It started at the bus station. We had arranged a ride from Kotor to Tirana, and as we got closer to the city, Brian showed the driver the address of our hotel. He shook his head and said "no." We weren't sure what that meant - there was no hotel? there was no Tirana? And with no common language, we couldn't really ask for an explanation. But the Friday afternoon gridlock helped us understand that the bus terminal was the end of the ride - we could take a taxi to the hotel. But we had no Albanian Lek to pay for a taxi.
I left Brian on the corner with our suitcases and went looking for an ATM. I asked at a kiosk on the corner. 'Bank?' I said, and rubbed my fingers together in the universal sign for money. The lady behind the counter pointed over her shoulder. So I went around the corner and walked another two blocks to a gas station. I tired the same approach, 'bank?' The old man in the gas station walked me outside and brought me to a mechanic. They said something to each other in Albanian and the mechanic said to me in English, "the toilet is over here." I told him that what I needed was a bank, but would use the toilet anyway.
He pointed me to an ATM and asked where I was from.
"USA," I said.
"America? And you come to Albania? On vacation?"
"Yes,"
"Do you like it?"
"Yes," I said, "but I only came ten minutes ago."
There were not a lot of American tourists, or tourists at all, in Tirana. We had entered the only European capital without a McDonald's, and had left the Rick Steves tour behind.
Albania's recent history is shaped by communist dictator Enver Hoxha (pronounced hu-ja). He took power immediately following World War II and ruled until his death in 1985. Hoxha left his mark on the Albanian landscape in the form of bunkers. Fearing attacks from Russia, China or anywhere else, Hoxha's regime built 173,000 bunkers during the 1970s. Most are tiny - built for one or two people - and they still pop up in farmland, city parks and backyards. Hoxha's regime built a bunker for every 11 Albanians. In Albania's poor economy, each small bunker cost as much to build as a two-bedroom apartment.
We visited two of the largest bunker in Albania, which have been turned into museums. After some pointing and gesturing, a kind bus driver directed us to the bunker built for Hoxha and his government. It is built into the side of a hill and is enormous; the tunnels go on and on, slightly downhill in a concrete rabbit's burrow built to protect Albania's top brass. The place was equipped with oxygen, decontamination units, communication systems... there's even a hall big enough for parliament to meet in case of attack, nuclear or otherwise.
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| Brian on Hoxha's office phone |
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| Me on top of a bunker in a city park |
The bunkers were never needed. Nobody attacked. And they will be part of Albania for generations to come. It's a strange legacy. I'm not sure whether the bunkers are memorials of paranoia, or to a government more that could have done more for its people, or a marker of the Cold War era...
Hoxha and his government ministers lived in a downtown Tirana zone called The Block. It was completely secured and no ordinary citizens were allowed in. Now The Block has been converted to high-end bars and restaurants, where the yuppies of Tirana sip espresso and smoke cigarettes while wearing designer jeans. We went to a tiki bar there. Hoxha might be turning over in his grave.
After the striking scenery of Dubrovnik and the laid back scene in Kotor, Tirana was a gritty, noisy dose of urban life. But Tirana had one thing that was truly remarkable: a mosque, an Orthodox cathedral and a Catholic church all within a few blocks of each other. None was any larger or grander than the others. The communists enforced atheism and outlawed the call to prayer, but now Albania, at least from what I could see, had become a place where these religions could coexist. While the bunkers marked an era of fear and dictatorship, this show of tolerance gave me some hope.
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