The weather website said it was going to rain. We are to meet at 9am and it’s raining. Not pouring but hard enough. After a short pow wow we, as a group, decide not to start out as planned with the walking part of the day. We spend most of the morning downtown driving in circles looking for a parking space. Not likely in a city that had no cars until 1991 (or there about). The roads are narrow but our guide, C, maneuvers our 10 passenger Ford van in and around the tiny Euro cars in expert fashion. We do part of the walking tour in the van, driving down the main boulevard of Tirana. C explains that there was nothing around the street when it was built and that the city was built around it. It is the backbone of the modern city. The government buildings line the street with all the main cultural and university buildings dispersed in amongst them.
Another group decision points us in the direction of the ‘Nuclear Bunker’, that the dictator commissioned, earlier than planned. There are miles of tunnels, all concrete reinforced, that thread through a mountain in a north Tirana suburb. The entrance is guarded by several massive steel and concrete doors. Beyond is a network of tunnels. living quarters, military operation areas, communication rooms, a decontamination shower, a small theatre for propaganda dispersion and many, many more small rooms that were not defined. We only covered a very small portion of it and it took about an hour.
After a short break for lunch, we were headed back downtown to do the walking tour of the town center. The rain had stopped so reversing the order of the plan worked out quite well. After taking in a bit of the long-ago history of Albania and how it came to be what it is today we were off to visit the House of Leaves. This was the center of operations of the secret service, the Sigurimi, that was operational during the time when Albania was ruled by the dictator Hoxha. The ‘police’ force under the command of the completely mad dictator was ruthless. torturing and killing thousands of people that were thought to be a threat to the all-mighty leader. Paranoia played a big part of it. But as Hoxha had declared religion to be illegal, making Albania the world’s first atheist state, the religious leaders also fell to the sword.
A view of the very shocking conditions under which the Albanians lived for fifty years was somewhat depressing. Their history up till the end of WWII was one of strength and heroism. Even though they had been occupied several times over the last 2000 plus years they always emerged as Albania (or what we know as Albania). Then some nut gets appointed leader and they live in a country from which no one can leave and no one can enter for 50 years. Once again, these proud people of this area are dragging themselves from obscurity and making a country worth living in.