Albania 2 – Travels with V

War leaves behind blood-soaked battlefields, millions of wasted lives and wounds to both body and mind that won’t heal. But with peace new doors are opened, new possibilities, economically but also politically. A deserted arena is soon filled with new players.

When the countries on the Balkans were invaded by Italian fascists and German nazi troops resistance sprung up in the form of small partisan groups of both men and women. By and by these groups grew in their strongholds in the mountains. And they got support and weapons from the outside, from the allied countries but also och particularly from the Soviet Union.

Many partisans, probably the majority were socialists. Not surprising, since the enemies were fascist invaders. The contacts between the partisan armies and with the Soviets grew stronger and were continued when the war ended. The allied countries realized this and tried to stop the leftist partisans from taking control. They were successful in Greece but failed in Yugoslavia and Albania, two neighbours that were politically similar, both declaring themselves socialistic one-party states.

Albania appointed the partisan leader and former teacher Enver Hoxha to be its highest ranking representative, a role he had for 40 years until his death in 1985. Hoxha was a ruthless communist and had Josef Stalin as his role model. Courts were quickly installed to take care of dissidents and suspects. Torture was used excessively and a new secret police, Segurimi organized an extensive network of spies and informers.

But Hoxha’s stubbornness brought him in conflict with almost every other socialist country’s leader. First he broke off with Yugoslavia’s Tito and after Stalin’s death he turned his back on the Soviet Union and it’s new leader Chrustjev. Then China became his closest ally, supplying Albania with food and other resources, even whole factories. But when China was visited by the US president Richard Nixon in 1972 Hoxha was furious. And Albania had no more friends.

Hoxha now became more and more paranoid and was convinced that Albania would soon be attacked and invaded. By the west or by the east. He gave orders to build several hundred thousand bunkers all around the country, every Albanian should have a safe shelter when the invasion began. For the party elite and military leadership big bunkers were built into mountain sides. Some of these are preserved and turned into museums where the dictatorship’s history is on display. Here’s a walk through one of them:

Albanians were now forbidden to leave their country, the spying and informing rose to new heights and more people were executed. And inevitably the economy stagnated for lack of necessary skills and materials. The Communist Party continued to rule a couple of years after Hoxha’s death, but but in 1992 they gave up and a parliamentary democratic system took over.

So was Hoxha just an evil despot? Not quite, during his time progress was made in some areas like education, healthcare and industrialization. And agriculture was developed to a degree that made the country self-sufficient to a large extent. Also, and maybe a bit surprising, he supported women’s rights and gender equality in the traditionally very patriarchal Albanian society.

UTRUSTNING I BUNKERN — PERSONAL EQUIPMENT IN THE BUNKER

EN AV 175 000 BUNKRAR — ONE OF 175 000 SMALL BUNKERS

BUNKER SOM ASKKOPP — BUNKER AS A SOUVERNIR ASH TRAY

MER SOUVERNIRER: BYSTER AV HOXHA — MORE SOUVERNIRS - BUSTS OF HOXHA

But Hoxha also banned all religious practice and closed down churches and mosques. Western culture such as pop music was forbidden and men were not allowed to have long hair or grow beards.

In the mid-1990’s things once again heated up in Albania when almost two thirds of the population lost all their savings in a pyramid scheme dressed up as “Investment funds”. As protesters demonstrated in many places a situation very close to civil war developed, and 2000 persons were killed. But after that the situation has been relatively calm.

Next up we explore the Albanian capital Tirana. We fly in the air and go underground.

Top 5 dictator memories:

BunkArt. A museum over the dictatorship period situated in a huge underground bunker in the outskirts of Tirana. A place for the top brass, including Hoxha himself, his room with private toilet and lots of articles from the time are on display.
House of Leaves. Formerly a women’s hospital that was turned into an interrogation and torture center. On display here are terrible but exact facts about the number of people who worked with the secret police, were informers, spied upon or were executed. Cameras, hidden microphones and recording equipment are also on display.
The Witness and Memory museum in Shkoder is also housed in the interrogation and torture center in that town. There’s more focus on the shocking list of torture methods used here.
Cold War Tunnel in Berat is another huge bunker for the leadership in case of a foreign invasion. 80 rooms dug deep inside the cliff under the castle. We didn’t have time to see this one so we can’t say what it’s like.
Small bunkers. Hoxha wanted 600.000 built, 180.000 were actually constructed. Most of them are forgotten or destroyed today, but driving around the country you will definitely see the iconic round roofs here and there.

The mad dictator

Albania part two

Travels with V

Albania

The mad dictator

Albania part two

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