Albanian strongman Enver Hoxha didn’t pussyfoot around billeting “illegal immigrants” on some off-shore barge or trying to fly them to Rwanda during his country’s Communist era.
He just had them shot on sight as suspected saboteurs.
On the other hand, if anybody tried to leave the country, he had them shot too – as suspected traitors.
For, after all, who but a traitor (or possibly a lunatic totally out of his mind) would want to escape such a socialist paradise?
Fortunately, since the Berlin Wall fell – a section of which is on display in Albania’s capital Tirana – and then the Warsaw Pact collapsed, things have changed in this little Balkan state.
Everybody was welcoming when I arrived at the compact airport named after the country’s other well-known figure, Mother Teresa. In fact, they didn’t even stamp my passport as I sauntered through immigration and customs.
Currency in Albania
And wherever I went during my all-too-brief stay, people were invariably friendly and helpful. What’s more, everything is incredibly cheap. You can buy a beer for a couple of euros and tuck into a decent meal for 10.
The euro and the Albanian lek, by the way, seem more or less interchangeable, with 10 leks roughly equivalent to one euro. In fact, in one restaurant they listed the price in leks, euros and dollars.
The signs of Hoxha’s brutal regime, though, can still be seen as you stroll round Tirana.
Enver Hoxha’s Legacy
Half buried in the ground by the road is a graffiti-covered bunker which once guarded the entrance to the plush residential area where the top Communist officials lived between 1945 and1991.
Nearby stands a concrete support from the notorious Spac copper mine, one of some 50 internment and labour camps where political prisoners, or “enemies of the country”, were incarcerated.
Hoxha – who believed both China and the Soviet Union following Stalin’s death were far too soft and liberal – died in 1985, aged 76 but his legacy lived on for another six years.
Then in 1991, as Communism collapsed around the world, protesters gleefully pulled down a giant 30ft high bronze statue of him which had towered over Tirana’s Skenderbeg Square.
BunkArt 2
Just yards from the spot is BunkArt 2, a former nuclear bunker, which gives a dramatic and at times frightening insight into how the country’s freedom vanished in 1939.
First, it was under the jackboot of fascism, after Mussolini sent in 50,000 troops with 173 warships and 600 planes, forcing the wonderfully-named King Zog to flee to London before being offered asylum in Greece.
And then again in 1944 when Hoxha’s Communist partisans, backed by Soviet troops, kicked out the Italians to “liberate” the country.
By now some 28,000 of Albania’s million-strong population had been killed. Its ports, mines and power installations lay in ruins and the economy was wrecked.
Former schoolteacher Hoxha, to his credit, rebuilt the country, raised the adult literacy rate from 5 per cent to more than 90 per cent, and improved the health system, wiping out rampant epidemics.
But he also ushered in a reign of terror, making 34 crimes punishable by death. These included trying to leave the country, sabotaging the economy, and spreading “fascist, anti-democratic, religious, war-encouraging agitation and propaganda”.
Exhibits in BunkArt 2 reveal how between then and 1990 more than 6,000 men and women were shot or hanged, often without ever been taken before a court.
Countless more political prisoners died in prison or labour camps, either through torture or driven to commit suicide.
And official figures showed that “have run away through the Albanian border, 9,220 persons, and 4,472 of their relatives, women, children, etc, of whom 998 have died”.
Meanwhile, any foreigner who entered Albania was placed under close surveillance as a suspected spy by the dreaded Sigurimi, the state’s secret police.
Neighbours and even family members were encouraged to grass on each other and report any “disloyalty”, with the museum listing some of the horrific forms of torture carried out.
As well as physical beatings, these included pushing dynamite into suspects’ “bodily cavities” or forcing human excrement into people’s mouths until they choked.
Opponents of the regime would be forced to watch their female relatives gang-raped – “dishonoured”, as the display panel describes it – until they confessed and betrayed their colleagues.
There’s an even bigger exhibition at Bunk Art 1, another former nuclear bunker few miles out of town (four leks on the number 11 bus from the centre). Unfortunately, by the time I got there, the place was just about to close for the day.
Balkans’ longest cable car
So I took the opportunity instead to take a ride into the sky aboard the Balkans’ longest cable car up Datjio Mountain.
For 140 lek you squeeze into what looks like one of those astronauts’ pods from the movie 2001 for a spectacular 20-minute journey over forests, lakes and farmhouses through the clouds.
At times, the car travelled so slowly I feared it would stop leaving me dangling precariously over the mountain.
But eventually it bumped to a halt at the top, 1,613 metres higher.
There’s an 18-hole mini golf course there if you’re feeling energetic. I went to the bar instead.
Mother Teresa and Norman Wisdom
While Hoxha is now generally reviled in Albania – one old boy I chatted to spat on the floor when I mentioned his name – the folk revere Mother Teresa.
Bizarrely, they also love 1950s British comic Norman Wisdom.
While most aspects of Western culture were strictly banned during the Communist eras, Hoxha encouraged the screening of his movies.
Apparently, he thought the ultimately-victorious struggle of Norman’s hapless proletarian Pitkin character over the posh and officious Mr Grimsdale was a Communist parable on the class war.
So, I leave you with three quotes. The first is from Hoxha, “The imperialists should be afraid of us and terribly afraid at that.”
Then Mother Teresa, who warned, “Evil roots when a man begins to think that he is better than others.”
And finally Norman Wisdom, who said: “Three things happen when you grow old.
“First, your memory goes…
“And, er, I can’t quite remember the other two.”
Flights to Tirana Albania
Wizzair, easyJet and Ryanair all fly from various British airports to Albania. The hourly shuttle bus from Tirana airport to the city centre costs just four euros.
Tirana Albania Hotels
Mal stayed at the very comfortable Padam Boutique Hotel, where a double room with balcony cost 80 euros a night, including a very tasty breakfast.
Weather Tirana Albania Weather
The weather in Tirana Albania is variable, to discover the latest weather forecast for Tirana Albania, click here.
Things to Do in Tirana Albania
To discover the many things to do in Tirana Albania, go to the official Visit Tirana website.
Main image of Congress Palace Tirana Albania.