Tirana, Albania Part 5

The Charms of One of Europe's Least Known Capital Cities

Albania

Tirana

After a leisurely start we met our guide, N, at 10 o’clock for a walking tour of Tirana. She was a lively young woman with an outstanding command of English, despite her never having visited an English-speaking country. She later told us she was 45, which is, maybe, not that young, but let’s give her the benefit of that first impression (and I am getting to an age where almost everybody looks young!) Tirana’s singular history, we would learn, makes 45 an interesting age for a local guide.

Despite evidence of Palaeolithic inhabitation, Tirana is not an ancient city; its earliest surviving mention is in a Venetian document of 1418 which described it as a ‘village’. Ottoman records show Tirana grew into a small town with a bazaar and by the mid-19th century was a sub-prefecture in the Vilayet of Shkoder. Albania became independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1912, but nation building was stalled by the First World War and it was not until 1920 that the Congress of Lushnë made Tirana the temporary capital. It has been the capital ever since and now has an urban population of half a million, small by the standards of capital cities, but enough to make it by far the largest city in Albania.

N led us past the park we crossed last night. For the second time we failed to notice it was dominated by the ‘Pyramid of Albania’ built, but never used, as a mausoleum for Enver Hoxha. It has endured a chequered career, as befits monuments to unloved dictators.

Enver Hoxha Pyramid in 2008.
As I failed to notice it myself, I have borrowed a picture from a friend. Thanks Colin W

Skanderbeg Square

A little to the north is Skanderbeg Square with its statue of the man himself. Albanians were an ethnic and linguistic group centuries before they first appeared in written records in the 10th century. Long a province in other people’s empires, there was no independent Albania until 1912 but this does not stop Albanians having a national hero. Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg, was born in central Albania in 1405. In the service of the Ottoman empire he was appointed Governor of Debar, now in North Macedonia (we visited in 2015) in 1440. Rebelling in 1443 he spent the next twenty-five years leading a largely itinerant army of 10,000 Albanians, Slavs and Greeks to a series of unlikely victories over the Ottomans. He never succeeded in setting up a viable Albanian state, but his actions seriously impeded Ottoman plans to expand into Europe.

Skanderbeg in his eponymous square, Tirana

Skanderbeg Square is the centre of the city. Once it was home to the bazaar and the 17th century Sulejman Pasha Mosque, but the mosque was destroyed during World War I and the bazaar was tidied away by the communist regime. The late 18th/early 19th century Et’hem Bey Mosque, though, is a survivor. Scheduled for demolition during Enver Hoxha’s atheism campaign in the 1960s, it somehow escaped the bulldozers, thus saving the frescoes depicting trees, waterfalls and bridges - rare in Islamic Art – and the clock tower which now features on the city flag. In 1991 the mosque reopened without the authority’s permission. When 10,000 attended and the police did nothing, it was a signal that the old regime was over.

Et'hem Bey Mosque, Skanderbeg Square, Tirana

The rather ugly National Theatre of Opera and Ballet occupies one side of the square. Built in 1953 it awaits reconstruction. At the end of the square is the National History Museum, another building of little charm…

Museum of National History, Skanderbeg Square, Tirana

….but redeemed for me by its magnificent Socialist Realism mosaic (yes, I know it's awful, but I like it.) It displays Albanian history starting with the Illyrians and Thracians on the left before moving seamlessly to the intellectuals of the 19th century Albanian Renaissance. Over on the right are the workers and peasants who saw off the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century - one woman giving a very distrustful backward glance at the intellectuals. All are led into the glorious socialist future by a worker, a soldier and an inappropriately dressed young woman with a right forearm that would not disgrace a blacksmith. She would be terrifying even if she was not carrying a rifle.

Mosaic, Museum of National History, Skanderbeg Square, Tirana

Around the Vegetable Market, Tirana

From the northeast corner of the square we headed towards the vegetable market. N pointed out the five and six storey accommodation blocks of the Communist regime. They were, she said, not bad places to live, particularly now they have been smartened up. We have certainly seen more dismal dwellings from the era of Soviet domination.

Communist era apartment blocks, Tirana

She greatly preferred them to the office blocks that now loom over so many of them. But if towers were not sprouting all over the city centre Tirana would not believe it was blossoming as a real 21st century European capital.

Tower blocks do not yet dominate central Tirana's skyline - but they will

Occasionally you spot buildings that have survived from an older, more elegant Tirana.

A relic of an older, more elegant Tirana

Edi Rama, who became Prime Minister of Albania in 2013, was mayor of the city from 2000 to 2011. A graduate of the Tirana Academy of Arts, he encouraged the painting of apartment exteriors with bold designs in vivid colours…

Brightly painted apartment blocks, Tirana

…and also the occasional quirky mural. It makes Tirana a brighter more cheerful place – and given its past it needs the tonic.

Quirky mural, Tirana

The vegetable market itself held little of interest, except the tobacco stall – many Albanians remain enthusiastic smokers despite the known dangers though only some of the half-kilo sacks carry a health warning. In front is a row of pipes, packets of cigarette papers and bags of filters. Between the pipes are roll-you-own machines, interspersed with the occasional hip flask, should anyone favour a different vice.

Tobacco stall, Tirana vegetable market.

Tirana Castle

Our walk took us round Skanderbeg Square and a little to the south to Tirana Castle. A 6-metre high Ottoman wall is all that remains above ground of what was once a Byzantine fortress at the intersection of the main east-west and north-south roads through the city. Three towers will be restored as tourist attractions and there are some recently uncovered wall foundations, but the interior is largely occupied by hotels, cafés and a new handicraft bazaar. We stopped for a coffee and chatted with N about her life now and her memories of the previous regime.

All there is to see of Tirana Castle

Statues of Lenin, Stalin and Enver Hoxha

Hidden away in a quiet corner are some remnants of that regime. Redundant statues of Stalin, Lenin, Enver Hoxha and a heroic worker-soldier are tucked away where few will see them.

Stalin, Lenin and Enver Hoxha with a heroic worker/soldier
Normally I would have chosen the photograph without us in the foreground, but here we obligingly demonstrate the enormous scale of the figures.

Lenin has lost a forearm, and Hohxa’s face is hidden in the photograph, but a stone bust of the tyrant sits at his own feet. Someone, sometime took a hammer to his nose; serves him right.

Enver Hoxha with a flattened nose, Tirana Castle

King Zog

The family of the former King Zog have apartments nearby. King Zog was born Ahmet Muhtar Zogolli (he changed his name to Zogu to sound more Albanian) in northern Albania in 1895. His father was a feudal landowner and his mother claimed descent from Skanderbeg. Educated in Istanbul, he assumed feudal authority of his home district on his father’s death in 1911. He signed the 1912 Albanian Declaration of Independence and became Prime Minister in 1922. The Constituent Assembly elected him President (as well as Prime Minister) in 1925 and three years later he declared himself Albania’s first (and only) King. His career sounds like the plot of a comic opera, and his name and the photograph below do nothing to dispel that notion, but….

King Zog at the start of his reign
(Borrowed from Wikipedia, the picture is believed to be in the public domain)

….despite his autocratic tendencies Zog was not all bad or foolish. He united the country for the first time since Skanderbeg, abolished serfdom and in 1938 opened the borders to Jews fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany.

He admired Mussolini, but their relationship was difficult and after the financial crash of the 1930s Albania found itself heavily indebted to Italy. The result was a slow but gradual Italian take over culminating in the invasion of April 1939 to which the Italian-financed, Italian-officered Albanian army offered no resistance. Zog and his family fled and he lived the rest of his life in exile, dying in France in 1961.

Zog’s son was recognised as King Leka only by a small band of Albanian exiles. In 2002 the Albanian government accepted the family were no longer a threat and allowed them to return. ‘King’ Leka died in Tirana in 2011, his son ‘King’ Leka II is now a government adviser.

For all his eccentricities, King Zog was a more engaging character than Enver Hoxha.

Bunk’Art2 The World of Enver Hoxha

Near the castle is the domed entrance to Bunk’Art2, a 1,000m² nuclear bunker built in the 1980s for the Ministry of the Interior and the police elite. The bunker is now a museum dedicated to the work of the Sigurimi, the security police who existed from 1944 to 1991. (Bunk’Art1 in northern Tirana, covers much the same ground).

Bunk'Art2, Tirana

Born in Gjirokaster in 1908, the son of a Muslim cloth merchant, Enver Hoxha was a teacher in 1939 when Mussolini invaded Albania. He lost his job for refusing to join the newly formed Albanian Fascist Party, became part of a communist cell and with Yugoslavian help, founded the Albanian Party of Labour in 1941. As first secretary of the party from 1941 to his death in 1985 he was Albania’s de facto leader.

Enver Hoxha in 1971
(The work of Forrásjelölés Hasonló, borrowed from Wikipedia)

In the late 50s, after Khrushchev criticised Stalin, Hoxha broke with the Soviet Union and allied Albania with Mao’s China. He split with China, after the 1972 visit of Richard Nixon. Albania became more isolated than North Korea today, fearing attack from the west, the Soviet Union or from enemies within.

Hoxha’s (and Albania’s) problem was not that he was a communist, but that he suffered from paranoia. This led to the construction of almost 200,000 bunkers across the country and the growth of the Sigurimi. They executed 6,000 ‘traitors’ – many without trial – and rounded up the 34,000 citizens who became political prisoners. 1,000 more died attempting to flee the country. All this is documented and illustrated in Bunk’Art2.

The Sigurimi - For the People, with the People (and not intended ironically!)
Believed to be in the Public Domain

N spoke about her childhood, and some of it sounded like 1984 people being encouraged to spy on their neighbours and primary school children denouncing their parents. Not all of her memories were unhappy, but some of the exhibits were gruesome in the extreme.

Hoxha died in 1985, but little changed under his successor Ramiz Alia. As a teenager N recalls her family having a television and tuning into Italian TV as there was nothing of interest on the local channel. This was illegal, but despite the dangers she said that she, and most of her schoolfriends became fluent in Italian. The nightmare ended in 1991, but the new reality brought its own problems.

Bunk’Art is not a happy place to visit, though N’s personal memories both enlightened us and lightened the mood, difficult times have their own grim humour. She lived through it without coming to serious harm, others were not so lucky.

Blloku and Further South

From the Bunker we headed south, crossed the River Lana, a small, canalised and highly polluted stream, and entered Blloku. Once a residential enclave for the politburo and their families, entrance to Blloku was restricted. The check points are now long gone and in the new relaxed Albania it has become the district of bars and restaurants.

Enver Hoxha’s house is still there, it is the smaller building on the left of the two below. For all his faults, the modest house suggests that whatever motivated him, it was not personal gain. Modern Albania shows a remarkable tolerance towards its deposed leaders’ families; not only do the Zogu family live here, but so does Hoxha’s 98-year-old widow and at least one, possibly all three of their children. In 2015, a Tirana court gave her grandson Ermal Hoxha (then aged 42) a 10-year jail sentence for cocaine trafficking.

Enver Hoxha lived in the smaller house on the left

N led us further south, almost as far as the Grand Park of Tirana but stopping at the Presidential Palace…

Presidential Palace, Tirana
Albania is a Parliamentary Democracy, the President is largely a figurehead elected for a five year term by a super-majority vote in parliament

….from where we could look across Mother Teresa Square to the Polytechnic University.

Tirana Polytechnic University

Turning back north, we passed the statue of Ismail Qemali, regarded as the Founding Father of modern Albania. A diplomat, politician, statesman and the principal author of the 1912 Declaration of Independence he was the country’s first Prime and Foreign Minister (1912-14).

Ismail Qemali (Ismail Qemal from Vlora)

I wonder what Ismail Qemali would have made of the bunker (one of Enver Hoxha's 200,000) standing beside him in the park.

Bunker in the park, Tirana

We had been walking for most of the last four hours on a hot morning and were beginning to flag. Having completely lost my bearings I was pleased and surprised to discover out hotel was almost in the next street.

The Grand Park of Tirana

We thanked N for a fascinating tour, wished her well and set about finding a late lunch. Picking a likely street and strolling along until you find a café spilling out onto the pavement works in most of Europe, at least in summer. Before our visit we thought Albania might be different (in this and many other ways) and indeed it might have been in the dark days of Enver Hoxha, but it isn’t now, so that was what we did.

A little later, following N’s recommendation, we walked south through Blloku to the Grand Park. On the southern edge of the city, the 255ha park with its large artificial lake was created in 1955/6. We had already seen the Presidential Palace on its northern edge but we missed King Zog’s Palace on the eastern side and Tirana’s newish ring road which controversially runs along the southern boundary. The park is threatened by other developments, but for the moment still feels like a large green space.

Tirana Grand Park - home to 120 different species of tree

We followed signs to the memorial for 45 British and Australian soldiers who died in Albania in World War II.

Commonwealth War Memorial, Tirana Grand Park

The headstones are those of all Commonwealth War Graves, but the memorial is different. The Albanian inscription translates as ‘in memory of the English* soldiers who fell in Albania during the Second World War’ The English says ‘ men in whose memories these headstones have been erected gave their lives in Albania and are buried near this spot. THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT.’ The wording suggests this is a memorial, not a war grave and maybe that accounts for the missing Cross of Sacrifice and a Stone of Remembrance bearing Kipling’s words ‘Their Name Liveth for Evermore’. I have quibbles with Kipling’s phrase, though it is undoubtedly memorable and rolls easily off the tongue, but why ‘Their Glory shall not be blotted out’? It is both inelegant and unnecessarily defensive

Memorial stone, Commonwealth War Memorial, Tirana Grand Park

Nearby is a German Memorial; no headstone here, just the names of the dead inscribed on granite slabs. There are many more names, the Commonwealth dead are largely special forces parachuted in to support the Albanian partisans, while German units were stationed here. The Park authorities need to send their mower over, Commonwealth War Graves and the German equivalent are usually immaculately kept, but the grass on both of these needed attention.

German War Memorial, Tirana Grand Park

Dinner in Blloku

During our walk we earmarked a restaurant for the evening. The King House was not a great choice, there were few other diners and the staff did not seem that interested. However, our tomato salad, my skewerless veal kebab and Lynne’s strangely sausage shaped meatballs were satisfactory enough.

Dinner at the King House, Blloku, Tirana

*The English tendency to use ‘British’ and ‘English’ as though they were interchangeable is unforgiveable. It is more understandable when foreigners do it, though still irksome to those of us who are undoubtedly British but not English – and in this case even more irksome to Australians.

Albania
Part 1: Ksamil on the Albanian Riviera

Part 2: Butrint and the Blue Eye
Part 3: Gjirokastër
Part 4: Berat
Part 5: Tirana
Part 6: Tirana to Saranda
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Corfu: A Fleeting Visit