Sulejman Bargjini
Sulejman Pasha Bargjini was an ethnic Albanian general and Governor of the Ottoman Empire. He was originally from Bargjin, but he settled in the village of Mullet, Albania and probably served as a Janissary, he was given the title Pasha. As an ethnic Albanian, he had fought for the Ottomans against the Safavids in Persia. After that he had built a mosque, a bakery and a hammam. He founded the settlement of Tirana, now the capital of Albania, in 1614 as an oriental-style town of those times. According to some legends, he named the town he founded after Tehran, the capital of Persia. With Suleymans foundations, Tirana soon became the center of Albanian art, culture and religion, it became famous because of its strategic position at the heart of Albania.
His resting place, the Suleyman Pasha Tomb, got destroyed during the Communist dictatorship. A statue of Sulejman Pasha stands in the square named after him in downtown Tirana. A small street in another part of Tirana also bears his name.
