Albanian road trip
photo: Butrint by Goran Gocić
Not my foe: an Albania Journey
The border at the Mother Theresa airport in Tirana is, hands down, the quickest and friendliest one I have ever crossed. This past September, it took less than twenty minutes between the soft landing of the Air Serbia plane and resting in the front seat of a taxi on the way to my hotel. What a remarkable turn of events for a country where, not too long ago, even a bird could not fly through!
The young taxi driver generously opened a bag with fresh, home-grown white grapes. I enthusiastically parroted the only Albanian I knew and had learnt from a 70’s Yugoslav partisan film. ‘Kush është në telefon?’ (‘Who is on the phone?’). He chuckled and taught me a far more useful phrase ‘Si është kodi i Wi-Fi’.
Like a scene from a surrealist movie, the driver also told me in his elementary English he was originally from Kosovo and that his first name is, wait for it, Tonibler, in honour of the former UK prime minister. Tony Blair is idolised in Kosovo for his role during a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999 and he also once set up an office in Tirana as Albania’s special adviser. Naming someone Tonibler was not a laughing matter for me. Under my breath, I swore in Serbian, not at this decent young man, but at the almighty and all-knowing Westerners. This is the Balkans after all – we easily get fired up by politics.
Don’t get me started.
Post-World War II Albania was the Balkans’ blind spot, which had bunkered itself in. Its tyrannous communist leader Enver Hoxha had some two hundred thousand bunkers built and manned as the ultimate defence against a potential foreign invasion. That’s one bunker for every fifteen Albanians. After Hoxha died in 1985, the downtrodden citizens finally started to see the light through so much concrete, steel and iron.
I had first visited Albania twelve years ago, reporting for the BBC World Service arts programme The Strand about these bunkers: the most outlandish of architectural landmarks. The Concrete Mushrooms project by Elian Stefa and Gyler Mydyti premiered at the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture as a progressive proposal for how these ‘bunkerët’ structures could be repurposed. In 2012, I had flown from Venice to Tirana, thrilled about the prospect of finally setting foot in this geographically close, yet distant and alien land. Until then, there had been no rush for a Serb to see Albania. The two nations have always shared a complicated history. They infamously arm wrestled over Kosovo, once a Serbian province with a majority Albanian population, which later, contentiously, gained independence. My previous perception of Albania was conditioned by a bullish media, by anecdotal accounts of ordinary fellow Serbians and by my own experiences.
Nebojša, a chubby and mellow boy, had been my friend at my Belgrade primary school. He came from a Serbian military family, initially stationed in Priština in Kosovo. We all used to give each other nicknames, some of which followed us into adult life. Nebojša was stuck with the unfortunate name ‘Shqiptar’, the meaning of which I didn’t understand at first. Later, I found out that Albanians proudly called their homeland Shqipëri, but when the same word, or any of its derivations, was uttered by a Serb it bewilderingly had the most offensive and vicious tone to it. Luckily for Nebojša, he seemed not to have been bothered by international relations as long as he had a full plate in front of him.
My BBC visit had been a fleeting work assignment for my British boss, however, for me personally it felt like unfinished business. So when my friend Goran told me he had been invited to attend the Tirana International Film Festival as a jury member at the end of the summer, I had a perfect excuse to go back. I jumped with excitement and brazenly invited myself to join the party. I was with my tribe of movie and arts lovers and I hadn’t felt so good, welcomed and at home in a long time.
I smile when I think about my new Albanian friends sitting together in the Taivani restaurant in the middle of Rinia Park in Tirana. I spent a tipsy evening with Zhujeta as we giggled over our confession about religiously watching Suleiman the Magnificent, a long-running Turkish TV series. The whole of the Balkans watched it. Turkey struck again, we agreed. It managed to grab the undivided attention of our countries that had once been conquered by the Ottoman Empire and oppressed by them for over five centuries.
Goran and I would sit on the highest balcony of Tirana’s Sky hotel, feasting on a lavish breakfast, I also feasted on the view of the spectacular nearby Mount Dajti. A Greek economist once half-jokingly told me that the presence of cranes would tell you how a country was doing. Tirana’s skyline is dotted with moving cranes as modern Albania keeps flourishing, putting concrete and iron to good use. Most of the many bunkers, like an endangered species, are now hardly to be seen apart from few scattered around the country, some kept as a tourist attraction with a hefty entry fee and a heavy atmosphere around them.
Goran and I were looking forward to seeing the country beyond the capital and so we rented an electric blue Kia and hit the road. Tucked away in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula, nature in Albania is stunning, unspoilt and diverse. Albania also has a religious tolerance and I felt safely lulled, away from the noise and madness of the world. Our encounters with people were heart-warming and genuine, some unforgettable.
On our way to Berat, we were ambushed by the traffic police for allegedly breaking the rules. Two policemen and I had a long exchange through Google Translate about my questionable driving skills. We were visibly amused by the absurdity of it all and I felt a deep sense of relief and familiarity. This is exactly what the police and people in Serbia are like, I thought. We are cut from the same cloth; informal, direct, funny, artful, asking about their families in the hope of softening up the authorities. As my Albanian-born writer friend Gazi Kaplani told me, many Balkan people don’t like each other simply because they are too similar and can recognise their own worst traits in the other.
By the way, I still had to pay the fine.
photo: Berat by Snezana Ćurčić
Pride and kindness: a Serb on Albanian soil
In September 2024, an exciting possibility popped up for me to complete the Balkan jigsaw puzzle. By then, I had visited all countries in the region apart from Albania.
In Kolë Idromeno, a pedestrian street in the city of Shkodër, two voices are fighting for attention: a hodja chanting from the Ebu Bekër Mosque and Rod Stewart croaking Da Ya You Think I’m Sexy from a nearby café. It occurs to me that this mix somehow defines Albania today.
Construction in the Albanian capital is similar potpourri. The city plan of Tirana was outlined in the Neo-Renaissance style during the Italian occupation in the 1940s. Italy remains the strongest cultural influence. Albanians abroad usually coin Italian nicknames for themselves, and the Italian public broadcaster RAI used to be a window onto the world during the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha (1945–1985).
An artist by profession, the current president Edi Rama decided to vivify social-realist housing by painting raw concrete buildings in vibrant colours. Side by side and wall to wall in the capital today – experiencing Rama’s third consecutive term – contemporary architecture flourishes. Tirana has jumped out of a brutalist nightmare directly into the brave new world. The Italian architect Stefano Boeri is behind the extravagant Blloku Cube with its facade of gold-painted aluminium triangles. Dutch studio MVRDV designed the 140-metre-high Downtown One skyscraper, whose facade encompasses a pixelated map of Albania. These buildings stare into the distant future.
So does the statuesque president Rama, six feet seven tall, beating Aleksandar Vučić of Serbia by one inch (the line-up of heads of state ends in Ireland: President Higgins is 5’ 3’’). Rama is also ahead in the Balkan skyscraping rivalry: the Danish architects CEBRA have envisaged visceral Mount Tirana, 45 meters taller than Downtown One.
Albania cultivates the Mediterranean habit of socialising over a cup of coffee. There is an astonishing number of coffee shops per capita, one of the highest in the world – reportedly 654 cafes per 100,000 inhabitants. A short and proportionally strong ‘spartan espresso’ is enjoyed at any time of day. Luckily, you aren’t supposed to down it like Don Fanucci in The Godfather II. Whenever I tried my luck with a latte, they gave me an oh you poor cowboy glance. Out of sheer spite, I kept ordering a milkshake. Waiters shrugged at my request; eventually one accommodated me by bringing a glass of milk with an ice cube in it.
Albanian tourism, however, is no joke – at least not anymore. In the past three years, visits rose dramatically, a whopping 33% increase in 2022 alone. Albania does not attract the armies of foreigners who besiege European cities like Paris, London, Barcelona or Venice. Maybe the Albanian offer is not as sophisticated yet, but so much the better – instead, you might discover well-preserved, ancient cities like Berat and Gjirokastër, the crystal-clear seas of Vlorë and Saranda, and a range of hospitable, friendly faces not necessarily at pains to separate you from your money.
Like its first neighbours Greece and Montenegro, Albania also boasts mountains and sea within an hour’s drive. The Albanian Alps are God-given for hiking, but be cautious! They are also the habitat of bears and wolves. Perhaps that is why they are known as the ‘Cursed Mountains’ (Prokletije in Serbian and Bjeshket e nemuna in Albanian).
Albanian is not a Slav language, but I did recognise a few common words: berber, šejtan, kafe, ibrik, livade, jelek, reklama, ajmo, ajde. Most have Turkish origins. Serbian placenames are still used for Albanian ports: Skadar for Shkodër, Bojana for Buna River, Drač for Durrës. They changed hands through history, and were claimed by Serbian and Montenegrin monarchs at various points. I slipped up by referring to these places in Serbian, but each time I was duly corrected.
‘Do you know any great Albanians?’ a Serbian youngster asked me on Facebook. It was my turn to make corrections. The Argentinian Ernesto Sabato – one of my literary heroes – is half Albanian. Both he and the best-known Albanian author Ishmael Kadare are Nobel-prize class. Miloš Nikola, a romantic poet from Shkodër, was a Serb writing in Albanian. If you ask me – Serbs and Albanians should always support each other.
As far back as the memory of my generation reaches, Albania has been burdened with Socialist era chains. Albanian émigrés fled to Yugoslavia – to them a Western country in all but name. Some settled in Kosovo, others proceeded to the home of the brave. But nowadays, there are reasons for defection in the opposite direction. While I was in Tirana, I met an American digital nomad who was very happy to anchor himself there.
I am looking for an excuse to join him. My bank has branches all over Albania. My mobile provider treats Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro as a single country. Serbian dinars are exchanged at a fair price. If Budapest appears to be the sourest capital in the region, Tirana holds the title of the friendliest.
Until, of course, I was reminded of the Kosovo War and Albanian–US allegiance. I was deeply involved with that war, commenting on it for BBC World and other media organisations in March and April 1999.
My hotel was on Ibrahim Rugova Street, named after a politician I met in Kosovo. Quite close by is a street named after the Kosovo Liberation Army warlord Adem Jashari. Free Ukraine Street is within walking distance. Close to the main Skanderbeg Square is George Bush Street. Tirana’s street names served as a constant reminder that we Serbs and Albanians, are supposed to be enemies.
But the people I met – Ardit, Agron, Kela, Julinda, Erjona, Xhelal, Alexander, Armand, Elian, who were so warm and cordial – proved otherwise. I was struck by the mixture of their pride and kindness, and this noble trait has been preserved since the time of my grandfather, who held a high opinion of Albanians. I wonder how he would react to the fact that from the most closed country in Europe, Albania turned into the most open one.