After Durres, we made our way to Tirana—delightful scenery on the way!
Gert got deeply into Albanian politics and history. We were enthralled. The tour group were generally intelligent and up-to-date with world events and classical history. We were all in for a surprise at how little we knew about Albania.
He told us how Enver Hoxha’s communist government came to power during the 2nd WW. They tried and executed many war criminals; they confiscated private property and nationalised industry with communist propaganda pushed down everyone’s throat, whether they liked it or not.
We plied Gert with questions. He did not hold back. He told us how the country initially allied with the Soviet Union with significant advantages. They offered food staples, economic assistance, and military protection against the West and neighbouring Yugoslavia. Soviet models were copied and adapted for virtually every sphere of Albanian life. As we drove past drab soviet style buildings, we were all glad that we lived in Australia!
In the 60s, Albania and the Soviet Union had a falling out, and Albania decided to break up with the Soviet Union. China then swooped in and embraced Albania with open arms, infusing the country with Mao’s doctrines. They even threw an Albanian version of the Cultural Revolution party, complete with a flood of goods and low-interest loans. Albanian writers and intellectuals found themselves being strongly encouraged (actually forced) to jump on the Albanian communist bandwagon.
From 1966 to 1967, Albania experienced a parallel Chinese-style cultural revolution. Administrative workers were suddenly transferred to remote areas, and younger cadres were placed in leading positions. The collectivization of agriculture was completed, and organized religion was banned. As the decade passed on into the 1970s and beyond, Enver Hoxha’s leadership greatly isolated the country, grew dark in operations, and fell out of favour with the people.
But things changed, and the first multi-party elections in Socialist Albania took place in 1991 – the Communists gained a majority in an interim government. The Republic of Albania was proclaimed in 1991, and the country’s first parliamentary elections were held in 1992. In 1998, Albania became a democracy.
‘Yes’, Gert said, ‘Albania abandoned many industrial sites when it transitioned away from Soviet-style communism in the early 1990s. During the communist era, particularly under the leadership of Enver Hoxha, Albania followed a highly centralized and autarkic (self-sufficient) economic model, which the Soviet and later Maoist ideologies heavily influenced. As part of this approach, the regime invested heavily in industrial projects, including mining, metallurgy, and chemical production, with many of these industries supported by Soviet and Chinese technology and aid.
When communism collapsed in 1991, Albania underwent a rapid and challenging transition to a market-based economy. Many state-owned industries were no longer viable in the new economic environment. The collapse of central planning, combined with the loss of external support and the inability of many enterprises to compete in an open market, led to the widespread abandonment of factories, mines, and other industrial infrastructure.
As we travelled to Tirana, we saw the abandoned industrial sites, some of which have become environmental concerns with derelict buildings.
Tirana was a most welcome site. The view from our hotel window over the main square was most appealing.
It was scorching outside when we decided to leave the hotel and walk to Mother Teresa Square. This dog told us that the most sensible thing to do was to have a nap instead.
We saw concrete military bunkers throughout Albania—a ubiquitous sight indeed, with an average of 5.7 bunkers for every square kilometre. The bunkers were built during the Hoxhaist government led by Leader Enver Hoxha from the 1960s to the 1980s, as the government fortified Albania by building more than 750,000 bunkers.
Hoxha’s program of ‘bunkerization’ resulted in the construction of bunkers in every corner of the then-People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, ranging from mountain passes to city streets. They were never used for their intended purpose during the years that Hoxha governed. The cost of constructing them was a drain on Albania’s resources, diverting them away from dealing with the country’s housing shortage and poor roads.
The bunkers were abandoned following the dissolution of the communist government in 1992. A few were used in the Insurrection of 1997 and the Kosovo War of 1999. Most are now derelict, though some have been reused for a variety of purposes, including residential accommodation, cafés, storehouses, and shelters for animals or the homeless.
Gert told us about the Albanian author Kadare, who had died a few months before we arrived in Albania —regarded by some as one of the greatest writers and intellectuals of the 20th and 21st centuries and as a universal voice against totalitarianism—could soon become the posthumous recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature.
Living in Albania during a time of strict censorship, he devised stratagems to outwit Communist censors who had banned three of his books, using devices such as parable, myth, fable, folk-tale, allegory, and legend, sprinkled with double-entendre, allusion, insinuation, satire, and coded messages.
In 1990, to escape the Communist regime and its Sigurimi secret police, he defected to Paris. In the 1990s, he was asked by both major political parties in Albania to become a consensual President of the country, but he declined. In 1996, France made him a foreign associate of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and in 2016, he was a Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur recipient.
Dedrie was protected from the relentless sun by the Mother Teresa Memorial in Tirana—Mother Teresa, the Albanian-born Indian Roman Catholic nun, missionary and Nobel Peace Prize.
The memorial is in the form of a square, planned by the Italian architect Gherardo Bosio, and built together with the main Boulevard in 1939 to 1941, during the Italian occupation of Albania, in a Rationalist style.
It is located on the south end of the Dëshmorët e Kombit Boulevard, and important buildings are situated on this square. The building includes the University of Tirana, the Polytechnic University, the University of Arts, the Archeological Museum and the Centre of Albanological Studies.
We saw the hillock in the distance, shimmering in the heat down the main street in Tirana—and decided to walk there in shaded areas in the street. When we got there, it was paradise! This Grand Park of Tirana is a 289-hectare public park that includes a big artificial lake. It was just too hot to see any of the aquatic bird species, such as gulls and grebes, or the woodland species, such as woodpeckers and treecreepers.
The only birds we saw were the turtle doves, which were beautiful—making the most delightful calls—but very secretive and furtive. Google tells us that they are migratory, covering most of Europe and the Middle East, including Turkey and North Africa. They winter south of the Sahara and rarely appear before the end of April, returning south again in September.
This one did not appear to be heading south. It was feeding on the ground; was very timid and wary. They are hunted mercilessly during migration, Google says!
It made a low cooing song, then took off in an arrowy flight.
What I didn’t manage to capture on camera because I couldn’t see well enough, and it was so hot that the birds were taking cover in the shadiest spots, was one of those elusive woodpeckers.
In WWII, Gert told us, some 2,400 German soldiers died or went missing in Albania. In 2002, this small German military cemetery was set up in the middle of the Grand Park of Tirana, which Dedrie and I visited. We came across this walled area with a granite monument to the war dead. Eight panels are listing some 1800 names. German graves were scattered in 87 different locations—some buried here now. The still-missing German war dead will be buried in this cemetery in future.
Following the end of the war in Europe, an Army Graves Registration Unit entered Albania with the task of collecting the remains of British and Australian servicemen lost in the struggle to secure Albania’s freedom. Fifty-two sets of remains were recovered. In 1995, thirty-eight more sets of remains were interred in the cemetery.
Some fabulous apartment blocks bring ecosystems into Albanian dwellings. It’s good to sit under the trees to meditate in your living room!
Skanderbeg ranks high in the military history of that time as the most persistent—and ever-victorious—opponent of the Ottoman Empire during its heyday. He became a central figure in the Albanian National Awakening of the 19th century. He is honoured in modern Albania and is commemorated with many monuments and cultural works. Skanderbeg’s military skills presented a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion, and many in Western Europe considered him to be a model of Christian resistance against the Ottomans.
As we travelled to Tirana, Gert showed us abandoned buildings and industrial sites situated amongst the spectacular mountains and attractive countryside.
