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The
dance floor was full but with still enough room
for everybody to do their thing. The tall blond
girl in a black mini dress stood out as one of the
few who could dance, whilst the scruffily dressed
ballet dancer not only showed off his training with
occasional pirouettes, but sometimes 'got down'
to a little break dancing. The music of Michael
Jackson, the flashing lights and clean modern interior
contrasted with the vast majority of the taterly
dressed dance floor occupants who could not dance.
They were beginners to the world of uninhibited
movement driven by thumping house music. But why
should they know any different? Two years ago they
risked beeing thrown in jail for even listening
to modern music.
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| In Tirana, Albania, this scene only
started in February when the Disco Lux piano bar opened.
Why piano bar I do not know there was no piano. Disco
Lux was definitively lux in the shanty town that Tirana
has become, and the prices (for foreigners) were even
more Lux, my bill for a few whiskies was more than
25% of the per capita GNP of $400. |
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As the aircraft bounced
to a halt on the potholed runway I braced myself for
whatever was to come. Immigration was the first hurdle,
and was funny, provided you were a bloated capitalist,
to whom $40 did not matter. No visa they said for
EEC citizens and Americans at the embassy in Budapest.
Not so said the men at the border. After they had
collected all our passports, we were given the verdict
British $40, Northern Irish $15, Dutch $20 and the
Americans nothing. For a time it seemed that the Brits
with an old fashioned blue passport were the only
Brits, the new EEC passport was a Northern Irish passport.
All of us who cherished our blue passports were feeling
slightly miffed until some twit complained, and the
Northern Irish became British. The most unlucky man
was the person who started off at $15, went to $40
and then when he came to pay in Austrian schilling
the price went to Sch.500 ($50). This aside our entry
was very relaxed with both the tour operator and the
local Malev director turning out to meet us and make
certain that this first group of tourists was welcomed
correctly.
The ageing bus was driven by a pedantically careful
driver as we threaded our way down one of Albania's
main highways. The road would best be described a
minor country road in most countries in the world.
Down the roadside individuals grazed their animals,
in many cases a single cow, whilst the main traffic
on the road was pedestrians plodding determinedly
onwards. There was no sign of other buses and several
times people waved at us hopeful that we may stop.
The engrossing memory of the road will always be the
pill boxes. Rows of them, groups of them, hillsides
of them. On the sixty odd kilometre drive to from
the airport to Durres and then back to Tirrana there
was never a point when I could not see a pill box.
These fortifications were everywhere and whilst the
exact number is not not known but it is thought to
be about 700,000. The cost each was reckoned to be
twice the price of building a house in a country of
3 million people were most of the housing is worse
than decrepit.
Our first stop was the Adriatic hotel south of Durres
city. This must have been an attractive hotel at one
time. The approach was through a mature garden of
palms to the modern art fifties type hotel which was
literally on the beach. The hotel had seen better
days, the electricity worked intermittently and the
water was never hot. Around the hotel were several
attractive modern flats and villas, all now badly
run down. This used to be a holiday area, but when
all the jails were emptied two years ago, those released
came to these empty summer houses, and have stayed
ever since. The long sandy curving Durres beach used
to be the summer Mecca for those living in Tirana,
alas it is no longer, if only for the reason that
leaving an unattended car is taramount to giving it
away.
The first sight of Tirana was the cemetery. The most
heavily fortified cemetery in the World I concluded
as the hill behind and below the cemetary bristled
with pillboxes and forts. Round the bend we hit Tirana.
No real urbanisation just a closed down factory and
a police road block. Then into the city with low rise
badly maintained housing on one side, with a wide
verge being grazed by animals, and a long potholed
straight road into Tirana's central square. We passed
through the industrial zone, or maybe better described
as ex-industrial zone. Dead factories, falling down
with broken windows and falling pipes and wires.
As a capital city Tirana is a tiny town with a backdrop
of mountains and hills which virtually surround the
place. The moutains to the east seemed permanently
topped with cloud. From my fourth floor hotel bedroom
I could see the green outside the city in all directions.
Tirana has a supposed population of 300,000 and without
a proper cathedral sized place of worship it is hard
to accept it as a city.
The large central square has a nice end with attractive
ochre buildings, the central mosque, cypress trees
and a large very black bronze statue of Scanderberg
on horseback. The other three quarters is the grotty
bit with shabby concrete buildings. I was allocated
a room in this bit at the Tirana hotel, with a barn
of a foyer, few services and rooms that in the circumstances
were quite acceptable and included hot water and electricity.
The lifts threatened to give out at any moment, but
the strangest thing was the smell of diesel that permeated
the building. Quite normal in a boat but in a hotel!
In the last few months a number of private restaurants
have sprung up. There are two French restaurants,
an Italian restaurant and The Berlin. I ate in the
latest French estaurant, Chez Laurent, plus the Italian
( La Perla) and The Berlin. They were all quite good,
but my vote for the best will go to La Perla. The
Berlin had the best location in an area of villas
towards the University. The other two were tucked
away in concrete backwaters adjacent to the main square.
Not only was the food good but this is not a land
locked country and the sea is only 20kms. away. This
meant fish, and gloriously fresh fish at that..
The Dajti Hotel, the number one hotel in the Tirana,
is an older concrete building in the attractive park
area running from the central square up to the university.
The restauarant serves remarkably good food for this
type of hotel. The 'trigora' pud. was a short pastry
triangle filled with honey, it was so good I requested
another. A string quartet bashes away, not the greatest
musicians but in the high cieling, brightly lit, almost
art deco dinning room, they add a little something.
The service was remarkably good.
There were two things drummed into me before I went;
there is no food and it is very unsafe, both these
proved to be totally unfounded. In the city centre
there is a heavy police presence, police guards on
hotels and government buildings ensured that the 'old
bill' was normally within hailing distance. There
were plenty of police checks on motorists, this I
was told to check for driving licences because until
two years ago private cars were not allowed in Albania
and now people tended to drive without a licence.
For me the biggest problem driving seemed to the pedestrians
who were quite clearly unused to having anything other
than horse drawn vehicles on the road. Apropos the
police checking, it seems that often driving licences
are issued by the police upon payment of a fee!
Having expected the worst I can only say I was pleasently
surprised. Tirana is not exactly a party town, and
Albania clearly has some major problems. Food and
medical aid have been poured in. There is food a plenty
but still abject povety. Inevitably investor are hitting
all kinds of bureaucratic problems; property is overvalued
and one suspects that there is inevitable corruption.
So what's new in this region.
C YA |
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