Old Photos - Shkoder 1930's

I picked up a couple of postcards when i visited the National Marubi Fototek in Shkoder.
I love the old photos.

One of is of the centre of Shkoder in 1932.


It is interesting to see that the shops stretch across the road over to the mosque.
I can make out a couple of the shops....
One is called "Rruestore" - no idea what that means.
One is called "Udhtimit te perditshem" - I would have liked to know where they went, but I can't make that out.
Kafe Drini - no surprise there then - a cafe in Shkoder!

The other photo is of a family in Dukagjin in 1937.
I really like this photo.



It reminds me so much , and gave me a lot of help in visualizing life in the mountains, when reading the excellent book "Peaks of Shala" by Rose Wilder Lane.
Notice there is no "chimney" in the house for the smoke to leave. I take it the roofs were thatched and the smoke eventually rises up and through the roof.

I have a couple of questions though...
1) What does the woman on the right have in her hand?
2) What is hanging from the roof, and also what is hanging on the wall under the oil can?

I previously heard that the old bank on the new pedestrian walkway in the Piaca, would be turned into a museum to show off much more of the old Marubi photos than are currently displayed. The outside of the bank has been finished for ages, but still no sign of any work on the inside, nor of the Marubi exhibition moving. I am disappointed. Tourist season is starting and even leaving entrance fee as free, I am sure the the sale of postcards, booklets and magazines on Marubi and his photographs would allow the museum to function.

( I have not posted for a while, but hopefully I will keep the blog up. I have some posts I have not done, so over the next few weeks I should have a few posts)

Shqiperia ne NATO

Gëzuar Ditën e Pavarësisë (Peaks of Shala - Rose Wilder Lane)

I am reading a great book just now called "Peaks of Shala" by Rose Wilder Lane.( Published in 1923)
I will post something when I finish.
But I found this part interesting -and by coincidence, I just happened to read it last night!

Mrs Lane has pneumonia, and is struggling to get back to Shkoder from Shala.
She is led by two Albanians and sheltering from the torrential rain in a cave, they find they are sharing the cave with a bandit. The bandit tells them this story...

"It was at this time that the chiefs of Kossova came secretly by night through the Serbian lines to the house of Ahmet Bey Mati, and I was called by Ahmet to take them to Valona. He said that a word would be spoken in Valona to make Albania free. I said to Ahmet:
"The Montenegrins hold Scutari and the seacoast even to San Giovanni, the European Powers are in Durrazo, the Serbs have Kossova and the Dibra, the Greeks are in the south. What is talk of freedom? This is not a time to talk; it is a time to fight."
Ahmet said
"Before the war cry, the council of chiefs."
Ahmet is chief of the Mati, head of the family that has ruled the Mati since the days of Scanderbeg. He was a boy of sixteen, newly come from the court of Sultan Abdul Hamid; he did not wear the clothes of the Malisori and the chiefs of the Mati laced his opangi before every battle, because he did not know how to lace opangi. Yet it must be said that it was his coming that saved the Mati from the Serbs. He came quickly killing seven horses between Monastir and Borelli and he told the chiefs what to do, and they saved the Mati. It was hot fighting. For five months he had been fighting and sleeping on rocks. His chiefs loved him.
"I said, "I am killing Serbs, and have no wish to go to Valona."
Ahmet said,
" When my father died, my older brother sent me from my country to the Turks, I do not know the trails. The chiefs of Kossova are my guests, and they do not know the trails. We must go to Valona through Elbassan where the Serbs are. There is a meeting of all the chiefs of Albania in Valona. If we are killed by the Serbs, there will be no chiefs of Malisori at the meeting. There will be only Toshks - men of the plains."
I said,
"Tonight the moon will be dark. We must start as soon as we can see the small stars."

" In three nights we were at the house of Asif Pasha in Elbassan. No, nothing disturbed us on the way, except that we were obliged to kill with our hands the dogs that sometimes came upon us from the villages. The Serbs were everywhere and we could not use our guns. When we came to the house of Asif Pasha, the chiefs of Kossova with Ahmet slept in one room, and I sat with Asif Pasha by the fire in another room. Elbassan was held by many hundred Serbian soldiers. At midnight five officers with thirty soldiers came to the door. They came in, and would not take coffee. They stood and said,
" Who are the twelve men who sleep tonight in this house? Do not lie for we know that they are here."
"Asif Pasha said,
"This is one of them"
I said,
" I will tell you who they are, but I beg you not to let them know that I have told. I am only a servant, and they are great chiefs. They are byraktors of five villages of the Mati, three villages of Shala and Shoshi. They have come to Elbassan to talk with the Serbs. They have come secretly, hiding from the other chiefs. I do not know why. I beg you not to tell them that I have told, for they are tired and dirty, and they are sleeping while the women clean their clothes so that they will be clean tomorrow when they go to speak to your chiefs."
"The officers sat down then and one of them wrote. He wrote the names of the chiefs as I gave them to him, and he wrote what I said, that the Malisori were tired of fighting, and had little ammunition, and did not like their chiefs that made them fight. While he wrote, Asif Pasha gave them rakejia, and more and more rakejia but no coffee. When the Serbs had become foolish I went to the other room where the chiefs were listening with their rifles in their hands, and I took them all by a way I knew, out of Elbassan.
" So we came to Valona, the the house of Ismail Kemal Bey Vlora, the same who had been Grand Vizier of Abdul Hamid. He had come on an Austrian warship to Durrazo, and there they had tried to kill him, and he had come secretly, as we had come to Valona. Valona was the only free village in Albania then, except our mountain villages. There was a council in his house. Chiefs of all the tribes from Kossova to Janina were there, and when the council was ended Ismail Kemal Bey brought the flag of Scanderbeg, which had always been hidden in his house, and with a rope he made it run to the top of as pole in his house. It was the red flag with the two headed black eagle on it. I stood in the street and saw it go to the top of the pole. The chiefs were on the balcony, and Ismail Kemal Bey wept. Many men had tears on their cheeks. In the street they cried, "Roft Shqiperia!" and embraced one another. They said that the spirit of Scanderbeg lived, and that Albania was free"

Albania - The Foundling State of Europe#3

The women of the mountain tribes were sturdy and powerful and often beautiful as children, but the hard, rough, life they led destroyed all their good looks as soon as they arrived at womanhood. In Albania and Montenegro woman was the beast of burden of the poorer families; she did the household drudgery of the hut, and all but the very roughest work in the field while her husband or brother sat upon a stone with his rifle between his knees and a cigarette between his lips.when the fruits of the little farm were taken to the bazaar, the husband stalked ahead while the old horse limped along behind him with bursting saddle bags, urged on by the women of the family, whose backs bent double under a towering load of firewood.
Page 41,42

The blood-feuds which used to be so common in Scodra and the mountains were gradually dying out, for the authorities and the priests had set their faces against the practice for many years past. But the factors which had the greatest influence in putting down the practice were the poverty from which Albania had suffered for years and the enforcing of the edict against carrying arms in the city.
Page 49
Well, not entirely dying out.
Unfortunately there are many families still involved in blood feuds today, almost 100 years later!

To the casual observer the Albanians seemed to be always rebelling and fighting for no reason whatever. But it must not be forgotten that they were never really conquered by the Turks and that in the mountains they did very much as they liked.
.......
But the Turk, the latest intruder in Albania has now gone from the land, and the city of Scodra will return to the position it occupied nearly three thousand years ago when it was chief town of the Illyrian tribes under their native kings. Many conquerors have passed over it, but the stubborn race which is now known as Albanian has survived them all. It now only remains for the people of Scodra to justify the trust which Europe has reposed in them as leaders of the new kingdom, and if the doggedness, independence and the vital force which can live through all vicissitudes of fortune, count for anything in modern Europe, they should not be found wanting.
Page 51

In the summer it was the custom of the European colony to postpone the afternoon walk until the late afternoon when the tall trees began to throw a pleasant shade, and a gentle breeze usually cooled the heated atmosphere. When the wide-eaved houses shadowed the width of the streets. Scodra gradually roused itself from its afternoon's doze. The day was almost unendurable indoors even with all the blinds drawn down on the sunny side of the house and with all the windows open, but at last the faint rustling of the leaves outside told that a little breeze had come to cool us, and that the hour for the evening promenade had arrived.
Pages 62,63
Not much has changed in the last 100 years then!

The book includes some strange stories of a dog recovering from a snake bite by applying a nearby plant on the wound and in its mouth.
A man that had a bath every day for 10 days then no more for a year !

Description of being served with coffee, cigarettes, a syrupy drink and sweetmeats which I take it were lakum. One man bit on one and got his teeth stuck and could not free them for a good 5 minutes.
Page 91
Yes, there is nothing worse than taking a piece of "lakum" during a visit and find that it is not fresh, and it is like someone has glued your teeth together.

We English are too given to thinking that all foreigners see us as we see ourselves; not merely as the inhabitants of two little islands...
Page 133
Hmmm...English are inhabitants of 2 islands. My geography was never any good, but I was sure that little island to the left of GREAT BRITAIN(on a map) was actually called Ireland, and was full of Irish people. I also thought that England was not an island as they border on 2 other countries, Wales and Scotland!

Blood feuds
Went to Shkrel and there spoke with a man who was in a blood feud having killed his brother-in-law from Hoti for sending his wife(this man's sister) away.
"and your sister? She in the city? Has she married again?"
"married? Oh no! She begs; she has her child---------- then seeing my look of astonishment he added; "what is she to do ? We cannot support her; she does not belong to us now; and the Hoti will not keep her.But I have avenged the insult ; I have shot her husband"
Page 136


"It is an extraordinarily difficult language for a foreigner to speak, and the Shkypetars claim that none but the native born can pronounce their queer consonantal sounds correctly. The difficulty of learning the language is increased by the want of a suitable alphabet. The Jesuits and Franciscans of Scodra use the Latin alphabet; in the South the Orthodox priests use Greek letters. But neither system is satisfactory, and consequently some grammarians have introduced diacritical marks or have mixed up the two sets of characters but probably with even less success, and it is a proof of the marvelous vitality of the language that it has survived through the ages without a literature, untaught and unwritten in the schools."
Page 199
"Extraordinarily difficult language" - got to agree on that one!
But then is there an easy language to learn?
Albanians do seem VERY gifted in foreign language, and I have met some Albanians that speak English perfectly with no hint of a foreign accent!
They put us "English" speakers to shame!
The Albanian alphabet - yes, a post in itself. It is remarkable how the language survived, even during the times of Turkish rule and the language forbidden to be taught in schools and no(or very little) reading material in Shqip! Full credit to those that worked to get the Albanian language recognised, in written form, and agreed by, for the whole country! (I'm glad they didn't choose the Greek or Arabic letters for the alphabet!)

Widow of Albania’s Hoxha defends his legacy

Here is a report from Reuters on a recent interview with Nexhmije Hoxha. This is from a part of history that I as a foreigner will never really understand, nor know the characters involved. ( other than by name and old film). I will say this, however, that any time I have watched the old documentaries from TV during communism and praising PPSH, I have been struck by Nexhmije Hoxha.
They say that behind every great man is a great woman?
Then maybe behind every evil dictator there is an evil woman!
I just get the feeling that she had a "hands on" role in much of her husbands plans and activities.
However, what do I know - I wasn't here during those days and it's just an impression that I get!

Here is the article...

"The widow of Albania’s longtime Stalinist leader said some things had improved since the collapse of Communism, but defended Enver Hoxha’s tough legacy as she prepared to honour the centenary of his birth.

“Some people want me to repent for things that happened in those times,” Nexhmije Hoxha, 86, said in a rare two-and-a-half-hour interview with Reuters on Thursday night.

“People should know from the start that I cannot criticise Enver Hoxha, I must protect his reputation.”

“Unfortunately, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Enver is taking place in an atmosphere of contradictions,” she said.

“Various associations that want to celebrate the date are afraid to do so in this almost fascist atmosphere.”

Enver Hoxha was born on October 16, 1908, and after leading the World War Two resistance, ruled Albania for 40 years as one the world’s most reclusive and oppressive states. He abolished religion, closed the borders and built thousands of pillbox bunkers against foreign invasion. Private cars were banned.

Today most Albanians condemn his rule as a dark period.

Although still largely rural, the country has seen fast economic growth and a building boom in recent years as it tries to catch up with wealthier European nations.

Hoxha acknowledged that some of the changes had been positive. “People are freer, I can talk any time, but I avoid it because I do not want to,” she told Reuters. “Some things are good, it’s development, progress.”

Nexhmije met her future husband in 1941, when both were in the Communist underground — and when dating between comrades was frowned upon. “Expressions of love were forbidden in line with the expression of party rules,” she recalled with a smile.

“It had its own romanticism.”

“We had some age difference between us and he came as a delegate of the Central Committee. The idea of being with him never crossed my mind,” she continued. “It was he who started courting me. He was very, very loving, very sweet.”

One night he ferried her alone on a bicycle’s handlebars to a Communist Party safe house. “That’s how we came to love each other,” she said. They were married in 1945.

The dictator’s widow, who is in good health, says he improved Albania’s postwar standard of living, its health system and education amid desperate poverty. “When the standard of living was compared to the West, it can be considered modest, but there was an egalitarian spirit.”

As for the pervasive secret police and repression, Nexhmije, who became an important party official herself, admits excesses.

“Unpleasant and unwelcome things did happen, but that did not come from above, let alone from Enver,” she said.

“People complain now that some jail sentences were harsh, but that was the law of the state at the time,” she added.

Referring to the closed borders, Nexhmije said: “If we look at it now, I guess it should not have been so restrictive, but those were the times.”

After Albanian Communism collapsed in 1990, Nexhmije was sent to prison for five years, accused of abusing state finances. She said she had spent $360 on new glasses after many mourners accidentally broke glasses when drinking rakia alcohol and coffee following Hoxha’s 1985 death.

“The object of my trial was political because I was the widow of Enver Hoxha,” she complained. “When I came out of jail I didn’t even recognise the streets.”

—Reuters - Adam Tanner"

Albania 1989

It is worthwhile going to this page on Flickr and looking at the photos from 1989.
Quite a lot, and although not too many from Shkoder, they are very interesting.


Shkoder

Tirana


Saranda

Berat

Gjirokaster

Albania 1987

Delighted to find this link on the internet.

A fascinating read, of an Englishman's visit to Albania.
Covering Shkoder, Lezhe, Kruje, Tirana and Berat.

here is a short extract...
"Albanian vehicles were produced but many old diesel vehicles from the People's republic of China were still in use. We looked in at a watch repairers shop, where behind the screen an old man was working on clocks and watches that would rarely be seen in junk shops in Britain. Perhaps one of the few digital clocks in the country is the big one over the State Bank of Albania in Tirana.

"Make do and mend" is common; one of our group related the tale of a shop where holes in plastic buckets are repaired by a man with a hot iron, melting and joining the plastic. Plastic goods are produced by the country's developing petrochemical industry, and can be seen in shops. But perhaps due to the low national wage (said to be kept within a 2:1 ratio of 500 to 1000 Lek a month) and the thrifty nature of Albanians, all kinds of goods are kept functioning as long as possible, if at all repairable. Another example was a motorbike windshield which was apparently broken at some time and had all the pieces glued back together like crazy paving. "

Some great photos as well.

Hope you enjoy it!

I certainly did!

Greek New testament manuscripts found in Albania

Link here to Greek New Testament manuscripts that are in Tirana.

Due to the years of communism scholars had not known exactly what was in the archive in Tirana. Now they have had access to what is still here.I'm glad to hear that these documents were not destroyed wither during or at the fall of communism.

He seems to be quite excited about it.

I'll be keeping my eye on his updates!

Gjirokaster, Kukes and Malesia e Madhe

This will be the last post on Two Vagabonds in Albania, a thoroughly enjoyable book and great insight into life in Albania almost 100 years ago.

Page 147
“Banishment to Gjinokaster ( Gjirokaster) is as awful a punishment for a northerner as banishment to Kruja in the north is a fate dreaded by the southerner. The average traveller returns charmed by the readiness of Albanian hospitality to foreigners, but one must not overlook the fact that Albanians themselves who will travel cheerfully to America, dislike intensely being transferred to other parts of their own land.”

Page 152
“I do not think that there can be any other town in the world quite like Gjinokastra ( Gjirokaster). It has parts of the element of a fairyland…
Gjirokaster is the birth place of Enver Hoxha. I have never visited it, but I am told it is a beautiful town.

Page 60 –
“ From creepies and crawlies and lang-leggity basties(beasties) and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us,” says the old Scotch ( Surely Scots or Scottish please!!! – Scotch is a drink!)petition.
Well don’t sleep at Kjuks (Kukes), because there He won’t – not from any of ‘em!”

Malesia e Madhe
Page 238
The conversation turned to family affairs and our host with a laugh pointed to the first lad.
“Manners are degenerating,” he said. “See, there is my son. He is seventeen, his wife is seventeen also, and, will you believe me, he doesn’t beat her? He’s getting soft. Aha! The good old times are going.”
The other lad had a stool near the fire and at once fell into conversation with the women. This surprised us, for hitherto in Albania we had seen no man who considered it worth his while to exchange any unnecessary words with the womenfolk. However, looking closer, we began to doubt the sex of this person, and the hairdresser confirmed our suspicion.
“That girl,” he said, “has vowed never to marry, so she dresses like a man, and does man’s work.”
“But if she breaks her vow,” we said” does her family pursue her and kill her?”
“She doesn’t ever break her vow,” said the hairdresser; “she would be too ashamed to.”
My wife had a relation, cousin of an aunt or something like that, who was the 7th daughter in a family. (if I remember correctly) there were no sons, and she dressed like a man. She attended (uninvited) our wedding and ended up drinking everyone under the table and dancing on the tables. She drank and smoked as much as anyone I have ever known, and was far more of a man than some men I know!
However, she was not a sworn virgin - she apparantely just liked dressing that way! 8-|

“cigarette papers and salt are the two things most lacking in these regions. On their ride the English police officers had encountered a woman who was making a two and a half day’s journey down to Scutari (Shkoder) solely in order to sell a dozen eggs with which to purchase sixpennyworth of salt.”

and finally....a comment on religion...
Page 150
“Religions in Albania can be fundamentally political rather than spiritual; the pushing commercial Christian detests the dominance of the more valiant though more conservative Moslem. Indeed, the Albanian might be held up as an example to the world of religious tolerance were it not so largely the result of religious indifference. Undoubtedly, the Albanian Christian owes what fervour he has as much to a spirit of opposition against the Moslem as to any real devotional impulse.”
Hmmm...let me see...I don't quite understand the reasoning here.
The Albanian Christian is indifferent or fervent? Surely he cannot be both. He seems to "detest" or have a "hatred" of muslim people rather than a "hatred" of their belief(Islam)! Yet this is the only reference in over 300 pages to this "problem" and is not backed up with any example or further information!
Maybe they were going to write about it in another book that was never published!!

Please see here for more information on Jan and Cora Gordon.

Emigrants & Edith Durham

Page 110 –
Undoubtedly the emigrants were the curse of the country.
There were whole villages of whom the male inhabitants were either in America or had been in America and wished they could go there. These emigrants deadened the country, they dreamed of vast enterprise, they clamoured for enlightenment, for advance, yet in reality, all they clamoured for was the right to earn money in large sums.”


Page 67 – the authors surprise that now they had fought to get independence, so many seemed to want to live in the USA.


Page 73
The doctor had written a long poem in Albanian about those that had emigrated.
He depicts in moving rhyme the young man saying adieu to his mother, to his fiancé. His departure to the land of gold, the emigrants continual deferring to come home – a little more money, a little more money, a few dollars yet; at last the mother dies. Even this does not tempt the young man back, and when he does return, he finds his fiancé worn out with waiting on her death bed. And so the good doctor’s muse leaves the fellow with money in his pocket indeed, but with all his dreams sacrificed to the now useless dross. The good doctor exclaims “Ah gold, gold. What sins are committed in thy name.”

Interesting thoughts…I wonder what their view would be now. Especially as many families now only can afford to live with some of the “gold” sent back from family members living and working abroad.
It’s a tough one…I would far rather see the Albanians staying in Albania, but with unemployment so high (estimated around 20% in Shkoder…I imagine it would be something similar, if not higher through the country.) you can understand why people are leaving to find work elsewhere.
What I am really worried about, is that due to lack of opportunities the “best” and the “intellectuals” will leave to find suitable work elsewhere, rather than working to improve Albania…we will be left with workers and political leaders who are just not up to the task.


Page 250
Edith Durham – there are some interesting comments here on Edith Durham, whose travels were only a few years earlier in this very region.
“Aha, that was indeed a woman.” Cried Neij Miraka, the man in the white goatskin. “She went about in man’s clothes, and I tell you that she was here with us, and over the mountains too, for fourteen days, before I as much as suspected her sex.”

And yet in spite of the self-sacrificing work that she has done for the Albanians, Miss Durham is being rapidly forgotten. All the priests that we met insisted upon one thing, that the Albanian peasant does not feel gratitude, and such gratitude is nowhere more exemplified than in this instance. We often had great difficulty in extracting memories of her from the very places that must have known her best.”

Language Difficulties and Bajram

2 entries today. There is so much of interest in this book, either amusing, or something similar to my own experience that I feel as though I could post for at least another week...but I am trying to get to the end of the posts from this book. So I am putting two different topics together.

Language difficulties

Jan and Cora Gordon spent six weeks learning the Albanian language prior to their visit. I just wonder how much of it they really did understand. Some exceptionally gifted people in language studies may pick up a lot ( and I’m not one of them) , but for others ( like me) it takes months and years and in fact you are always learning!

Page 71/72
Constant questioning of muslim women as to why they did not have any children.
She told them that she did not know, but each woman that came by asked the same questions adding that she looked ok and so did her husband.
She decided to get round this by inventing a story that she DID have a child but the child had died.
Unfortunately, she used the Albanian word to tell them of the event and her pronunciation was not what it should have been ( and how well some of us can relate to that!) and the hearers mistook her saying “vdek’ as ‘djeg’ ( to burn) and they thought the child was burnt. This only caused them to take great pity on her and bring her coffee, mulberries and patted her on the shoulders.

Yes I have a similar problem. I struggle with the single “L”. I just seem always able to pronounce only the double “LL” sound which of course changes the meaning of the word.
I could for example be saying that I have a good boy “djalë i mirë”...but if I mispronounce the single “L” sound in the word for boy “djalë”, then I end up saying “djalli i mirë” which is “good devil”. :-(


Page 214 -Shkoder and Malesia e Madhe
“The prospect of touring with an interpreter had almost chilled us off from the journey, but unluckily we had only the dialect of the south, which might be almost useless, we understood amongst the northern tribes. Besides, there were ceremonies and customs to understand.”

Again if you travel north the short distance to Koplik or further north into the mountains, then you will find a whole different dialect and use of words and expressions. I have heard of some that have come from Tirana or further south to work in the villages in the mountains, only to return as they could not understand a word the mountain people spoke!

Page 234
Outside a narrow cemetery was deep in grass, from which stood up tall crosses, many beautifully chip-carved. Poised as if in contemplation on the crosses were primitively shaped wooden birds with wire nails for legs. They are probably meant to be cuckoos the Serbian bird of grief, for the Serbian word for ‘woe” is “kuku”. But the Albanians have lost both derivation and meaning of the birds, and we saw them nowhere else.
I am wondering if this may be the source of the word "kuku" in Albanian. As in " Kuku moj nanë!" or "Kuku për mua", "Kuku moj det!", "Kuku, ç'më gjeti!" which are expressions used in an unfortunate event. Something along the lines of "Oh dear, look what's happened!" - though i am sure that someone will correct me on my Albanian!- again! :-)



Page 246
Language difficulty
They believed people were wishing them a white road…which I take it was “rruge te mbare” ( safe journey) rather than “ rruge te bardhe”.


Bajram

after many visits and “ every house was a coffee, cigarettes, sweets and sometimes syrupy drinks, superadded until one felt cloyed and clogged with stickiness”…on return to the hotel they said “Thank heavens that Bhayram will come only once in OUR lifetime.”

Then on return to the hotel…they found a present for Bajram.
“We opened the door. There before us, on the table was a large Baklava cake compounded of wafer-like paste, fried oil, drenched in syrup, interleaved with walnut mash and crowned with cream. It was a climax of sweetness, stickiness and indigestibility. We sent back a message of false gratitude and sank upon our beds wondering how we could dispose of that cake without detection. As with a corpse after a murder, all traces must disappear.”

( Big mistake! Baklava is really good ( especially if like me you love walnuts)and you should not miss the opportunity to try it. However, there is nothing worse than getting ready to eat a piece and finding it is a week old!! Then it is like eating a piece of cardboard!)

Albanian Music and Dance (Two vagabonds in Albania)

I continue with some excerpts of Jan and Cora Gordon’s book on their travels through Albania in 1925.

Description of hearing music played by a doctor on a lute…
“ Our Turkish music is more real, more like life, always changing, always developing, always different, flexible elusive.”
They then describe the arrival of a schoolmaster who played the violin, but with Western melody.
“I see in this duet something of a parable of Modern Albania, itself, volatile Easternism and pedantic, ponderous Westernism leashed together in a incompatible bond.”

Page 135
“ then he and his 2 companions began to sing. It was a strange song. The old man led and after he had sung a few notes the gunman came in with an unexpected second while the Greek hero and all the others joined in with one steady basic drone. The old man threw his head back and cried his song to the sky:
“ Tur-lish, Tur-lish, se c’me ben cigaren.
Zemra moj me renkon edhe s’fumoj s’fushon dot te garet (qaret ?)etc
On the last note, all – soloist, second and drone – ended on a most odd dying slur which ran down into a groan like finish of an unwound gramophone. We afterwards found that every song in the region was brought to a conclusion in the same extraordinary fashion.”
( Seems to be talking here of the “labe” songs of southern Albania)( see this link )



Page 156
A line of men formed a chain, the leader flourishing a handkerchief in his unoccupied hand, postured and pranced as he went slowly forward; the next man to him also made steps which were less complicated than those of the leader, but the rest of the line merely slouched behind in an inner tail.
The dancing was even less exciting than that of the Tirana gypsies, unexciting not only to watch but to dance. Yet since we have seen it danced not only by drunken men at a wedding, and by those unscholarly schoolmasters, but also by the hired bravoes of Ahmet Zogu, the irregular mountaineer troops of Dibra, there must be some pleasure in the thing that we have missed. Like fishing, it is perhaps a sport to which one is born.”

Please see here for more information on Jan and Cora Gordon.

Elbasan, Korçe and Permeti. (Two vagabonds in Albania)

“A regular roasting afternoon when the sun, having sucked up all the moisture from the general things about, turned his whole attention to ourselves as the last remaining moist objects within range and concentrated his whole attention on tossing us down a the end of the day as parched and brittle as a Bombay duck.”

(Yes, I know what that is like. My first Albanian summer included a day at Lake Shkodra. By lunch time I was red. The sun just seemed to love my “whiter than white” Scottish skin and by afternoon I was trying to find any kind of shelter and avoid the sun at all costs. Then we had to cycle back from Shiroke to Shkoder which took another half an hour…serious sunburn and dehydration!)

“The voyager who dashes from Tirana to Elbasan, along the road through the plains, a four hour ride in a rickety Ford car, and who bravely risks one night at the Hotel Adriatik, does not get the quality of Elbasan. Elbasan is a town to loiter in, though not in the café , to be sure. That is a rather dismal place, decorated by oleographic prints of big-bosomed, wasp waisted, luscious light ladies of forty years agone, occupied by groups of spasmodically barbered Albanians playing cards, dominoes, or backgammon with a nerve racking vehemence. No. Perhaps the best place where to get your Turkish coffee and cigarette and contemplation is in the hairdresser’s shop. Coffee and cigarette we write advisedly, for does not the Albanian proverb say: “Kafa pa duhan si Turku pa iman”( Coffee without tobacco is like a Turk without belief.”
And the barber’s shop, much more gay( in the 1920’s the word “gay” meant “carefree” or “happy”) than the café, was a place of resort for coffee drinkers as well as the unshorn. Or you could go to the silversmith’s and begin a lengthy bargain for a pair of old silver buckles with the baptism of Christ crudely carved upon them, or for a few silver amulets; here, too, you would have got coffee. Then the lawyer’s shop was always open; opposite it was a poorly furnished general store of two brothers who had been in America, who never seemed to make a sale of more than twopence in value. Alternatively you might have sat with the leather worker whom you have commissioned to make a satchel, and he would also have given you coffee; or you could have joined the audience at the tailor’s, where the policeman read the newspaper aloud; or you might sit with the tobacconist while he was selecting the leaves of excellent Elbasan growth, cutting them with minute precision in a primitive apparatus, or have watched his little daughter blowing water from her mouth on to the cut of tobacco to give it proper moisture; or you could have drunk strange scented herbal tea at the tiny teashop of the Moslem priest. In all these places and many more you would have been warming Elbasan in your hands and allowing its flavour to penetrate to your nostrils. Then you might have talked about it.”

In the afternoon we went down to the River Shkumbi and seated near the magnificent old bridge…we watched these dramatic peasants file homewards against the skyline, the men riding, the women trudging patiently behind.
( Funny enough I was down in Elbasan recently and that is the very same impression that I got. I saw on a number of occasions either women carrying heavy loads, or on one occasion, an old man probably in his 70’s walking with a donkey loaded up, and his poor wife behind carry a heavy load!)

Page 153
If you desire to take a thrill, take a public lorry from Korcha to Permeti. Your life will be in danger at least 6 times and you will see the magnificent scenery. You will also quite possibly be partially deaf for 2 days afterwards.

Page 109 – Permeti
Permeti was remarkable for 2 causes. The first was the numbers of men, the second was the dearth of women. The men…sat about in the cafes or loafed at the street corners from morning to night, talked revolutionary politics ( all the south was, of course, a hotbed of anti-Zogist conspiracies), read the wretched rags of newspapers, played cards or backgammon or else – favourite occupation – sat for hours with blank faces and minds, twirling key chains or rosaries about their fingers. The old genial schoolmaster was the only one we ever saw who read a book and he had to read in Greek, for I believe there are not above two dozen books in all, printed in the Albanian tongue.”

( Again I have a similar experience any time I take a short trip of 17kms to the small town of Koplik. There, the streets are full of men standing around but not so many women, and I think I could count on one hand the times I have seen a women in the café. Although you will see many women on bicycles in Shkoder, I have as yet to see a woman on a bicycle in Koplik)

Please see here for more information on Jan and Cora Gordon.

Tirana (Two Vagabonds in Albania)

Author's quotes in bold.
My comments in italics.

The book opens with the authors arriving in Durres and travelling to Tirana although there were not too many cars to travel in…

“Don’t stay in Durrazo (Durres). There’s nothing to stop for in Durrazo unless you want to sketch the old walls that the Venetians made…”

I find that funny. First impressions really do last, and this is the last of Durres that we hear about - yet they really seem to like some other places e.g. Elbasan.
My first impression of Albania was arriving near midnight in March 1994, staying in an apartment in Kombinat with serious damp problems! , and sleeping on an old communist style couch.
Still, I fell in love with Albania.
Next morning I had a beautiful breakfast of warm Albanian bread and “çaj mali” (mountain tea...though i think it is more of a medicinal plant boiled in hot water)

As a capital Tirana was hardly impressive. It looked at first to us like the bazaar part of an Eastern city, but which had lost its city. Rows upon rows of meagre houses hollowed out into shops and hot with the tired heat of the end of a languid afternoon. There were 3 hotels…” all were full and the reason…” The parliament is sitting. Deputies are sleeping two in a bed.” Sorry but that last sentence makes me laugh! We can’t get 2 deputies now to agree on anything let alone share a bed!

In the end Tirana pleased us well in its way. It was an excellent town from our points of view. Essentially we are lazy travellers. Give us a decently warm climate, a chair outside any too respectable café, a refreshing drink and tobacco and we will sit and sit for hours on end, cheerfully contemplate.” You can begin to realise why they enjoyed Albania!

“And for the evening’s amusement there were two cafes where gypsy orchestras played queer and thrilling music, and where gypsy girls danced the most trivial and uninspiring dances that it has ever been out lot to witness.”

For all its Parliament, Albania is an autocracy, a tyranny, to use the word in its Greek sense, and about all a deputy can do is to job jobs in the civil service, the police or the army.”

5a.m. they left Tirana…
“Tirana still slept. All her political aspirations, jealousies, quarrels, intrigues were numb for a few hours. And how sweet the air tasted.”

Tomorrow they travel on down ( or should that be up and over into Elbasan)

Please see here for more information on Jan and Cora Gordon.

Two Vagabonds in Albania

Sorry I have not posted for a few days, but I have had a nasty virus on the computer that first did not let me get past the start up screen, then after solving that problem, it sent 25,000 e-mails a second!
Then it deleted my network connection and we had great difficulty in getting back online.
I had to re-format my computer, so hopefully the problem is gone.

This post is another book review, this time...
"Two vagabonds in Albania" by Jan and Cora Gordon.
(Apparently the most sought after book in the vagabond series by these authors - although it is now difficult to find a copy)

One post will not do justice to this very readable account by an English couple travelling around Albania in the mid 1920's.

They write...
“This is a picture of the half-oriental, half Western community trying to make a state of itself”



As you can see from the above map(click on the map for a larger image), they travelled extensively around southern and northern Albania. They had studied the Albanian language for 6 weeks prior to their visit, and they often describe events as though they themselves understood all that was going...but I think much must have been translated to them.

This is an account of their journey, mostly in the mountain areas, and gives a very good detail of Albanian life at that time.

Rather than give a brief description, I hope to post a few entries over the next few days , which will give you a far better flavour of this book.

Please see here for more information on Jan and Cora Gordon.

Albania 1976

Watched a program yesterday on Digi+ (Digitalb Tv) about Albania in 1976. Enver Hoxha was in Gjirokaster visiting his hometown, and everything in Albania was great! (according to the presenter - and my mother-in-law!)
Couldn't help feel sorry for the people cheering Enver Hoxha...as i remembered the words, "ti kete POPULL NE DRITE E QITE".


ALBANIA 1976
Small nation
Little time
Tiny ration
Enormous shadow
Great fear
Great want

And throughout the land
Shrieks and cries
Like owls in the night

SHQIPËRI 1976
Vend i vogël
Kohë e vogël
Rracion i vogël.

Errësirë e madhe
Frikë e madhe
Mjerim i madh.

Dhe rrugëve të atdheut
Si kukuvajka nën hënë
Leh e ulërin.

Bilal Xhaferri