I\u2019m in a tiny Tirana caf\u00e9 built around a eucalyptus tree. John Belushi, the Madonna and someone\u2019s deceased grandma charm its wooden walls. I sip a macchiato to start my day. At the bar, an old man in an old suit orders a raki. It\u2019s not quite nine, yet he\u2019s downing a shot of five-alarm firewater. A minute later, another grandpa does the same.<\/p>\n
Near the Avni Rustemi roundabout, there are grilled meat joints where I sometimes sit after dark, enjoying the breeze and gazing at the sidewalk. For around $5, I can stuff my face with kebabs, sausages and fries, and drink a large beer. Even in the morning, though, there are old farts at these zgara places, with fat mugs in front of them. Albanians start early, I\u2019ve learnt.<\/p>\n
Half a liter of raki costs less than two bucks, enough for a temperate slush for two days. It\u2019s much cheaper than beer.<\/p>\n A Shkoderian, Asti, tells me, \u201cI drink raki when I get up, before I drink water, or eat food.\u201d He laughs, showing no teeth<\/a>. \u201cSome people drink it at five in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut if you start so early, you must keep drinking it all day!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTrue.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re sitting in a caf\u00e9 on Skanderbeg Street, not far from the Mother Teresa Statue<\/a>, with its reverent flowerpots. At other tables, there are five men, all middle-aged. Michael Jackson is on the radio. Outside the plate-glass windows, beautiful young women keep parading by. Seemingly assured, with the world at their high heels or Adidas, they have their own unsquelched terrors.<\/p>\n Most cafes serve raki, of course, but many stores also sell it. Pointing to a tobacco shop across the street, I ask Asti, \u201cThey sell raki too?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe. Many do. People know where to buy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo it\u2019s not regulated?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n Forty-four-years-old, Asti looks at least 60. About 5-10, he has that classic Albanian beak nose, and dresses rather shabbily, usually in a white T-shirt. Albanian men past 40 tend to be much more formal. Even when riding a junk yard bicycle with a plastic bag-covered seat, many wear a suit and dress shoes.<\/p>\n In his 20\u2019s, Asti spent three years in Greece working as a construction worker, gardener, office cleaner or packer in a garment factory.<\/p>\n Asti\u2019s two older brothers also do construction, same as their father, \u201cI am the worst. That\u2019s why I made small money. I was always a dreamer. I read too much.\u201d<\/p>\n Asti has taught himself four foreign languages, Greek, Italian, English and French, with the last his weakest, \u201cI started to learn it after I was 30-years-old.\u201d His English is fluent enough, with few mistakes, such as his substitution of the French \u201cmagasin\u201d for the English \u201cstore.\u201d<\/p>\n Asti has written a 200-page novel, longhand, \u201cAs a boy, I had two dreams, learn a foreign a language, and write a novel.\u201d So he\u2019s done it, though it\u2019s only read by maybe three people, before being tossed away.<\/p>\n Moving boxes and delivering for a food and beverage distributor, Asti makes less than 100 euros a month, but his duties are light. Often, he just sits at a nearby caf\u00e9. \u201cI have a problem, you see. I\u2019m slightly schizophrenic. I must take medicines every day.\u201d Mixed with raki, they\u2019re curing his madness, apparently.<\/p>\n To give you an idea of prices here, a fat baguette is about 60 cents. A sandwich costs $1 to $1.50. In a rather nice Shkoder restaurant, I saw an old man order pilaf with a single kebab for just a buck. A macchiato is 50 to 70 cents at most cafes<\/a>. A bus ride in Tirana is 40 cents, and 30 cents in Shkoder.<\/p>\n \u201cGypsies,\u201d Asti explains. \u201cThey buy junk.\u201d<\/p>\n Another time, Asti has joked, \u201cThe Gypsies, they beg all day, then sing and drink until three in the morning. A Gypsy boy starts to smoke at 3-years-old, drink alcohol at 5-years-old. A Gypsy girl is a mother at 12-years-old.\u201d<\/p>\n And, \u201cA 15-year-old Gypsy leaves her 3-year-old boy at an intersection. When someone says, \u2018Why are you leaving him there like that?\u2019 She says, \u2018I\u2019m too old to work. He makes more money than me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n And, \u201cDuring Communism, the border guards shot everybody who tried to escape, but not the Gypsies. If they saw a Gypsy escaping, they\u2019d say, \u2018Have a safe trip! I hope you\u2019ll have a nice life over there! Don\u2019t come back!\u201d<\/p>\n When Asti was 14, soldiers dragged to his village two corpses behind a truck. These young men had been tortured then shot for escaping. With everyone gathered, a soldier asked a woman while pointing at a mangled cadaver, \u201cDo you know who that is?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s your son,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n Asti, \u201cI will never forget that. He had bullet holes in his face and on his chest. No one could recognize who he was. They showed the corpses to all the villages, to scare people, you know, from escaping.\u201d<\/p>\n Asti also told me about Dom Simon Jubani, a Shkoder priest who was jailed, and often tortured, for 26 years. In late 1990, Father Jubani conducted an illegal mass at a cemetery attended by thousands. His book, From the Depths of Hell, I Saw Jesus on the Cross, has not been translated into English, only French.<\/p>\n Unlike so many anti-Communists, Father Jubani did not praise the USA, but said on live Albanian television that Uncle Sam was \u201cthe master of terrorism.\u201d This most impresses Asti.<\/p>\n With his foreign languages, Asti also supplements his pinched income by giving tours for tips, or for steering tourists towards hotels, with each referral earning him one euro. The Covid crisis has dried up this side hustle, however.<\/p>\n Luckily for Asti, he pays no rent. He shares with one brother a charming house<\/a> built by their dad. Eleven people sleep in six bedrooms over two floors, and they have a pleasant and productive garden that grows tomatoes, eggplants, olives, onions, scallions and grapes, the last a must for most Albanian houses, even Muslim ones, with any patch of earth. I\u2019ve seen countless grape arbors on concrete roofs. Homemade rakia is best.<\/p>\n Asti\u2019s mother also lives there. For 27 years, she took care of 23 cows and milked them. At her retirement, the state gave her one more cow. Her monthly pension of 100 euros isn\u2019t quite enough to cover food and medicines, and she\u2019s still in pretty good health. In simple black, she\u2019s often seen sitting on an armchair on their shady porch.<\/p>\n From Asti\u2019s house to his workplace downtown is just a twenty-minute walk, so there\u2019s no transportation cost. Asti has no motor vehicle.<\/p>\n Compared to Tirana, bicycles are much more visible in Shkoder, and at least a dozen streets here resemble flea markets<\/a>, with vendors, many of them rural people<\/a>, selling absolutely everything on sidewalks<\/a>, not just produce<\/a> and clothing, old or new. I\u2019ve seen used sewing needles, rusty frying pans, TV antennas, ancient microwaves and prehistoric washing machines, etc.<\/p>\n At bulletin boards with death notices<\/a>, old people often peruse<\/a>, to check for their friends<\/a> and quietly delight at those younger who have perished. One day, each will jump at seeing his own face and name, for he will realize, with finality, that he has become a ghost.<\/p>\n After a decade in Greece, Asti\u2019s other brother moved to Italy 20 years ago. He\u2019s doing well and has a Georgian wife, a relative of Stalin.<\/p>\n Scoping out Il Bel Paese, Asti visited his brother for two months, \u201cI could only make small money there, so I went home. You know, Albanians went there very early, in 1991. Some of us did bad things, so Italians, they really didn\u2019t like us, but we are doing better. Albanians have Italian friends. They feed them, buy them drinks. Now, Italians don\u2019t hate us so much.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour son is eight-years-old,\u201d I say to Asti. \u201cMaybe he won\u2019t have to go anywhere when he\u2019s 20.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. I hope so. I\u2019d like to keep him close to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re an immigrant, you have so many problems.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s true. People humiliate you, look down on you. They say you\u2019re taking their jobs, that you\u2019re only there to send money to Albania.\u201d<\/p>\n War, insane ideology and free transfer of capital have dislocated millions of people. Millions more must flee from societies they themselves have befouled, through collective stupidity, cowardice or depravity. It\u2019s who they are, simply. Before you sneer or curse, though, remember that you too may end up just like them, perhaps even before dawn. How much have you contributed to your nation\u2019s destruction?<\/p>\n A visible minority anywhere is like an albino or midget. Even if he\u2019s never treated differently, which is impossible, he\u2019s likely to build up resentment at being so odd, even if his distinctiveness is viewed favorably.<\/p>\n A traveler, though, doesn\u2019t mind such handicap, for he gets the entire world in exchange. Easily bothered people can\u2019t move an inch.<\/p>\n On each trip, I\u2019m the only foreigner, but everything has been smooth. Once, I found myself sitting on a round cushioned stool in the narrowest aisle, for all other seats had been taken. Also on an improvised perch and with a bicycle tire between her legs, the woman facing me could barely suppress a grin.<\/p>\n Northern Albania was Skanderbeg\u2019s stronghold, so the last part of the country to yield to the Turks. Its mountainous villages are also repositories of Albania\u2019s most ancient mores. This is Albania at its most savage, true and tested. Shkoder is the main city of this region.<\/p>\n Asti, \u201cGoat milk is best for babies, and goat meat is also very good. In the mountains, there are wild goats. You can only shoot them with a silencer, because if they hear the sound of your gun, they\u2019ll jump three meters in the air!\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve visited Shkoder twice before, but only this time, did I get a room<\/a>, for three nights. Booking it online, I didn\u2019t know its address was purposely incorrect, to evade the tax man, I suppose. To reach this unmarked property, I had to meet a young man at a street corner. It was like the worst spy movie. Smiling, he emerged from the dark.<\/p>\n Though the online price was $12 per night, he asked for over $14 before checking me in. Since it was already evening, and I was exhausted and more than buzzed, I didn\u2019t protest too much. It was still dirt cheap.<\/p>\n My bathroom is indeed private, though not en-suite, and the water heater must be just for show. Nothing happened after I plugged it in, flipped on the switch and fidgeted with the dial. All my showers, then, have been bracingly brief.<\/p>\n The toylike toilet seat is suitable only for last stage anorexics. On my second contact, it loudly cracked. Still usable, it pinches one\u2019s thigh slightly. For a buck maybe, they can replace it with an old one, off the sidewalk.<\/p>\n Two of my three keys were likely forged during the Ottoman era, if not Venetian or Roman. So many of the big boys have marched down this corridor. Since they\u2019re impossible to use, I haven\u2019t locked my door, but it\u2019s fine. The owner is in the next room, so she can be my watchdog. Plus, we\u2019re on the second floor, over a small courtyard, down a longish, narrow path, off an alley. (Four doors down is a Baptist church, sign of a changing Albania.)<\/p>\n I\u2019m near Edith Durham Street, with its Saint Stephen Catholic Cathedral, built in 1858 with Ottoman permission. During Communism, it was converted into a sports hall, where ping pong was played and gymnasts could tumble and fall. After it was renovated in 1993, Pope John Paul II celebrated a mass there, with Mother Teresa in attendance.<\/p>\n Faint on an outside wall, there\u2019s an all-seeing eye inside a radiating pyramid, with this inscription in Italian, \u201cDIO VEDE TUTTO<\/a>.\u201d That\u2019s our best hope for justice, isn\u2019t it? Unless we\u2019re the torturer, swindler or simple adulterer, then the absence of God means all is forgiven. Hallelujah!<\/p>\n It\u2019s baffling how a nation that\u2019s nestled between Rome and Greece, thus at the heart of Europe, could be so little known, and still so dimly seen. Read Durham\u2019s High Albania, to start.<\/p>\n Spending much time here, Durham recorded Albania\u2019s enduring customs, including its blood feuds. These have not been eradicated, incredibly. Honor still matters.<\/p>\n Durham in 1909, \u201cSuch backwaters of life exist in many corners of Europe\u2014but most of all in the Near East. For folk in such lands time has almost stood still.\u201d<\/p>\n Albania\u2019s most exotic superstitions and practices, then, predate their exposure to the Turks and Islam, so don\u2019t point your finger eastward with your diatribes. These are the deepest layers of Europe, its bedrock.<\/p>\n Durham, \u201cMarriage is arranged entirely by the head of the house. The children are betrothed in infancy or in utero<\/em>. Even earlier [\u2026] The most singular part of the business is the readiness with which most youths accept the girl bought for them. I never heard of one refusing, though I met several \u2018Albanian virgins,\u2019 girls who had sworn virginity to escape their betrothed.\u201d<\/p>\n Durham, \u201cAccording to the Canon a man is absolute master in his own house, and, in the unmodified form of the law, has the right to kill his wife, and any of his children. My informants doubted whether the killing of the wife would be tolerated now. She would be avenged by her own family. A man may, however, kill his wife with the consent of her family [\u2026] By the Canon a man could divorce his wife by cutting off a piece of her dress and sending her home thus disfigured.\u201d<\/p>\n Albanian women did enjoy a certain leniency. Durham, \u201cA woman is never liable for blood-vengeance, except in the rare case of her taking it herself. But even then there seems to be a feeling that it would be very bad form to shoot her [\u2026] I roused the greatest horror by saying that a woman who commits a murder in England is by law liable to the same punishment as a man.\u201d<\/p>\n Durham on Albanian hospitality, \u201cThe sacredness of the guest is far-reaching. A man who brought me water from his house, that I might drink by the way, said that I now ranked as his guest, and that he should be bound by his honour to avenge me should anything happen to me before I had received hospitality from another.\u201d<\/p>\n There were no prisons on Albanian mountains, so justice was often mete out through revenge, but its violence had to be proportionate. Durham, \u201cI would remind you that we play the same game on a much larger scale and call it war,\u201d and she wrote that before the two World Wars, with its millions butchered, and entire cities, filled with civilians, obliterated in a flash.<\/p>\n More than a century later, there are no more infant betrothals, legally discretional wife killings, sartorial divorces or fiercely honorable protection of guests, but the mindset that gave rise to such habits must still linger, like a bias, ghost, undercurrent or whiff, in this weather.<\/p>\n Honor was everything. Even if it would get him killed, a man must act correctly. Justice and balance had to be achieved.<\/p>\n \u201cAh, shut up already,\u201d I can hear a chorus rising. \u201cThose Albanians are just Turkic barbarians, with their chains of brothels encircling this disgusting world. Too bad there isn\u2019t one in my Christian town. All we have are thrift stores and tattoo parlors. Never had Balkan pussy. Dark meat, I reckon. What\u2019s this shit about Albanians being white?! I\u2019m so white, I\u2019m invisible! I only show up online, anonymously. Hold on a sec, let me adjust my new panties. Bought them on sale yesterday. Too much polyester chafes my purple balls. My wife just told me she\u2019s a lesbian, by the way. That\u2019s all right, I\u2019m a lesbian too, but in a man\u2019s body. We can keep having the worst sex ever, once a year. Fuck the Albanians!\u201d<\/p>\n Still lagging, Albanians are the most unadulterated whites alive, and that\u2019s to their advantage, whatever you may think. They\u2019re some of the last Europeans with balls.<\/p>\n In Lezhe, there\u2019s the American Strip Nightclub. Ogling local girls, patrons can pretend they\u2019re staring at fake boobs and many more tattoos. In the dim, reddish light, they can add piercings to gyrating flesh.<\/p>\n On the fringe, Albanians are unaware they\u2019re in much better shape than the toxic center, with its radiating foulness. Before Albanians are fully sucked in, though, the satanic cesspool will implode, thus saving them from soul sapping contamination.<\/p>\n Running for the hills when necessary, they\u2019ve endured for over two thousand years, as countless other tribes have lost not just land, but language and memory. These hardy survivors will likely outlast yours.<\/p>\n Linh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is Postcards from the End of America<\/a>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51158510307_dfbc62ffa6_b.jpg\")
<\/a>In Shkoder, there are many kebab carts<\/a> on sidewalks. Served on a soft roll, each costs less than a buck. Some mustard would help, certainly, but this is not Germany. Though no soft drinks are for sale, many carts have raki<\/a>, though not always advertised. I\u2019ve been advised that raki goes well with kebabs, best eaten with fingers. Fork tines ruin the taste.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51169171909_ebcefe0757_b.jpg\")
<\/a>Publishing anything anywhere is nearly impossible. With a population of just three million, Albania\u2019s book market is miniscule, but at a Shkoder sidewalk kiosk<\/a>, I saw translated titles<\/a> by all these authors<\/a> displayed<\/a>: Orhan Pamuk, Amos Oz, Mario Vargas Llosa, Junot Diaz, Bukowski, Richard Kapuscinski, Jane Austen, Homer, Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Swift, Goethe, Voltaire, Pushkin, Dumas, Orwell, Pasolini, Kundera, Kafka, Sartre, di Beauvoir and Faulkner. There were also several Kadare novels, of course, and serious history books, such as Jack Weatherford\u2019s Genghis Khan, Misha Glenny\u2019s Histori e Ballkanit and Bhuto\u2019s Pajtimi [Reconciliation]. All this, at a tiny shop in a provincial city, so don\u2019t tell me Albanians aren\u2019t civilized.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51167781448_676d6d2c5c_b.jpg\")
<\/a>Earning just over 200 euros monthly, Asti\u2019s wife labors in a garment factory. They have two girls, aged 14 and 11, and an 8-year-old boy<\/a>. One afternoon, he joins his dad and me for a long walk through the mostly drab<\/a> outskirts of town. Three overgrown concrete bunkers are rare highlights. Quiet, the kid is just happy to be out of the house. We pass two young men on a motorbike truck.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51166749642_7ffd124dfb_b.jpg\")
<\/a>I\u2019ve sat at a cafe<\/a> with this brother. Fifty-three-years-old, with close cropped white hair, he\u2019s ravaged from decades of rakia, so now mostly sips B-52, the energy drink. He also likes to gamble, when there\u2019s extra cash, which is almost never. Though a master with floors, he hardly works.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51159915039_c02e6d82c3_b.jpg\")
<\/a>Foreign jobs simply pay more, so going abroad has become a standard aspiration here. Very nice houses<\/a> built from money sent back challenge those who remain. Hamstrung for 45 years from the harshest Communism, Albanians are still recovering. Just be thankful you haven\u2019t experienced a Hoxha.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51158664372_856faaa482_b.jpg\")
<\/a>To really see any country, it\u2019s important to get out<\/a> of the capital, with all its financial, cultural and power distortions, so I\u2019ve been taking buses<\/a> or passenger<\/a> vans<\/a> here and there, with almost no idea what I\u2019m going to see.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51168570590_ab7743d893_b.jpg\")
<\/a>There is no breakfast, as promised, but the room is large and comfortable<\/a>. With two narrow beds, a couch, coffee table, chest, cabinets, sinks and TV, it\u2019s a basic apartment<\/a>, so for a long stay, it wouldn\u2019t make a bad base. A bare bulb dangles from the ceiling.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51168853735_ca07c4a864_b.jpg\")
<\/a>More than anyone, Durham corralled Albania for English readers. Asti\u2019s kids attend Edith Durham School<\/a>. It\u2019s heartening to see her honored.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/50989040097_febe6372b9_b.jpg\")
<\/a>Sadly, they\u2019re trying to catch up by reading Barack and Michelle Obama<\/a>, Kamala Harris<\/a>, and about Joe Biden<\/a> and Elon Musk. They\u2019re listening to the worst American rap, and imitating it. In Tirana, there\u2019s a George W. Bush Boulevard, and in Kamez, there\u2019s a Donald Trump one. Many seem to think the American<\/a> flag<\/a> has talismanic power.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/51168685850_f264c0a1eb_b.jpg\")
<\/a>By chance, I\u2019m in Shkoder on Flowers Day<\/a>, what they call Saint George\u2019s Day here. Strolling through a well-landscaped park, I\u2019m suddenly surrounded by beaming angels in paper headdresses<\/a>, Native American style. Some wear goofy polyester skirts, with sequined or stitched flowers. On a stage, kids sing or dance, but innocent happiness<\/a> is everywhere. From toddlers to the very old, they are simply enjoying themselves, being themselves.<\/p>\n
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