A bunker in south Albania

Bunker by Lake Ohrid, near Pogradec

Most of the defensive bunkers constructed in Enver Hoxha's Albania were in the form of hemispherical concrete domes (see illustration below). 

Here, I describe an unusual one that I saw next to Lake Ohrid, just north of Pogradec.

Typical Hoxha era bunkers (near Lin)

Near the village of Memelisht (north of Pogradec), we examined the huge bunker on the lakeshore (illustrated above). It was like an elongated egg in plan. Part of it protruded into the lake, and the rest caused the road to curl around it. Its entrance faced inland. 2 gun slits faced north - one slightly towards the west and the other slightly towards the east. A third faced south towards Pogradec. I peered inside, and saw a central passage with doorways leading to 3 side rooms. The corridor was clean and painted white. A few discarded bottles lay on its floor. This ‘bunker’, which was so different from other bunkers that we saw in Albania, puzzled me. Valent at the hotel believed that it had been built by the Italians to control the road between Elbasan (and the north of Albania) and the south of the country as well as Greece. This seemed a reasonable explanation for its existence and positioning.

Does anyone know exactly who built it. Was it the Italians, the Albanians, or someone else?

Now, please visit: 

Adam Yamey's website

ALBANIANS IN VENICE

Statue of Skanderbeg near Bayswater in London

(http://londonpostcodewalks.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/w2-the-bear-necessities/)

Between 1385 - when the Turks beat the Albanians at the Battle of Savra near modern day Lushnjë - and 1912, Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Albanians did not take their defeat sitting down. They offered much resistance, the best example being that offered in the 15^th century by the Albanian hero  Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu (1405-1468), better known to English speakers as ‘Skanderbeg’. Despite the brave attempts of the Albanians to rid themselves of the Turks, Ottoman rule was established firmly. Many Albanians fled the country and started new lives abroad, often in places that are now part of modern Italy.

This excerpt from a work in progress by Adam Yamey reveals his up until now brief experience of the Albanian community that fled from the Ottomans invading their country to Italy. The illustrations are all harvested from the Internet with one excep[tion, and their sources are given, as well as gratitude to those who posted them.

Skanderbeg's stronghold at Kruja in Albania (1984)

(Author's photograph)

Excerpt from a work in progress by Adam Yamey:

“The small Bar Redentore was just across the Academia Bridge that straddles the Grand Canal. I am not sure why my parents favoured this amongst all of the many bars in the city, but they did. They drank good quality espresso coffees whilst we children enjoyed munching tasty tosti. These are toasted sandwiches often containing prosciutto crudo and slices of cheese. The Italians make these better than almost anyone else. The sandwiches are not squashed in a heavy grill but instead are gently suspended between the heating elements of a toaster. The result is a much lighter tasting sandwich than those prepared in the heavier grill that compresses them as it cooks. We never sat down in Italian bars, be it in Venice or elsewhere. Even if the bar man offered to seat us, my mother refused. She knew that there was a hefty surcharge for sitting down in a bar or café.

More than 35 years after my last visit to Venice with my parents, we visited the city with our then 10 year old daughter, who had seen pictures of the place in a magazine and was longing to visit it. Prior to arranging the visit, she was learning how to swim. We told her that once she had learnt, we would take her to Venice. This inducement worked, and we re-visited the holiday place of my childhood. During the visit I was surprised to discover that many of the shops and other businesses that we had visited in the ‘60s and ‘70s were still operating in 2005. These included a small shop selling decorative paper items made in Florence as well as the Bar Redentore, where we also stopped for a drink.

We used to reach the Redentore by walking across the Campo San Stefano, where we sometimes sat down during the afternoon, and then passing along a narrow alley, which contained a building that has long intrigued me. It was the Scuola degli Albanese. This building whose façade, which is almost impossible to photograph properly on account of the narrowness of the alley, is covered with carved stone bas-reliefs. 

The facade of the Scuola degli Albanese in Venice

(http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuola_di_Santa_Maria_degli_Albanesi)

By the time that I had reached my early teens, I had developed a great interest in the then very mysterious country of Albania. Anything connected with that place, which was then almost inaccessible to anyone from the world around it, was of great fascination to me. We used to stop and look at this building, wondering what it had to do about Albania, but I never found out … until recently.

Detail of facade of Scuola degli Albanese in Venice 

- a Turk contemplating the Fortress of Shkodër in Albania

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/hen-magonza/8032636460/)

In February 2014, I was attending a reception at the Albanian Embassy in London when I met the great scholar of Albanian matters, Bejtullah Destani. This highly approachable friendly man began talking to me. As we chatted, I suddenly remembered the Scuola degli Albanese and asked him about it. If anyone knew anything about it, it had to be him. And, I was right, but I was not prepared for his reaction. He looked surprised that I knew of its existence. He said that he believed that of the 40 or so people assembled at the reception, many of them Albanian and the others having a great interest in Albania, I was probably the only person there who had ever heard of, or even noticed, this building.

Destani told me that when the Turks invaded Albania in the 15^th century, many Albanians fled the country. Some went to southern Italy and others to Venice. He explained that the Scuola degli Albanese was the headquarters of the Albanian confraternity in Venice. The Albanian community in Venice was extremely prosperous, and well able to hire the fashionable painter Vittorio Carpaccio to paint a series of canvases to decorate the main hall of the Scuola between 1504 and 1508. These paintings, which still exist, are no longer in the building, which has long since ceased to serve its original function; they are scattered amongst museums all over Italy. This contrasts with the set of Carpaccio’s paintings that are still in situ in the Scuola degli Schiavoni not far from St Mark’s Square. We used to visit those beautiful pictures lining the walls of a dimly lit room almost every time we visited Venice.

One of the pictures by Carpaccio that used to hang in the Scuola degli Albanese: now

in a museum in Bergamo.

(http://mescarnetsvenitiens.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/scuola-di-santa-maria-e-san-gallo-degli.html)

Mr Destani also told me that when the Scuola degli Albanesi ceased to function as a confraternity, the entire records of the Albanian community in Venice, spanning several centuries, were transferred to the Archives of the City of Venice, where they are awaiting scholarly examination.

Santa Maria del Giglio in Venice

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_Zobenigo)

Close to the Scuola degli Albanese, but nearer to St Marks Square, there was a church that interested me because of my interest in the Balkans. It was Santa Maria del Giglio (known by the Venetians as 'Santa Maria Zobenigo'). At the base of its florid neo-classical façade there were a number of maps carved in bas-relief. At least two of these were of places on the Dalmatian coast, namely Split and Zadar (or 'Zara', in Italian). There was another one depicting ‘Candia’, now known as Heraklion on Crete. These maps interested me. The rest of the façade interested my parents.

Map of Zara (Zadar) on facade of S. Maria del Giglio in Venice

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santa-Maria-del-Giglio_Facade_Maps_Zara.jpg)

_____________________________________________

See also:

http://mescarnetsvenitiens.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/scuola-di-santa-maria-e-san-gallo-degli.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuola_degli_Albanesi

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storie_della_Vergine_(Carpaccio)

Adam Yamey visited Albania in 1984. His memories of this 

extraordinary journey are published in his book/ e-book

"ALBANIA ON MY MIND"

This is available from Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and Bookdepository, and also www.lulu.com

ALBANIA - a haven for the Jews

 

"Where religious prejudice and hatred did not exist"

Thus wrote Herman Bernstein about Albania in 1934, when he was the US ambassador to that country.

A house in Berat (Albania) where Jews were hidden in WW2 

(Source: Click here)

Last year, I published a brief item on my blog (click HERE ) about the idea, which was briefly mooted in the 1930s, that Albania should be considered as a new 'homeland' for the Jews. So, it was with great interest that I began reading Harvey Sarner's book about the Jews in Albania.

It appears that Jews have lived in Albania since Roman times or maybe even before. During the 12th to 14th century, there were communities in what is now Albania and what is still considered to be 'Greater Albania', notably in the now Greek city of Janina. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the 15th century further increased the numbers of Jews in Albania. Until the 19th century, this small population of Jews lived peacefully with their Albanian neighbours. During the 19th century when nationalists, mainly Greeks, were trying to become independent of the Turks, there were several incidents during which Jews were massacred. These occurred mainly in Corfu and Janina, and have been largely forgotten.

During the first half of 20th century before WW2, Jews in Albania were tolerated by their gentile neighbours, both Moslem and Christian. The considered themselves, and were considered by others, as being primarily Albanian rather than Jewish, even though they did adhere to Jewish religious customs. They spoke Albanian rather than Yiddish, Hebrew or Ladino (as did Jews in Thessalonika). This may have been one of the reasons that protected them from the anti-Semitism, which was so rife elsewhere in Europe. Harvey Sarner proposes 2 other reasons for tolerance of Jews in Albania: they did not set themselves apart from other Albanians and they were not so numerous that their presence adversely concerned or made the rest of the population feel threatened (as in, for example, Thessaloniki or further away in Warsaw).

I could not help wondering whether the Albanians' tolerance for Jews would not have been stretched beyond its limit had the plan, mooted in the 1930s, to create a new home for the Jews in Albania been fulfilled. The small (a few hundred) population of Jews would have been greatly enlarged by the influx of large numbers of Jews who were not Albanian, and who had little or no interest in promoting Albania's interests ahead of their own. After all the Zionists did not choose to settle in what is now Israel primarily to promote the well-being of their gentile neighbours.

When anti-Semitism became the official order of the day in Europe after Hitler came to power and began invading Europe, Albania became one of the countries that accepted Jewish refugees. Some of these had been issued with visas, but many others had fled from neighbouring Yugoslavia and to a lesser extent from Greece. The Albanian people welcomed these unfortunate refugees, and protected them from being discovered by first the Italian and then the German invaders. When asked to prepare lists of Jews in Albania, the authorities refused to do so. This was in contrast with what happened in neighbouring Greece (and the Netherlands). In Thessalonika, I remember reading in another book, the Jews themselves prepared a list of the members of their community for the Germans, and another was prepared in Janina. Both of the these Jewish communities were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. In Athens, where such a list was not prepared, the Jews could not be rounded up until the Nazis resorted to a dirty trick, namely offering free supplies of Matzo flour during Passover. The Jews who collected this were rounded up, and massacred. In Albania, no lists were prepared, and the Albanians, who held the safety of guests as an ancient and sacred tradition, made sure that the survival rate of Jews in their country was almost, if not, 100%.

Sarner describes some of the individuals who protected the Jews and a few of the stories of Jews who were saved by them. It would have been nice to have heard more of these, but for those who are interested, let me recommend Escape through the Balkans: The Autobiography of Irene Grunbaum written by one who experienced life as a Jewish refugee in Albania, Irene Grunbaum. Sarner, in a later chapter of his book, describes his successful efforts to have some of the Albanian rescuers recognised as Righteous Gentiles in Israel's Yad Vashem memorial.

After WW2, Albania began to be ruled by the regime headed by the most faithful disciple of Joseph Stalin, Enver Hoxha. According to Sarner, there was no anti-Semitism under Albania's Communist regime - unlike many other countries that had entered the Soviet 'bloc'. Although Hoxha's government were never pro-Israel, they were not anti-Semitic. The country isolated itself from the rest of the world. Neither Jews nor anyone else were able to leave it. In 1967, Hoxha decreed that Albania was an atheist state. Mosques and churches were destroyed or closed; there was no synagogue to be closed. Religious practices were banned, and Albanians had to choose names for their children that did not give away their original religions.

6 years after Enver Hoxha died (in 1985), the Communist regime collapsed in Albania. It was at this point that many Albanians fled from their impoverished country, many of them to Italy where they were not welcomed with open arms! In contrast, Israel welcomed those of Albania's Jews who wished to live there, and with a few exceptions most of Albania's Jews, none of whom knew any Hebrew, took up the opportunity.

Sarner's book is crammed full of interesting information, but is, sadly, poorly edited. There are many errors and inconsistencies of spelling . At first, this put me off the book, but I am glad that I persisted, and read all of this fascinating but brief volume. I would have liked to have given this book 4 out of 5 stars for its interest value, but stylistically it only deserves 3.

READ MORE ABOUT ALBANIA

IN

ALBANIA ON MY MIND

BY ADAM YAMEY

Available as a paperback or Kindle on Amazon 

Rabbit with a Rifle

This is a brief extract from 

Adam Yamey's recently published book:

"ALBANIA ON MY MIND"

The setting is Tirana in 1984

"That night and the following were spent at the Tirana Hotel in the capital. This yet again unpredicted stay in Tirana annoyed some of our party, but was full of interest for me. We visited “Shqiperia Sot” (i.e. ‘Albania Today’). Housed in a large hangar-like building, this was an exhibition of Albania’s technical achievements. These included a tractor manufactured in Albania. The ever perceptive Maynard pointed out that although it differed in design from the Chinese tractors that we had seen on our travels, we had not seen even one of these home-made machines anywhere outside the exhibition. My favourite exhibit was under glass in a showcase containing Albanian toys. It was a yellow plastic bunny rabbit holding a rifle in exactly the same pose as the soldier, who had watched our arrival at the Albanian frontier. Even as infants, Albanians needed constant reminding of the need to defend their country. I would have loved to have purchased one of these militant bunnies, but I saw none for sale anywhere. It is my contention that the items exhibited were made especially for the exhibition, and not widely available, if at all."

View of the Shqiperia Sot exhibition showing a model of an oil-derrick

ALBANIA ON MY MIND 

can be purchased from Amazon 

both as a paperback and also as a Kindle

TUBES

 

Gjirokastër,  Albania in May 1984

"That evening after dinner, a number of us sat with Aferdita and Eduart in the hotel’s night club. Each of the hotels in which we stayed had one of these. With the exception of our two guides and the musicians who performed in them, these clubs were out-of-bounds for Albanians. This evening we were entertained by a small band that played western pop music, mainly tunes originally performed by the Beatles. The noisy background of these clubs provided our two young guides with opportunities to ask us about life beyond their country’s tightly sealed borders. However, it was clear that Aferdita was trying to eavesdrop on Eduart and vice-versa. As the musicians strummed away in the semi-gloom of the club in Gjirokastër, Aferdita turned to me, rolled her lower lip away from her teeth, and asked my opinion of her gums. She wanted to know if they had been treated properly. I told her that I was unable to give her an opinion in such poor light.

The following morning, I spotted some tubes of Albanian toothpaste on display in a locked glass display case near the hotel’s main entrance. I tried to communicate to the receptionist (who did not understand English) that I wished to purchase a tube. I used to collect toothpastes from wherever I travelled, and was curious to taste its contents. Whilst I was doing this, Aferdita appeared, and asked me what I wanted. I told her. She explained my desire to the receptionist, and moments later I had become the proud owner of a tube of Albanian dentifrice."

This is a brief excerpt from my book "ALBANIA ON MY MIND" (Click HERE for more detail), published in 2012. Until two days ago, I had believed that I had lost or thrown away the Albanian toothpaste  bought in Gjirokastër,to which I referred in the excerpt.  Well, I found it amongst some goods that we had kept in storage for almost 20 years. The illustration below shows 2 of the tubes in greater detail:

These were not the only dental souvenirs that I discovered in our family storage locker. Here is an extract from the draft of my forthcoming book "SRABBLE WITH SLIVOVITZ - Once Upon a Time in Yugoslavia" about Yugoslavia before 1991:

"Between Niš and the dull, nearby Niška Banja, we encountered a large number of Russian and Bulgarian cars parked by the side of the main road. Each car had a stall - usually a folding table - set up beside it. Their owners were selling a wide variety of odds and ends. I bought tubes of toothpaste manufactured in the USSR and the People’s Republic of China. For a long time these, and the dentifrice that I had bought in the Albanian town of Gjirokastër a few years earlier, shared pride of place in my large collection of toothpastes from all around the world. Sadly, this collection no longer exists, and I have also lost the Russian toothbrush, which I bought there."

This section is now going to need re-writing, as I have found the missing toothpastes...

Sadly, the Russian  toothbrush remains missing!

For more information about my forthcoming book about Yugoslavia as it was,

please click HERE

Also, do pay a visit to 

http://www.adamyamey.com

ALBANIA Face of the BALKANS

Some years ago whilst travelling in the south of France, I bought a copy of ALBANIE - visage des Balkans. Published in 1995, it contains a series of reproductions of photographs of Albania taken by members of the Marubi family (See: ecritsdelumiere.fr). Its text is by the renowned Albanian author Ismail Kadare. As it is hard to obtain a copy of this book nowadays, I have decided to present a selection of illustrations from this beautiful book (copied by me with my camera).

1878: A composer of lyrical verse. Kel Marubi is on our left (Pjeter Marubi, photographer).

The Marubi family went to Albania from their native Piacenza (Italy) in the late 1850s (Click here for more about the family). They settled in Shkodra, a city in the north of what was then an Ottoman province. Albania was a relatively unknown place in those days, and pretty wild on occasion.

Young insurgents from the Shala region  ( Kel Marubi, between 1900 & 1915)

But despite its troubles - banditry, the oppressive nature of being colonised, and the endless vendettas between hostile families - life went on as usual, as can be seen in this picture of men making and selling felt hats ('qelesh'). 

Picture by Kel Marubi taken between 1900 & 1920

In 1925, 13 years after Albania became an independent nation, Ahmet Muhtar Bej Zogolli ('Zog')became ruler of Albania(first as President, then as King).

Zog 'working out' on the beach at Durres in 1925 (Kel Marubi)

Zog married the half American/half Hungarian Geraldine Apponyi , the "White Rose of Hungary", in April 1938. Mussolini's son-in-law Count Ciano was present at the ceremony.

Zog's marriage to Geraldine in 1938 (Kel Marubi)

It was during Zog's 'reign' that the beautiful country of Albania became inextricably entangled with Fascist Italy.

View of Shkodra's Lead Mosque from the Rozafat Citadel (Gege Marubi, 1938)

Zog was attracted to Mussolini's brand of, fascism and the assistance that was offered to him.

Celebrating 25 years of independence in Tirana (Kel Marubi, 1937)

Mussolini's son-in-law, Count Ciano, was a frequent visit to Albania, and built a hunting lodge on the coast near the small town of Lezhe.

Count Ciano on a visit to Tirana (Kel Marubi, 1937)

In April 1939, Italy invaded Albania. Later on in WW2, Germany dominated the country. Remarkably, Albania was the only German occupied country in mainland Europe where the number of Jews increased between 1939 and 1945. The occupation was resisted by various groups of partisans, each with their own political agendas. In the end, the Communist partisans under the leadership of Enver Hoxha prevailed, and remained in power until the early 1990s.

Enver Hoxha reading a speech in 1936 at Shkodra (Kel Marubi)

Under Comrade Enver Hoxha's leadership, Albania became cut off from the outside world. It was more isolated than North Korea is today. Its people were not allowed to travel or to learn anything about the world outside their isolated country. Even thier history was doctored, as can be seen in this retouched version of Marubi's 1936 photograph shown above.

Now, read more about Albania in Adam Yamey's 

travel memoir:

"ALBANIA ON MY MIND"

Available in paperback:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/adam-yamey/albania-on-my-mind/paperback/product-20513189.html

 and on Kindle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ALBANIA-ON-MY-MIND-ebook/dp/B00A7FK1XY/

&

 http://www.amazon.com/ALBANIA-ON-MY-MIND-ebook/dp/B00A7FK1XY/

A BUNNY & A BARISTA

The red line shows the route takebn by an Italian soldier crossing

Albania in 1941 during Mussolini's invasion of Greece

Having been successively occupied by The Ottomans (for several centuries), the Italians  and then the Germans, it is not at all surprising that the traditionally hospitable Albanians became somewhat suspicious of foreigners by the end of the Second World War. This xenophobia , which was exploited by Albania's dictator Enver Hoxha, led to Albania adopting an isolationist approach rivalled only by countries like Mongolia (until recently) and North Korea (still today). The following is a brief introduction to Adam Yamey's new book Albania on my Mind. It includes quotes from the book.

 When I became a dentist in 1982, the idea of ever treating a patient from Albania would have seemed almost as unlikely as meeting someone from Mongolia. Both were places that hardly anyone visited from the West, and from which visitors to the West were few and far between. Well, 30 years later, everything has changed. Almost daily I treat Mongolians and Albanians (both from Albania itself and also from Kosovo). Whilst I have never set foot in Mongolia, I have visited Albania.

I visited the country in 1984 when it was even more isolated from the rest of the world than North Korea is today. In those days, Albania was firmly under the control of Enver Hoxha, a dictator who counted Josef Stalin as his friend and inspirer.

Occasionally, when chatting to my patients from Albania (in English), I relate curious incidents that I recall from my short, but illuminating visit to Hoxha’s heavily guarded stronghold. Some of my audience are too young to remember life under the dictatorship, but those who are old enough say that what I relate is only too painfully true. One gentleman, aged about 45 and brought up in Albania, said after hearing one or two of my anecdotes:

“You must write these things down. No one believes me when I tell about how terrible it was living in Albania in those times, but they will believe you, an observer from the outside world.”

And, that is exactly what I’ve done in my book Albania on my Mind.

My book is divided into two main sections. The first deals with how I became obsessed with Albania, and the second contains a collection of memories of the trip I made there in 1984.

My interest in the country began when I used to spend,

 “…much of my spare time during my mid-teens haunting second-hand bookshops.

In the second half of the 1960s, Hampstead Village, which was in easy walking distance of my family home, had at least 5 such establishments. My favourite store… was run by a scholarly old man. He sat reading in his untidy shop, surrounded by books, which were scattered disorderly on every available surface including the floor. Every now and then, he used to burst out laughing and would then read aloud, often in Latin, to whoever was in his shop. …I found and bought a number of old world atlases in his shop. Most of them were published between the two World Wars. I used to spend hours leafing through them, admiring their beautifully drawn maps. … One day, whilst examining one of my atlases, I saw a country, which I had not noticed before. It was Albania.”

My curiosity about Albania was aroused. I needed to know more about this place, about which so little information was available in the 1960s. Even today, not many people know much about it.

As the years passed, I made numerous trips to places in the Balkans from where I could catch a glimpse of the country which was beginning to tantalise me. On one trip, I took a bus over the Cakor Pass which links Kosovo with Montenegro. It traverses the mountains shared by these places and Albania. When the bus stopped at the top of the pass,

“…a grubby little boy approached me. He said something to me in a language, which I did not recognise as being Serbo-Croat. It was probably Albanian. Somehow, he made it clear to me that he wanted foreign coins. I thought that he was either a beggar, or more likely, just a curious youngster pleased to have chanced upon a foreigner. I gave him a few British coins, and then he rummaged around in his pocket.  After a moment, he handed me a few Yugoslav Dinar coins, and left. He was no beggar, after all, but simply a young fellow with a well-developed sense of fairness.”

Although it was impossible to speak with Albanians in Albania - contact between them and foreigners was strictly discouraged by the authorities - I did manage to discover how friendly they are when I stayed in Kosovo, the part of Serbia which has an enormous Albanian population. When I disembarked at the bus station in the Kosovan town of Prizren sometime in the 1970s,

“…I was immediately surrounded by people, mostly young men. Everyone wanted to know my name, rather than my nationality or where I had come from. When I said it was ‘Adam’, they then asked me whether I was a Moslem. The answer did not seem to matter to them; they were just pleased to meet a stranger.”

Contrast this with what happened within 12 hours of my arrival in Albania in 1984:

“After lunch, the Australian, who was travelling with us, called me aside, looking shocked.  He told me that when he was in the hotel’s lift, an Albanian couple began to strike up a conversation with him, but stopped abruptly mid-sentence. It was, he felt, as if they were keen to speak to an outsider, but became scared of the consequences of being caught doing so. Maybe, they had been worried, not without reason, that the lift might have been fitted with a hidden microphone.”

In fact, whenever anyone wanted to try to talk to us in the country, they were warned against doing so by others standing nearby. Even our Albanian guides were wary of what they said to us. We, the foreign tourists, were regarded not only as guests (the guest is held sacred by traditional Albanians), but also as potentially dangerous intruders from the hostile world beyond Albania’s hermetically sealed borders. They were constantly keeping an eye on each other as well as us.

My trip to Albania was a truly remarkable experience. I am certain,

“…that the Albanians did not regard us as being simple tourists, but rather as potential messengers. We were being shown the country with a view, so our hosts hoped, to providing us with information that we could use to broadcast to the world how well Albania was progressing along the isolationist path it had chosen to take.”

I am not sure that the message we took home was quite what the Albanians had hoped. We were taken around a factory, of which our hosts were very proud. It purported to make precision instruments, but, 

“… the sliding (Vernier) calliper, which had been made in the factory… was a crude object, whose jaw slid jerkily rather than smoothly. The markings were badly scored and looked a little irregular.” ‘Precision’ it was not!

And, although the Albanian-built tractor on display at an exhibition of Albanian industrial products in Tirana,

“… differed in design from the Chinese tractors that we had seen on our travels, we had not seen even one of these home-made machines anywhere outside the exhibition.”

Nor, could I find outside the exhibition any samples of the

“…yellow plastic bunny rabbit holding a rifle in exactly the same pose as the soldier, who had watched our arrival at the Albanian frontier.”

I would have loved to have bought one of these to protect my garden.

It is easy to criticise, but one must not forget to praise. Even if I was unable to meet many Albanians on the tour I made in 1984, I cannot fault our hosts on the care that they took to make sure that we were comfortable and well-fed. Although their main interest appeared to be to ply us with propaganda and to show us what they wanted us to see, they showed us a great cross-section of their beautiful country.

I have not revisited Albania since 1984, but would like to do so. Never in my wildest dreams in my younger days did I imagine that I would now be able to slip out of my surgery, enter a neighbourhood café, and then order a cappuccino from an Albanian barista. And, the smile of gratitude, which I receive when I thank him by saying ‘faleminderit’ and shout ‘mir u pafshim’ when I leave, melts my heart. Even as I write this piece, I realise that although many years have passed, I still have Albania on my mind.

ALBANIA ON MY MIND is available in  Kindle on Amazon web-sites

&

in paperback by clicking HERE