their girlfriends and wives; in those days before cell phones, they couldn't receive calls in the hotel, but they could make outgoing calls.
During the following days, the club organized the transportation of a large fan support in the form of legends and former players of the club, as well as celebrities. Club legends Dragoslav Šekularac, Rajko Mitić, Srđan Mrkušić, Stanislav Karasi, Živorad Jeftić and former coach Miša Pavić were there. The team of celebrities was led by actors Ljuba Tadić and Ivan Bekjarev, as well as singer Bora Đorđević. It is estimated that Zvezda had more than 20.000 fans at this game.
In honor of the 20-year anniversary of the famous victory, in 2011 it was decided that the Zvezda players will perform in jerseys that are replicas of those from 1991. The jerseys were designed after the jersey of Slobodan Marović, the only player who kept it for himself. Other players threw their jerseys to the crowd or gave them to someone as a gift.
Internet portals and forums are full of fan stories and legends about that event. One of them is about buying fans' torches from a factory in Pisa a week before the game and leaving them in the dressing room at the station in Trieste where they will be waiting for them when they leave for Bari.
In "real life" in Yugoslavia, the war torches were already lit, and the first victims were already counted in dozens. Two weeks before the match in Bari, on May 16, the Assembly of SAO Krajina, after the referendum on May 12 in the areas under its control, passed the Decision on the accession of SAO Krajina to the Republic of Serbia. Less than a month after the match, on June 26, Croatia and Slovenia will declare independence.
Neither Zvezda nor any other football club from Serbia has ever achieved such success.
