It will have taken a mere three decades for an encore to “Albania 1994,” with the long-awaited 2025 freshening-up orientation about to get underway in Tirana. Judging from the surface appearances to be gleaned from videos at YouTube, the country has changed considerably during my lengthy time away.
Of course Thomas Jefferson surely would counsel caution; prudence, indeed, will dictate that surface appearances via variable influencers at YouTube should not be trusted as they pertain to genuine, grassroots societal change.
But I’m an eternal optimist amid coups, pandemics and LA Dodger player acquisitions. This post is being written prior to my departure, so I’ll begin by looking back half a lifetime ago.
40 Years in Beer (Book II) Part 54: New Albanians on beer holiday in Old Albania (1994) (at RogerBaylor.com)
Albania in 1994 was nine hot, gritty days spent in a pockmarked Fiat crisscrossing the central and southern Albanian landscape in the company of two successive guides (Genci and Agim) and a deft, talented driver (Nico) whose skill at dodging pedestrians, cyclists, horse-drawn carts, herds of sheep and sagging shoulders put us at “ease” to focus on splendid mountains, peeling buildings, demolished Communist monuments, ubiquitous concrete pillboxes – and most importantly – the hardy, resilient, long-suffering Albanian people.
I can recall our drive of three hours on the “highway” from the coastal city of Vlore, where broad, shabby, tree-lined avenues led down to the port, a short boat ride from the place the Soviets used as a submarine base in the 1950s, then we were ascending the forested mountains, pausing just before the crest to dine on freshly grilled lamb, black olives and tangy feta cheese, washed down with cold Italian lager, before going over the top for the hours-long descent through a vertical-tumbling-tumbleweeds sort of landscape, eventually giving way to sheer ocean cliffs that somehow had been made to cradle a tortuous and crumbling switchback asphalt ribbon absent guardrails that demanded patience and concentration of all drivers, with the necessity of honking at every blind curve to clear the path ahead as the blue ocean incessantly meets the rocks, so far below.
For me, Albania became an object of fascination during a entry-level European history course in university, when it dawned on me that as modern nations go, it appeared on the map...Read more
