Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump found their dream vacation property the old-fashioned way: they swam to an uninhabited Albanian island from a friend's yacht and decided they'd take it. Now thousands of Albanians are rioting in the streets, a protected ecological sanctuary is getting bulldozed during breeding season, and the flamingos have absolutely no comment because they are flamingos and this is not their fault.
How Rich People 'Find' Things That Already Exist
Here's how Ivanka Trump describes the origin story of the couple's Albanian resort empire. Earlier this month, she appeared on podcaster David Senra's show and explained that she and Kushner were cruising the Adriatic on a friend's boat when they stopped for a swim near Sazan, an uninhabited island off Albania's coast. "Effectively, that's how we found it," she told Senra. They hiked to the top barefoot. They were captivated. Love at first trespass.
From that magical swim, the couple "developed the opportunity" over many years, as Ivanka put it, eventually landing government approval to build a luxury resort on a stretch of Albanian coastline called Zvérnec, directly across from the island. In the same podcast, she described the holdings with the casual confidence of someone reading off a property deed. "Not only the island, but we have five miles of beachfront directly across from the island," she said. "This beautiful peninsula with a lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other, and beautiful white sand beaches."
What she did not mention in her podcast appearance, titled "Ivanka Trump on Building the Authentic Life," is that this beautiful peninsula is a legally protected ecological zone home to more than 250 bird species. Or that construction equipment is already carving access roads through it. Or that thousands of Albanian citizens are furious enough about the whole arrangement to take to the streets for ten straight days.
Ten Days of Protests and Counting
NPR reports that demonstrators have gathered outside Prime Minister Edi Rama's office in Tirana every day for more than a week, with thousands flooding the capital's streets chanting "Edi Rama out!" The protests started over the resort approval but have grown into something bigger: a full-throated public vote of no confidence in the Albanian government itself.
"We're tired of these guys stealing from us," protester Eden Hosha told NPR. "Stealing our resources. Selling things that are not theirs to sell." Hosha said the immediate trigger was watching a national area get fenced off and filled with construction trucks without warning. The protected site at Zvérnec, where hundreds of bird species winter and breed, suddenly had lorries rolling through it.
Drone footage from a June 10 rally, obtained by NurPhoto, shows the scale of what's happening. Organizers say thousands attended that single demonstration alone. This is not a small NIMBY dispute. This is a country watching its government hand a pristine protected coastline to the son-in-law of the American president and being very loud about how they feel about that.
The Part Where We Talk About the Flamingos
Taulant Bino is an ornithologist and the head of the Albanian Ornithological Society. He's been cataloguing the wildlife at Zvérnec's Vjose-Narte protected area for years. According to NPR, which spoke with him on-site, Bino has identified more than 250 bird species in the Narte Lagoon alone, including black-winged stilts, common terns, little terns, little egrets, and yes, flamingos.
Bino told NPR that a construction company has already built an access road directly into this protected zone for bulldozers and equipment. "Building an access road in the middle of the breeding season, for a lot of species, it's horrendous," he said. "It not only interrupts the breeding season, but it might crush also animals like amphibians and reptiles."
Ivanka Trump has described the planned development as showing restraint and care for the environment. Bino is not buying it. He told NPR the project plans show buildings up to 10,000 rooms total. Ten thousand rooms. "All of this is for a new city rather than an environmental project," he said. To be clear about the math here: a ten-thousand-room resort complex is larger than many actual cities. This is not a boutique eco-lodge with bamboo showers and a composting toilet.
The Legal Problem Everyone in Albania Except the Government Seems to Know About
A coalition of environmental organizations has filed legal challenges against the Albanian government over the project. Their lawyer, Dorian Matlija, told NPR that the case centers on the fact that the land is protected under a stack of international treaties, including the European Union's Natura 2000 framework, which designates ecological networks of protected areas across EU member states.
Albania is a candidate country for EU membership. Building a luxury mega-resort in a Natura 2000-protected zone is, to put it diplomatically, not a great look for your accession application. To put it less diplomatically: it is the kind of move that makes Brussels bureaucrats visibly uncomfortable and Albanian protesters audibly furious.
The government of Prime Minister Rama has given the project preliminary approval anyway. Because when Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the sitting American president, wants five miles of your protected coastline, apparently the answer is yes.
Quick Note on the Island's Previous Tenants
Sazan Island, the uninhabited jewel that first captivated the Kushner-Trumps from the deck of their friend's yacht, has a history that Ivanka's podcast episode did not linger on. According to NPR, the island spent decades as a Soviet submarine base and testing ground for biological and chemical weapons during Albania's alliance with the USSR. Soviet-era gas masks still litter the island today.
So the romantic story of swimming ashore to an untouched paradise is, in practice, a story about swimming ashore to a former Cold War weapons testing site. This detail does not appear to have dampened anyone's enthusiasm for the project.
The Dingo Take
Let's be direct about what's happening here. The son-in-law of the President of the United States is building a ten-thousand-room resort complex on legally protected land in a country actively seeking American favor and EU membership, and the Albanian government approved it. Ivanka went on a podcast to describe the land as theirs with the breezy confidence of someone who has never once worried about the legality of anything. And the birds are having their breeding season crushed by bulldozers right now, today, while you read this.
The "we found it on a swim" origin story is doing a lot of work here. You don't "find" five miles of protected coastline from a friend's superyacht. What actually happened is that a couple with extraordinary political leverage identified land they wanted, spent years cultivating the right government relationships, and obtained approval that environmental law suggests they should not have been able to obtain. That's not a discovery story. That's a corruption story with a nicer wardrobe.
Thousands of Albanians have been in the streets for ten consecutive days over this. They are not confused about what's happening to their country. The question is whether anyone with actual power, in Albania or in Brussels or in Washington, is paying attention. The flamingos are definitely paying attention. Unfortunately, flamingos don't vote.
