Consider: Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Malta (to say nothing of Sealand). I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Europe has a surfeit of microstates and doesn’t need another.
Yet, Albania is planning (threatening?) to create another one within the city of Tirana called the Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order
It’d be even smaller than the Vatican, only 27 acres (11 hectares) and also based on a religion. I think they’re just jealous of Rome.
Maybe “Europe” doesn’t need another microstate, but frankly it’s none of their business. Not ours either. If (some of) the Albanians want to do something stupid or pointless, and can get enough of their countrymen to go along, so be it.
If the real purpose is to create a lawless enclave where organized crime can find refuge, well that’s a different matter. I’m not suggesting this is (or even might be) Bektashi’s purpose. Merely that any hypothetical microstate that did seem to have that purpose would be reason enough for larger forces to prevent its formation.
Rome actually has two of these. In addition to Vatican City, they also have a pseudo sovereign entity that’s so small it doesn’t have any real territory beyond its Roman “embassy.”
Edit to add: Incidentally, I’m planning a two week road trip through Albania in the spring. So if this new microstate happens in the next few months, I’ll make an effort to visit it.
When I was in Rome, a tour took us to their embassy There is no entry but you can look through a keyhole, see their courtyard and the Vatican in the distance. It is the only place on Earth that looking through a keyhole you can see three countries.
They also have a building in Rhodes that is their embassy to Greece.
If you travel to Bektashi, leave a rock on a turnstile, or a coin on a gravestone in honor of @Beckdawrek.
Those might be my peeps!
Just sayin’ 
After reading the Wikipedia article and the New York Times article on this proposed microstate, I confess that I still don’t grasp how extending sovereignty to this compound accomplishes anything. It seems especially odd for the Albanian prime minister to be pushing for this.
I wonder if this microstate would count as a case of a country voluntarily giving up territory?
That’ll be a great trip! It’s also well worth visiting both of the bunker networks in Tirana, originally built for senior Party officials and now opened as museums of the communist era.
To answer the most important question: there will be an average of 9.09 dedebabas per square km, or 23.8 dedebabas per square mile. This beats the Vatican at 2.04 popes per km or 5.26 popes per mile, though there was a recent period 2013-2022 where these numbers were often doubled.
His Holiness Haji Dede Baba, aka Baba Mondi, aka Edmond Brahimaj seems to be a nice fellow with noble intentions if what the NYT in the article linked in the post above is true, so good luck to him.
But once you set things in motion, consequences follow. Who will designate his successor?
Of course it would.
On reading Cecil’s column, I’m surprised he didn’t mention the resolution of the numerous enclaves that India and Bangladesh had in each other’s territory. Cecil’s column is dated Oct 2015 and India and Bangladesh finalized their agreement earlier that year. India lost about 40 square kilometers in the exchange.
It’s hard to guess what might be the point of this. Bektash is kind of an Albania-specific thing, so I guess making a microstate would help insulate this piece of cultural heritage from the previous changes in government that have affected the Bektash order in the past. Plus maybe elevating its stature relative to larger Islamic sects, maybe preventing those from gaining a larger foothold in the country.
But that’s just speculation. Albania tends to march to its own drummer, so who knows.
That’s almost twice the size of my village green. Plenty of room for a cricket field and duck pond.
One microstate I find amusing is the Kingdom of Uganda, which was Uganda’s way of maintaining tradition when they evolved from a monarchy to a democracy. Basically, a couple of blocks was set aside in the capital city, and the king officially still rules there, with no power whatsoever outside of those couple of blocks.
Also amusing, the Kingdom of Uganda’s citizenship rule is that any human physically within the bounds of the Kingdom has citizenship, for so long as they remain within the bounds. Leave the Kingdom, and you also leave your citizenship behind.
Interesting. The Republic of China tried that after they overthrew the Emperor. It didn’t last long.
This sounds less like a Muslim Vatican City and more like an Albanian Mt Athos.
The Master speaks on the general subject.
It’s interesting to compare this proposed microstate to the Knights of Malta. Considered somewhat sovereign. They own a lot of land in Italy but only two places are considered extraterritorial by Italy. Lots of diplomatic activities. They do coins and stamps. They even have a bit of a military.
If Bektashi doesn’t do more than the Knights, then no one’s going to really consider it a state.
If only Cervaise had already done that in this thread.
People who bury cites under words in their post that disguise what the cite is about sorta deserve to have their cites overlooked or ignored.