<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I met a 54 year old Albanian man who was keen to tell me his story.\u00a0 He is now a builder in England where he works with 3 of his brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was born\nin a family of 11 boys and they lived with his uncle\u2019s family, so there were 16\nboys and no girls in the house. The came from a small village near the Macedonian\nborder. He described the world under the\nCommunist rule as one where you could not trust anyone- not even your own\nbrother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said\nthat he was beaten twice, once when he\nwas aged 9 in Grade 3 at school where he was hit repeatedly across the face so\nthat he bled from his mouth and nose\nbecause he had said, \u2018Tomorrow is Easter\u2019. \nHis father had been dragged to school and shamed in front of 700\nchildren because it was assumed that he had told his son a Christian message at\nleast enough for him to know that the next day was Easter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said\nthat each day he had to work at a task given by the local official. Tasks differed from day to day and were\nallocated randomly. Sometimes he was\ngiven an axe to chop wood or work in the forest, at others to water the\npaddock, which was 8000 square metres. \nThere was water flowing by sometimes and the channels had to be dug and\ndirected so as to water the whole area where there was corn in rows. At times there was no water and in this case\nthey did not get paid as the corn was not watered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the\nvillage there was only corn bread for half the year. One man had complained at\nthe baker that the bread was \u2018Not fit for a pig\u2019. The following day he received a letter to go\nto the Police Station, so he went down and was beaten and put \ninto gaol for 3 months. He said\nthat people who upset the authorities a were often gaoled for 3 months or even\nyears when it was not clear how they had offended. He said that in his village he estimated that\n80% of the men had been gaoled at some time. The women were rarely gaoled. If someone was gaoled, their relatives were\noften interrogated and beaten to find out further information about the person\nsuspected of being against the state. It\nwas better to say nothing. He said that\nif you wanted to use the phone, a State officer would sit beside you in the\nbooth so as to listen, and he would simply reach forward and terminate the call\nif he did not like it. Naturally if there was anything considered dangerous to\nthe State further action was taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said\nthat was often the case that people were arrested for weeks or months at a time\nwith no one knowing why they had been arrested. \nAt times people who had a pretty wife or sister were arrested and the\nPolice knocked on the door and offered the release of their relative in\nexchange for sex with the officer. It was \u2018your choice\u2019, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He himself\nhad tried to escape when he was 19, with 3 of his brothers. The border was protected by an electric fence\nwith wires 4 inches apart that rang an alarm if one wire touched another. They\nwere not sufficiently electrified to be lethal in themselves, but a signal was\nreceived and guard dogs and soldiers would come, the latter with instructions\nto shoot. He and his brothers walked to\na place where the distance to the guard towers was as far as possible and bound\nup a number of wires with wool blankets and got through. They went to Macedonia where people had been\ngiven asylum, but towards the end of the regime there were simply too many, so\nhe and his brothers were handed back to the authorities and he was severely\nbeaten and gaoled. This was only a week before the regime collapsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked him\nhow the people had all been brave enough to challenge the regime, as there was archival\nfootage in the Museum of people demonstrating against tanks and being fired at\nby water cannon. He said that he was\nunsure of this as he had been in his village and not near the action, but the\nPrime Minister had said that the people could demonstrate without being shot as\nit was their \u2018right\u2019. This had been\nsomething of a surprise to the population and the Prime Minister had enforced\nthis on other elements of the government. \nHe though that this was because the Ceausesau regime in Romania has shot\nat the protesters and 30,000 had been shot. The revolution had nevertheless\nsucceeded and Ceausesau had himself been shot. \nThe Soviet Union had collapsed and he felt that the Albanian regime knew\nthat its time and had come and wanted to survive themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After his\nattempted escape on 17\/1\/1991 he had no money to leave Albanian, but had\nfinally done so in 1997 and gone to Italy, and then been accepted by the UK\nquite quickly where he had got a job digging for the water authority until he was\nable to set up his own building business with 3 of his brothers. He had come back to Albanian as his father\u2019s\nsister had died and he wanted to pay respects, but he still had a deep distrust\nof the State and was quite suspicious of its corruption, particularly the drug\nmafia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had noticed young men in expensive cars parked in unusual places. They were tough-looking and usually talking on mobile phones with no apparent occupation. He said that these were indeed young mafia, who thought that they could move up the hierarchy. \u00a0However, they would usually end up shot or in prison as the big bosses gave them a different drug or operation so that they would be caught by the authorities and gaoled, and thus not be a problem for the big bosses, who would replace them with younger ones.\u00a0 He said that they never thought it would happen to them, which was why he thought that they were \u2018pretty stupid\u2019. \u00a0But he agreed that they should not be crossed.\u00a0 When I had stayed in Gjirokastra, the landlord of the hotel had advised me to close the window and turn the air-conditioning on as the tables in the street from the bar below had mafia talking and drinking until late and would disturb us.\u00a0 The young men had arrived in expensive cars after 10 just as he had predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Drug Mafia and tourism seem to be the two main forces rebuilding Albania, which is a fascinating country to visit, with a long-term history fighting for independence from both the Romans and the Ottomans, and more recent history since WW1 with the rise and fall of the Communists. Its history is very well preserved by its long Communist stagnation and it also has good hiking and beaches similar to Greece, Italy and Croatia, but cheaper.<\/p>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I met a 54 year old Albanian man who was keen to tell me his story.\u00a0 He is now a builder in England where he works with 3 of his brothers. He was born in a family of 11 boys and they lived with his uncle\u2019s family, so there were 16 boys and no girls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196,242],"tags":[6,31,167],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-travel-writings","tag-albania","tag-communism","tag-travel-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfieldevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}