Albanian lessons

Blogger rabies-rabbit writes: I want to leave Albania forever immediately after crossing the border. In principle, such a desire arises when visiting many countries. The uniqueness of Albania is that this desire does not disappear with time.

(Total 19 photos)

Source: Journal/rabies-rabbt

1. Forget everything you knew about Europe if you are going to Albania - this country belongs to Europe only geographically: blood feuds, tyrannical urbanism and other horrors of Albanian capitalism - all this in the new issue of "Buzz in the Goo".

2. After the collapse of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and the liquidation of the Albanian Socialist Republic, the new authorities chose a liberal course. The Soviet system of permits, certifications and regulatory bodies was essentially dismantled, and the population was granted long-awaited economic freedom. The results of this can now be seen in Albania with the naked eye.

We talk to Ghenty, who he believes is the only creative class in Albania: “Here everyone lives in families and clans. You may not be able to do anything (which characterizes most of the population), but you must be part of the family and clan. That's why everyone lives in big piles, and when I told my parents 10 years ago that I would rent a separate apartment for myself, everyone was shocked. They thought there was something wrong with me!” Now Genty, after years of working as a translator for international organizations in Tirana, is trying to promote web design. The undertaking does not meet with great understanding among potential customers, because most are limited to creating a Facebook page.

3. The actual elimination of the permit system in construction has led to the fact that apartment owners began to build up and expand their loggias, and the happy inhabitants of the first floors even add illegal extensions, capturing the sidewalk

The level of real unemployment in Albania, according to some experts, reaches 40%, and in practice it is possible to get a job only through family ties and clan. Some clans are better than others - the right surname still determines a lot in Albania: from how your salary will differ from the average of 250 euros per month, to how the traffic police will talk to you.

4. Illegal markets take over town squares

The pervasive corruption of the past 20 years has resurrected a phenomenon that was almost eradicated under the communist regime: blood feuds. The deliberate murder of one of the members of the family/clan leads to the fact that the clan is obliged to kill the killer or a member of his family - otherwise the family loses its status in society. As a rule, it does not end there, because. the killer's family begins to take revenge too. Things can get to the point that all the men in both clans die. “It would be logical to stop by killing the killer. It seems to be one minus one - everything converges, revenge is done, you can go home. But for some reason it rarely happens. They probably have something with math,” Genty jokes sadly.

5. Stray dogs have become one of the hallmarks of Albania

In Albania, there are all the signs of a poor Asian country: stray dogs, broken slum houses, public space seized by private businesses, intricacies of wires on the streets, garbage dumps and spontaneous markets. At the same time, all the correct laws exist, but they are not enforced: everything is still smoky in cafes and restaurants (“But they stopped smoking on city buses,” Genty notes), cars are parked in several rows on the sidewalks, and illegal advertising appears in any free space .

6. Illicit trade

7. Traffic is a chaos of cars, pedestrians and cyclists traveling in all directions.

Another resident of Tirana, Sokol, says: “I tried to talk to the owner of the restaurant, who put tables all over the sidewalk, and people are forced to go out onto the road and risk their lives. I asked him to explain why he did it. Doesn't he understand that this bothers everyone? He told me that he didn't know and that some customers like to sit on the sidewalk. But this is our sidewalk - mine and two million other Albanians!” Sokol did not stop at the conversation, but made a statement to the police. “They looked at me like I was crazy, turned away and just left! Nobody wants anything here!” Six months later, the tables are still in the old place.

8. Here the sidewalks are full of fish

9. A typical street near the center of Tirana - there is no asphalt, lighting, sidewalks, and driving along it by car is fraught with serious damage

10 years ago, an Albanian immigrant artist from London became the mayor of Tirana. Having inherited a city with huge problems in almost everything, he did not find anything better than painting the Soviet five-story buildings in the center in different colors. "He's a draftsman, so he did what he can," Genty jokes. Our home-grown urbanists recently admired how great he changed the face of a boring Soviet city. “It's just tasteless to paint it all in cheerful colors! In return, he virtually eliminated the building permit system, leaving Tirana like an Asian shanti town filled with illegal buildings. It is worth going inside to the yards - there is simply no place there, everything is built up. There is not even a numbering of houses. If I need to get to some address, I need to call and ask my friends to meet, ”says another Sokol. The emigrant mayor turned out to be not a talented bohemian nugget, but the heir to an influential party clan. Now the former mayor has become the prime minister of Albania, and 10 years later, five-story buildings have peeled off again and stand as a sad reminder of how dangerous amateurs are in management.

10. Rooftop tanks store tap water, which is supplied on schedule. Large restaurants have generators - power outages are also not uncommon.

11. Another characteristic of Albania, which is difficult to find anywhere else in Europe, are people rummaging through garbage containers. These are gypsies who traditionally collect and sort plastic waste.

12. Just like in Cairo, there is a kind of city of scavengers here. We accidentally get there at night, wandering by car along the broken city clearings in search of the right address. Finally, at the end of the dark street, a glow appears - this is the gypsies burning garbage they do not need. Not being included in the Albanian clan system, the Gypsies became the lowest class of the local society by default. Murad's family has lived in this place for over 100 years.

13. Already sorted garbage

14. During all this time, they managed to build only primitive huts from pieces of roofing metal and wooden parts found in landfills. Heating is carried out using a stove-potbelly stove.

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16. The authorities regularly promise relocation to better housing, but so far nothing has happened. When we leave, we leave chocolates for the children, which they greedily pounce on.

17. Murad with his family.

Most of the country's able-bodied population is employed in agriculture and has only the most basic education. This leaves its mark on the appearance and mentality of the locals: stern, frowning faces, black leather jackets and gopnicheskoe behavior, unmistakably recognizable by those who lived in Russia in the 90s. I have never seen such repulsive people in any other country.

18. Try to find at least one pleasant face here.

Trying to find a cozy coffee shop with Internet in the center of Tirana using the navigator (there is no McDonald’s or Burger King here), among dozens of names I don’t find a single place where I would like to go: the cafes “Sport”, “Masha”, “Valentino” and "Mercedes". Especially the Mercedes. “There is no special cult of Mercedes in Albania. Mercedes is just a good car. Since many cars here are stolen in Europe, because the government does not ask questions about the origin of the car, then why not steal a Mercedes if the car is still free. Genty explains.

19. In 2010, Albanian citizens were allowed visa-free entry into Schengen.