Albanians Are in the Streets Because of a Holiday Resort. The Kushner Family Is Involved. Of Course It Is.

Police blocked streets in Tirana on Wednesday. The people blocking those streets were Albanians protesting a luxury resort development on their Adriatic coast. The people connected to that development include Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

That is the sentence that explains why this story is trending internationally.

Albania's coastline is genuinely beautiful. It has largely escaped the kind of overdevelopment that swallowed up parts of Croatia and Montenegro because Albania was isolated for decades under a communist regime and then developed slowly in the years after. What remains is a stretch of relatively unspoiled Adriatic and Ionian coastline that has been drawing more tourists every year precisely because it does not look like every other Mediterranean beach destination.

The Kushner-linked project would change that in a specific stretch of that coast. A large-scale luxury resort. High-end facilities. International investment. The Albanian government has supported it, saying it creates jobs, brings money and puts Albania on the map for a different kind of visitor.

The people in the streets on Wednesday have a different read. Their concerns are about what happens to the ecosystem when you build something that size in that location, and about whether anyone adequately studied those impacts before giving the green light. They are also asking questions about the process — who decided this was the right project, on what timeline, with what transparency, and how close the relationships between the Albanian government and the Kushner family actually are.

Jared Kushner has been building a global real estate portfolio since leaving the White House. Several of his projects have involved countries with complicated political relationships. Albania is the latest.

The protests continue. The project remains approved for now. The coastline is still there — for the moment.