By James Cameron – Published in “The Atlantic” magazine, 1963
Tourist in 1960s Tirana
It was hardly expected that the streets of Tirana would now echo with the cries of boys in expensive clothes and cadres speaking Mandarin, in blue cotton suits. However, I had just heard that two new planes with Chinese specialists had recently flown into the country to spray pesticides from the air over the cultivated fields and olive plantations. Could the Chinese advise the Albanians on harvesting olives, where that tree had been growing in that Mediterranean climate for over two thousand years?!
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| Photo in the center of Tirana showing a red banner written in white letters: Long live the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, source: Memorie.al |
The fact was that several hundred Chinese in Albania were behaving there just as the Russians had behaved in China eight years earlier: keeping their heads down from the curious eyes. Only once, on my second day in Tirana, did I accidentally stumble into the wrong section of a restaurant, and there they were, about two dozen Chinese, eating in a designated area for them. They looked up in a very surprised manner, and I retreated in embarrassment.
For two days, then, before making my irreparable blunder, I had the freedom to walk around Tirana, where I noticed that it was a city that disappointed with its appearance. This was more due to the old than the new. The new was truly banal: a model of wide, even grandiose streets, lined with old Italian-style buildings, with a rather wide boulevard to accommodate several traffic lines, which for 80 percent of the day, was completely empty.
The desolation of the streets was frightening. At every intersection stood a vigilant traffic policeman in a white uniform, ready to direct a flow of vehicles that never came. Once every five minutes, perhaps, an old green truck, rarely passing on its sides, would appear clattering and grumbling down the street; the traffic policeman would draw attention as it appeared on the horizon and wave the sign he held with great enthusiasm, having no sign of opposition. At even rarer intervals, a dark-colored “Zim” car with large curtains, moving on some official, mysterious duty, would appear. Throughout Albania today, as I was officially told, there was no private automobile.
Down the “New Albania” Boulevard, below the “Skanderbeg” Square, where the large statue of Stalin shone from the lighting of the lamps and banners that read; “long life” to the main leader Enver Hoxha, who led the workers' state, it seemed that Tirana had fallen into a crossroads, where an ever-growing poverty prevailed. There, where the tinsmiths were pounding their pots and pans, wandered those poor Albanians, who were never thought to detach from that folkloric and also religious life.
Half of the people dressed in the pale style of a normal urban proletariat, but the other half, without any kind of awareness, surged in the white dress like the Macedonians, the embroidered xhubleta and the giant wide trousers of the Muslim highlander. Albania must be one of the few remaining countries, where what is known as folk costume is actually worn only by the peasants.
These seemingly handsome and wild men had a particular and endearing habit: that of holding flowers in their mouths, as others wear boutonnieres. Often someone would encounter types with fierce portraits, with dark mustaches, from whose disdainful lips a rose or a spray of daisy would emerge. Even vigilant and weary soldiers lightened their attention with this strange habit. Once, outside Tirana, I saw a blurry guard at a barbed wire fence, who had put a bunch of field flowers in the barrel of his “Carabina.”
The first and very serious problem I encountered was that of communication. Albanians speak a language that seemed very difficult and insurmountable to me; a kind of tortured Turkish with severe Slavic complications, in no way to be grasped overnight. It has an alphabet of thirty-six letters, with seven vowels and twenty-nine consonants.
The words for “yes” and “no” are “po” and “jo,” but this should not make anyone underestimate its complexity. Very soon I discovered, for example, that Albania, in its language, does not call itself Albania at all, but “Shqipëri,” which somehow seemed unreasonable to me.
Even though Albanian might be surprising, few people seemed to speak much more. Since our tourist group was from Germany (and was mostly German), the provided translator spoke German, which was not useful to me, as my German is not good at all. I did not meet anyone who spoke a word of English. When my despairs occurred, including a rather harsh and complicated discussion, it was translated from Albanian to Russian, from Russian to German, and from German to French.
This small local difficulty was better to be told now, as it completely changed the character of an already somewhat shapeless expedition. I could see that the Albanian authorities (which indeed meant everyone we came into contact with) were shocked by the transparently professional nature of our tourist group, although their reactions seemed unexpected but polite. So, a day after our arrival, I sent a very short telegram to the newspaper in London, to which I was contributing.
I sent it in the usual way, through the hotel desk, and while its main purpose was simply to give my address, I thought it could do no particular harm if it was phrased in terms that the People's Republic of Albania could not object to. After all, there was news value in the arrival of Western foreigners in Albania, and this was my starting point. “This small, proud, isolated republic, which has bravely defied East and West,” I wrote, “has opened its doors,” etc., etc. If I had any doubt about the wording, it was that it was so accommodating that it might gain the contempt of any Albanian censor, for the way of life.
What I had not anticipated was their extraordinary reaction. Sometimes a small group of taciturn officials would summon me, but clearly in a markedly hostile state of mind. After a multilingual communication, they made me understand that my telegram had been considered unpleasant, unfriendly, contemptuous, with subtexts of a fascist spirit, which was an intolerable violation of my status as a visitor.
It seemed so surprising to me that I concluded it was an inexplicable misunderstanding. What exactly did they object to?! The terms describing the People's Republic of Albania, of course, were quite offensive. But I protested with some disbelief, the words I used in general were not considered hostile; “proud,” “small,” “isolated…”! This is what had scandalized them, the word I had used; “isolated!”
Who else but a “Western lackey” would use such a bitter, inaccurate word?! Already feeling deep in Alice in Wonderland country, I protested that; the word “isolated” was not a term of reproach. Why, I said, not many years ago, in the early days of the war, we in Britain boasted that we were isolated. “Right,” they said, and so it was; so you perhaps still are, but Albania is not! The term used is cruel.
By this time, the conversation was heading towards absurdity. “Alright,” I said, “you are right, so I accept that I had wrongly conveyed the message I wanted to convey.” “Not at all,” they replied, those who surveilled and controlled me; all that had happened was that the Post-Telegraph employees who read the telegram, with their vigilance, were so outraged by its text that they refused to transmit it. Moreover, I had better not be caught trying to send more telegrams, good or bad. And furthermore, indeed, they had stamped an exit visa in my passport and did not care at all how quickly I used it.
At this point, however, what emerged was, from their perspective, a very awkward and embarrassing hurdle. It's all very well to make the grand gesture, open the front door and say Begone, but the climax loses something of its dramaturgy when it turns out there is nowhere to go. Tirana is far from being the crossroads of Eastern European traffic.
Its airport sends about two planes every fifteen days. Border roads were cut, and the railway did not function. Since it did not throw me off the pier, there was no practical way to get rid of me for at least ten days. The relevant officials seemed to appreciate this belatedly and left, after some cold and polite handshakes all around, to examine the situation I was in.
Thus I was left alone for another day, while the competent authorities of the People's Republic of Albania reflected on the next step they should take. It seemed to me that my situation was not at all troublesome. For a start, I asked if our tourist group could take a look around the University of Tirana, and this was agreed upon with surprising readiness. The University was, in fact, the most imposing building in the city and was described with some pride as a monument to the People's Democracy established in this country since the end of the War.
It was in fact, like most real estate in Tirana, a monument in the back, built about twenty years ago by Mussolini as the “Casa Fascista” of the occupying forces. However, it was a nice matter, and the students were a strong and likable crowd. They left and mingled with our group, with a kind of vigilant curiosity; for me, it was like being in Moscow fifteen years ago.
Indeed, there was a large part of Albania that was like post-war Russia, before the spirit of Geneva opened so many tongues and turned controlled candor and kindness into a civic virtue. It was like China had been seven years ago when I had found in schools and universities, communities of young people consumed by the impulse to communicate but entirely inexperienced in the technique of doing so.