Traveling to Tirana, Albania

I had no plans to go to Albania but last minute I decided I wanted to head back to the coast and warmer weather so off I went to the capital – Tirana!

After arriving in the pouring rain I was grateful to wake up to a brand new sunny and glorious day. I heard there was a free walking tour of the city center so off I went to learn about this unknown (to me) country. Our guide was great! He was in his late 30’s and spent most of his childhood living through communism years (which ended in 1991). He told us stories about when he was in the 3rd grade all students were required to attend military training. Boys and girls in his class had to learn how to run with rifles from the potential war from Russians and Americans. After the gal of communism they looked back and thought for sure – Russia and America probably couldn’t even find Albania on a map! They were not trying to bomb Albania. Regardless, the country built over 175,000 bunkers where men would guard complete with gas masks for 2-4 hours each day. There were servers concentration camps in Albania as well where the prisoners were forced to guard the bunkers. Today Tirana has 2 bunkers that have been turned into museums called BunkArt. I toured BunkArt 2 and was able to travel the tunnels and learn about the workings of communism at that time. Another thing our guide talked about was how those days were “every man for himself” days. If you someone who had long hair or a beard, you could report them and they would be punished. The confusing part for him was that he would walk into school every day and see portraits of Stallion and Lenin with mustaches and long hair. Why could they have it but my family or neighbors couldn’t? He was told that those were the old days. So people were always spying on their friends, families and neighbors and reporting them for doing anything against the rules.

The education system was about the best part of communism days. The country had nearly 100% literacy rate in those days. Fortunately it still hovers around 97%.

It was required that every man worked at that time. If a woman went to work without her families approval, the family had the option to report and eventually kill her for disobeying her family. Women essentially had zero rights and the country is still male dominated even though their parliament is 50/50 men/women. I found this interesting with the giant mosaic left over in the newly created city square with a woman leading the pack, gun held high. She was a total misconception to what was really taking place. Another way people were being killed was if they tried to escape over the border. When they were found not only was the person killed immediately, their family was also tortured and murdered.

Other things he told us were that each family was given a voucher for 2 kilos of meat per family, per month. Most days he ate bread with sugar for breakfast and lunch with tea (which he now loathes) and some kind of soup or possibly meat, if there were enough rations.

His dad was the only person in their area to be approved to buy a tv. Each family earned about 600 leke per month and a black and white tv cost 4,000 leke. The community came together and all chipped in money to buy a single tv. With the fancy tv, it was required that the antenna be pointed only into Albania which meant you were picking up Albanian stations – which showed 4 hours of propaganda tv per day only. Otherwise, if your antenna was turned to a Italy, your neighbors would report you.

As the fall of communism occurred in 1991, things slowly changed. People were able to drive for the first time in over 40 years! He says that’s why Albanians are such bad drivers. He said “imagine my grandfather leaning how to drive for the first time and being let loose on the road. It was and still is, chaos.” Another story was how his mother was Skeptical about the safety of bananas. She had never seen a banana before and thought for sure it was sent by spies. It’s now her favorite fruit. Jeans were finally introduced to the country as was Coke and Pepsi. People would display an empty can in their most special place in their house to signify change that was taking place. It was like a beacon of hope for the future!

Today Tirana is still facing issues with corruption in many areas; government – of course, schools, hospitals, judicial system. The majority of Albanians would like to become a member of the EU but they have a lot of work to do to stabilize themselves before officially being accepted. Until then the city of Tirana will continue to grow and jobs will flourish in the capital. They have experienced 4% economic growth this year which is recognized as a good thing but also expected given that they’ve come from zero. They are a proud country with a very recently destructive past. There’s a chance that it will take another generation before the pain and memories truly begin to subside. I hope for them, the healing is peaceful and constructive. I would love to see them succeed, they totally deserve it!