Satellite
  • Day 194

    Tirana

    May 9, 2019 in Albania ⋅ 🌧 13 °C

    I nipped into Tirana to see what the extensively rebuilt communist capital had to offer. Very little in the trad tourist market but a few interesting relics. I was struck by the cleanliness of the streets after my sojourn in Southern Italy. Rubbish was collected and numerous street-sweepers - with old fashioned brooms - wheeling their carts around bright in their hi-viz clothes. I have been told that this does not extend into the peasant countryside but is a reflexion of the new found wealth entering the country in search of cheap labour unrestricted by such fanciful notions as employment or environmental rights. Thanks to a maverick politician in the '80s, many of the concrete tower blocks are painted in loud colours which considerably softens the deadening effect of such structures on the population. Another striking observation was how many new Mercedes were being driven: followed by Audis and VWs. The government imposed an import ban on used vehicles made before 2005 from 1 Jan this year, ostensibly to curb pollution, by encouraging people to buy new cars from certified domestic dealerships, (and of course to improve overall road safety.) I'm sure European car manufacturers had little to do with it, and the banking system is naturally happy to carry the debt.
    My first stop was in the recently renamed Skanderberg square, where a huge socialist mosaic of victorious partisans on the History Museum dominated one skyline.
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    The square itself is a huge piazza buging upwards in the middle. There is a carpark underneath it and a statue of Skanderberg mounted on his horse, with his hair nicely sharpened into a point, has replaced the rather staid one of Stalin.
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    In another corner of the square is the the Et’hem Bey Mosque that dates back to the late 18thC.
    At the fall of communism it was the site of one of a remarkable event on the 10th January 1991 when 10,000 people gathered to practise their religion, against the decree of the authorities who had banned Islam for almost half a century. In the end there was no police interference and the event marked a turning for religious freedom in Albania.
    Unfortunately, I could not admire the idyllic scenery such as forests and waterfalls. as the walls were shrouded for building restoration. (They are on the outside because inside they would contrevene Sharia.)
    The rather bland and often altered Clock Tower goes back to 1822 when it was completed by the court poet Haxhi Et’hem Bey. The first change was a Viennese design, which was replaced by a German-style timepiece which was destroyed in the Second World War. After that there was one with Roman numerals that came down in the 70s in favour of the current Chinese clock.

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    Albanians prefer their books to cover weighty themes and in fact buy them by the kilo.
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    The third-largest such structure in the Balkans is the Resurrection of Christ Orthodox Cathedral, completed in 2012.
    You will be fascinated to learn, as I was, that the dome reaches 32.2 m above ground and the bell tower stretched 46 m to the heavens: and the complex is now a major tourism attraction.
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