On Sazan, a small island off the coast of Albania, the landscape looks as if it’s from the Jurassic period. Ferns, giant lavender, plumbago, rosemary, yarrow, and laurel grow on the mountain at its center. The view from the top, with its dramatic sunsets, is mesmerizing.
Albanians call Sazan Ishulli i Trumpëve - Trump's Island. So far, largely untouched by development, the island is on the verge of becoming a mecca for ultra-luxury tourism, another addition to the real estate portfolio Ivanka Tramp i Jared KushnerSpeaking in July 2024 on the podcast Lexa Fridmana, Ivanka could barely hide her excitement: “I’m working with my husband, we have this 1.400-acre island in the Mediterranean, and we’re bringing in the best architects and the best brands,” she said. “It’s going to be something extraordinary.”
When I reached Kouchner by phone that same month, I could tell he was thrilled with Sazan, which he considered a treasure of sorts. He said he planned to “create the ideal resort where I would want to stay with my family and friends.”
Before I visited the island, I had reveled in the thought of covering some 40 miles of trails, climbing rainforest-covered mountains, and exploring deep sea passages with names like Paradise Bay, Hell’s Gorge, Devil’s Bay, and Admiral’s Beach. I wanted to see it before the phrase “I’m going to Sazan” became a privilege of the wealthy.
When I arrived there, on a bright July day in 2024, I realized that the island was not suitable for wandering - it was littered with skull and crossbones signs warning of landmines. My guide, Arber Dželaj, a lieutenant in the Albanian navy, stopped me from going too far. He didn't want to be reprimanded by his superiors.
Sazan is located between the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, strategically positioned at the entrance to the Gulf of Vlora, in the Strait of Otranto that separates Italy from Albania. But, as Dželaj explained: “The climate in Sazan is not Mediterranean, but subtropical. You can see it in the vegetation. The biodiversity is incredible.” Indeed, the vegetation seemed to have come out of Spielberg’s computer, creating a jungle of colossal ash trees, hornbeams, maritime pines and holm oaks.
Unable to stray from the beaten track, I had to settle for brief glimpses of carpets of rare ferns and valleys of tall grass that slope down to turquoise waters. It felt like I was standing on the threshold of the creation of the world, watching the landscape come into being. Kouchner told me that he too was speechless when he first saw it in 2021: “I was really surprised that something like this existed in the middle of the Mediterranean and that it hadn’t been developed yet.”
Preliminary approval from the Albanian government for Kouchner's project came on December 30, 2024.
The last time I spoke with Kushner and his associate Asher Abesher, CEO and co-founder of Affinity Global Development, in July 2024. Džonatan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Affinity Partners, the Miami-based firm that is owned by Kushner and manages $4,6 billion in assets, did not respond to multiple emails and messages seeking comment from Kushner or Abeshera regarding the progress of this project.
Paradoxically, Sazan owes its natural setting to a large extent to communism. During the communist era, from 1946 to 1991, Albania was known as the “North Korea of Europe,” and Sazan became a symbol of extreme isolation: an inaccessible military fortress built by the dictator Enver Hoxha, fearing that the country might become prey to some world power, envisioned it as a point of defense in the event of an attack by NATO or members of the Warsaw Pact.
For decades, soldiers stationed on the island had been waiting for such an attack, scanning the horizon, listening for a submarine to emerge from the depths of the Adriatic. The island had a military base with housing, a theater, a school, and a hospital. By the 1970s, about 150 military families lived on Sazan, with no contact with the mainland. “But they were privileged. They had food, clothes, education, and household appliances,” Dželaj told me. The anticipation only ended when the regime fell in 1991.
Walking along a path with a guide, we came across several bunkers and tunnels that were intended to store supplies and ammunition, or as hiding places in case of a guerrilla war against the imperialist invaders. Dzhelai told me that there are about 10 miles of tunnels on the island, now inhabited mainly by bats, shrews and wild rabbits. There are about 3.600 bunkers on Sazan - concrete armored "mushrooms" that emerge from the vegetation or are placed on mountaintops as observation posts against imaginary American aircraft carriers or Soviet frigates. Some of these bunkers will be preserved and integrated into a new real estate project, Kouchner said.
I asked the guide about the signs warning of mines. “Actually, they’re not really mines,” he said. “This place is full of unexploded ordnance, there are still many areas that need to be cleared.” He pointed to a gorge on the east coast, where Affinity Partners plans to develop a significant portion of a project that will encompass the entire island. “These (unexploded ordnance) are remnants from the 1990s,” Dželaj continued, “when criminals attacked the island right under the military’s nose, looting weapons and ammunition depots.” Eventually, the enemy did come, but in small, makeshift boats and speaking the same language as the soldiers.
Today, the island is administered by the Albanian Armed Forces. Patrolled by three sailors, they walk between the rusty and dilapidated docks in the Bay of San Nicolo (the port where Affinity, according to Abeshera, will build a major yacht marina).
Albania has risen to the top of the most prestigious tourism lists in recent years, largely thanks to the Prime Minister Eddie Rami, which turned the country into the economic tiger of the Balkans.
I asked Rama if he was worried about the potential political complications surrounding the new real estate project. He told me that his country “cannot afford not to take advantage of a gift like Sazan,” adding, “We need luxury tourism like a desert needs water.” He is not afraid of controversy either, especially “if it helps attract attention and investment.”
According to Kouchner, Rama is a “great partner” and very visionary. “The government clearly saw that this could be something big,” he told me during our conversation in July 2024. “They’re building an airport right here, in the Vlora area.”
Albania is not Kouchner's only target: he is also interested in Serbia, where Affinity Partners plans to turn the former General Staff building in Belgrade into a luxury hotel. Affinity's business broker in the region is a former US ambassador. Richard Grenell, who was Trump’s special envoy for peace talks between Serbia and Kosovo from 2019 to 2021. According to the New York Times, while he was special envoy, Grenell championed a similar plan for Serbia and the United States to jointly renovate the General Staff building. He has since teamed up with Kushner on a new investment project and is now a partner in Affinity. (Kushner told me that it was Grenell who first suggested he invest in Albania.)
"When someone announces a development project, everyone gets scared. Everyone assumes the worst. But when they see the plans that we have, the way we design the project, the way we remain faithful and considerate to the environment, I think people will be very, very happy. And then, with development, you can never make everyone happy," Kushner said in July 2024.
President of Serbia, opportunist Aleksandar Vučić, in Grenell and Kushner, according to the Financial Times, he saw an opportunity to get closer to Trump in the event of his re-election victory. Vučić, in fact, is playing a dangerous game: while flattering Trump's associates, he refused to impose sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. In May 2024, Vučić rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese leader Si Jinping, whose government, according to a Reuters report, has invested in major infrastructure projects in Serbia. At the same time, Vučić continues to express a desire for EU membership, but refuses to meet Brussels' key demand: recognition of Kosovo's borders and independence.
When I spoke to Rama, the Albanian prime minister, I asked him what role American investments play in geopolitics. He replied that it was just business, but he did not deny that they could serve broader political goals. “We need to keep Serbia in the Western sphere and get it out of Moscow’s influence,” he said. In an interview with the Financial Times in July 2024, Grenell also said that investments such as the takeover of the former general staff were part of an effort to bring Serbia closer to the United States.
Kushner, who served as a senior adviser to Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021, denied in a July 2024 interview that he had used his position to advance any plans related to the development of Sazan. “I never met Prime Minister Rama while I was in government,” Kushner told me. “But even if I had, it wouldn’t be a conflict of interest. People who serve in government build different relationships.” He claimed that interest in Serbia and Albania was “growing incredibly” as a result of his company’s real estate business.
Negotiations with the company "Affinity" on the sale of Sazan were conducted in secret. Citizens and MPs were not aware of the $1,4 billion deal until it was announced in the media.
Mirela Kumbaro, Albania’s minister of tourism and environment, defended Rama’s decision to strike a deal with Kouchner’s company, even though the move has drawn sharp criticism from the opposition. “We can’t compete with Italy, Croatia and Greece in mass tourism. We don’t have enough infrastructure or experience,” she told me. “We need to focus on quality. On value instead of quantity. More profit, less problems.”
Almost 2024 million foreigners visited Albania in 12, a 15% increase from the previous year, according to local media. That’s “too much for us, and too much pollution,” Kumbaro said. “Sazan is the right path. The ideal formula: nature and luxury tourism.” She was enthusiastic about the project, explaining that “Affinity” works closely with the state agency in charge of strategic investments – those exceeding 15 million euros.
The stakes are significant: zero tax rates during the construction phase, and the state takes on all infrastructure costs, including water, electricity and sewage, Kumbaro said. Everything else, the sun, the sea, Mediterranean seals and the subtropical jungle, is already there.
This is precisely what concerns environmental activists like Olsija Nike, a marine biologist and director of the NGO EcoAlbania. “This area is within the Karaburun-Sazan Marine National Park. This means that the beaches and waters within a 2km strip of the coast are protected. What will happen to this area when major construction works, dock construction, yacht traffic and wastewater come?”
Affinity's Abeshera told me that the company hired global sustainability firm Arup as a consultant on the project. “Their practice is primarily based on emphasizing and respecting the local ecology and environment,” he said.
Kushner also had a ready answer. “When someone announces a development project, everyone gets scared,” he said in July 2024. “Everyone assumes the worst. But when they see the plans that we have, the way we design the project, the way we remain faithful and considerate to the environment, I think people will be very, very happy. And then, with development, you can never make everyone happy.”
When I met Abesher for lunch in Vlora in August 2024, he showed me blueprints for the island’s planned development. The hotel, he said, will be “a jewel in the Mediterranean,” an answer to those who ask, “What haven’t I seen yet?” The hotel’s design will not be “imposed” on nature; the buildings will be “carved or even modeled by nature itself.” It will be an experience that, in his words, “will be more like being nestled in a beautiful tree.”
I didn't quite understand what that meant, so I asked him if the island would remain accessible to ordinary people, the local population who wanted to use the beaches. “I think everyone should have the opportunity to visit the island,” he told me.
Kouchner was more skeptical. “We’re creating a high-end luxury product,” he told me. “One of the most appealing things about an island is the privacy… But I also think there are certain parts of the island that we can develop to allow people to come and visit and enjoy the food and the trails.”
I remembered my afternoon with Jelaje. He told me that until a few years ago, soldiers on patrol would sometimes report seeing a small gray donkey among the wild fig trees, in a clearing, or in the Paklena Gorge. And then it would just disappear. I wondered if it was just a legend, or if the gray donkey had died along with the mystery of the island, the last bastion of wilderness in the Mediterranean, which was eventually conquered without a shot being fired. All it took was for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner to step out of a helicopter and say, “Wow!”
The text is taken from "The Guardian"
Translation: NB
Bonus video:
