Tirana Day 2 (Albania for those geographically challenged)

Today, after a late night and a bit of wine, we headed out to visit Kruje. There is a huge amount of history credited to this municipality, even though it is only  20ks north of Tirana. First trick is to get through the traffic, and the next trick is to manoeuvre the winding hillside roads with traffic (including tour buses) coming in both directions.

So imagine this – a hillside fortress… back in the 1400s. The Ottoman Empire were making serious incursions into the Balkans.

A young Albanian man called Gjergi Kastindi Skanderbeg, 13 years of age, was serving in the Ottoman army – he knew that his father had been killed by the Ottomans and decided to leave the army and seek revenge. He went to Rome to seek the assistance of the Pope to rally against the Ottomans. And for 25 years he fought with this arm , losing only two battles. This bit of information is background to the hilltop fortress of Kruje where we spent the morning.  The fortress was able to withstand the incursion of the Ottomans because the fortress contained fresh water springs inside the walls – and the standard approach by the Ottomans was to cut off the fresh water supply when attacking a town.

Skanderbeg is a national (and international) hero, and the museum that we visited is to his glory. He is depicted as a giant of a man, fine boned and strong – in some pictures from the communist era he is depicted a la Napoleon or Stalin. There are statues to this hero in  Vienna and Brussels, London, Denmark and USA. He represents freedom and fighting for your beliefs.

The Albanian flag was fluttering over the fortress as we wandered around – red with the double headed. The Albanians are proud of their history of religious tolerance, and our guide pointed out Orthodox Churches, Mosques, Catholic Churches, Sufi influenced Muslim mosques (those with the whirling dervishes), and this tolerance seems to be a thing throughout the Balkans.

We had the choice of another museum or wandering around the old bazaar – I had in mind  buying a kilim – and before I knew what had happened, there it was all wrapped up and ready to go! Hopefully it will work with my current setting at home! Here is the lovely woman who made it (or so she said, and I believed her because she was so excited about selling it to me).

Thunder and been booming as we wandered through the museum fortress, and suddenly large drops started to fall. We piled back into the minivan, damp and cold, some of us clutching purchases (ok, just me) and trundled back down into Tirana – and if there is anything which needs a bit of tweaking in this city, it is the traffic. I mean, the city elders have the stray dogs under control, the town square built, but seriously, the traffic. Enough said. Unless you want me to mention the rubbish everywhere…

Ok, Bunk Art. I mentioned yesterday that Hoxhe had a slight attack of paranoia and built 700,000 bunkers, so convinced was he that foreign invasion was imminent – to be fair, a quick revise of history may have been enough to feed to fear (1912 Balkan Wars, Occupation by Italy, Occupation by Germany – and on top of that he had told Russia they were revisionists, not ‘true’ communists). China (Mao Tse Dung) kindly funded the bunkers.  Historical note – he then told Mao hat he wasn’t a true communist either – some guys just can’t help themselves. Hoxhe himself was from a well-to-do family and studied philosophy in Paris.

The bunker set up for Hoxhe and his family, and the Prime Minister (Hoxhe’s friend, who he may or may not later have murdered but power corrupts, right?) has been set up as a museum. First point of note – not for you if you are dust allergic or slightly claustrophobic. The bunker is set into a hill and a virtual maze of corridors and stairs leading down to deeper levels. It was dank and dusty smelling, a smell that took a while to get out of my nose when we left. The pictures tell the story.

Just to give the background (you have to understand the background to work out why a population allowed a leader to take absolute power, and as I have the keyboard, you have no choice..) Hoxhe lifted Albania up at the point that the second world war had just ended – and the people were splintered into fascists groups and partisans –but the bottom line is that they had been done over by everyone, Tirana itself had been partially destroyed. He used the energy of this to instil a National pride, and initially, he set about educating a mostly illiterate population, he set up health care, and built houses (ok, he requisitioned peoples land in the name of communism to build the houses on) and created industries. Roads and Railways were built. As time went on and money dwindled, everyone in their state house had no money, and the same portion of meagre food.  And the main point here is that the country was completely isolated from the world (apart from some access by enterprising people who adapted their tvs so that they could receive Italian tv – which is why so many of that generation speak Italian) so whatever was portrayed to them via movies and radio shows produced by the state portrayed Albania as incredibly lucky and the rest of the world of the devil. The atmosphere was ripe to start suggesting that the country needed to build the bunkers (gainful employment) to protect themselves. Schools had to have raid practices, and were provided with gas masks for chemical and nuclear attack.

Fortunately Hoxhe died at 76 after 36 years of his rule. The next guy up was more moderate and allowed the students to have protests, and the rest is history. Albania is coming back. Still a lot of issues to sort before the EU will smile fondly upon them – for a start, let’s say I owned the land that was requisitioned and now there are 5 houses on it, this needs to be sorted. One of the tickboxes for the EU is that titling to land must be clear and legal. Sigh. But you can feel the energy, and the positivity.