The Wild East

"Albanian men seemed very effeminate compared to other Eastern European men"

Tirana is an odd city that was completely unknown to the outside world 15 years ago. WE were mainly using the Bradt guidebook, who gave quotes from their 1989 edition when there was no building above 4 storey’s high, cars were illegal and there was a national curfew after 10.30pm.

The main street was as new and smart as anything in Switzerland, yet only a couple of streets away there was dust, mud and African levels of poverty. The huge number of smart Mercedes cars speeding around was very noticeable – a lot still had their German/British/Italian plates on – all stolen to order. “Come to Albania – your car is already here!” is one quote.

Tirana was not as Stalinist as I was expecting – there are few grey concrete blocks of flats like you get all over the other eastern bloc countries. The city seems half in the 1930s, half in the 1990s with nothing in between. The Italians were here for a decade in the 1930s when Mussolini installed ‘King’ Zog a right-leaning dictator. It is a green and pleasant city partly designed by the Italians surrounded by mountains and very small and compact. Bucharest is probably Tirana’s closest match.

There were a very small number of foreigners around we heard two groups of German tourists and saw a Scandinavian man who glared at us suspiciously. We ate a late lunch in a café opposite the Hotel Tirana. Tirana has postcards and seemed more on the tourist trail than Azerbaijan. Although there were some Beer Tirana and Vodafone billboards around there was a noticeable dearth of visible advertising.
Later while trying to head to the 26storey panorama hotel we ended up in the thick of the Tirana rush hour. There were traffic lights (probably donated by Italy or Germany) at some junctions, yet they were completely ignored by all drivers. Then at 8pm traffic policemen and women took their positions in the centre of the junctions. Instead of being mown down, the traffic suddenly became obedient and orderly. I asked MT to explain this phenomenon, but his response was that the traffic cops were a sign of visible authority and therefore obeyed (like a teacher in front of a class of naughty children I wondered?).

The bars of Tirana were busy and lively though our first choice was a poor decision. I was convinced it was a gay bar – there were an overly-large proportion of pairs of camp-looking young men. However, I’d noticed over the past day and a half that Albanian men seemed very effeminate compared to other Eastern European men. In Tirana there didn’t seem to be any visible drunkenness, beer generally came in a dainty little bottle of 330ml (4% strength) and people held doors open and said thank-you. It certainly wasn’t Ukraine or Poland – no weightlifters, skinheads, aggressive drunks or neo-Nazis around!

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