By: Harrison E. Salisbury / The New York Times, September 9, 1957

A shoe shine costs a dollar in Tirana, but that is the last thing that worries Albanians. Many of them do not shine their shoes at all. In fact, most walk barefoot and others wear wooden clogs. The industrialization of the 20th century has only touched this mountainous country, which was once the Kingdom of Illyria and now bears the proud name of the People's Republic of Albania - the Land of Eagles. How little industrialization has touched the country is immediately clear when the driver of the "Warsaw" (a Polish model of the Soviet "Pobeda"), after eight hours of climbing and descending through the mountains, stops the car at high speed on the edge of a precipice. The uphill and downhill journey on mountain roads has worn out the hydraulic brake system. "I will use water until I find some wine," says the driver, putting on a mask of philosophy.

He carries water to the next village, where he can buy a bottle of red wine. He says that wine is quite good for the brakes, because of the alcohol, and adds that raki is very strong. Although there are police officers in cute uniforms at the main intersections in Tirana, and even in the smaller towns, there are only a few cars on the road.

While traveling to Elbasan or past the farms on the way to Lake Ohrid, you see more loaded donkeys than Jeeps, and herds of sheep are as common as large caravans of Czech Skodas or Soviet Zis trucks zigzagging through the curves of mountain roads loaded with chrome or supplies of all kinds.

The most permanent are the pedestrians. Women with rust-colored clay water jugs, which they carefully hold on their heads; girls in embroidered red skirts and ornate woolen headscarves, men in sashes and women in shawls, shepherds in rough robes and children dressed in rags.

The locals transport everything by donkey. They use a kind of reed thatch, which is very functional: in the walls of houses, room partitions, floor mats, sleeping mats. There are small handcarts, as short as the black-skinned boys who push them, and large four-wheeled carts, which move fully loaded and covered with wood in the form of fences.

Traditional scene

Albania hasn't changed much from what it was before communism came: with men wearing white turbans, women dressed mostly in black, and a few Muslim women wearing veils. While walking or riding, the women always have a baby to look after, feed, or cuddle.

The men carry long sticks (kërrabë) with which they drive the sheep, often a rifle hanging sideways on the back of one of them is noticeable. The roads, for the most part, are the same ones that were once used by the Romans and Illyrians, a few of them were repaired during the Italian occupation in World War II and of these, only gray places remain on the bends, from which the mountains were guarded.

There are barracks for soldiers built on mountain slopes or on the edge of fields and roads, near Lake Ohrid. It is not known why, when the war was at its peak, military units were deployed to clear paths in the mountains. From afar, the sounds of an artillery battery can be heard. Maneuver? Perhaps.

The sheep and shepherds seem unperturbed by them, perhaps accustomed to the noise. About a mile down the river, on a mountain path, a whole division is washing and washing clothes in the cool, fresh water. Almost the entire mountain is covered with shirts, which are drying in the late afternoon sun.

On the roadside, Albanians have placed dry, weak sheaves of wheat, while shepherds graze their flocks, which are frightened every time a truck, "Jeep" or official car passes, and in rare cases even one with passengers. There are no labor camps for prisoners on the roads of Albania.

I saw a large prison, on the outskirts of Vlora, with a wide front porch, where women waited to meet their husbands or to send them food through the guards. I saw a large number of areas surrounded by barbed wire, which could have been both army gatherings or concentration camps.

The roads are improving.

Large buildings have been set up for volunteer road construction teams, where groups of prisoners can be seen breaking rocks. Some Albanians have bicycles, but there are no private cars. One young man said: “Why do we need them? Where could we go with them? Our conditions do not allow us such things.”

He is undoubtedly right. Bad roads are enough to turn an American car into a pile of scrap metal in a few weeks. In Tirana there are several US-made cars that belong to diplomats.

Here, apart from the French, Yugoslavs and Italians, the rest of the diplomats belong to the Soviet Eastern Bloc, from Europe or Asia. The pride of the capital are two new “Volgas”, products of the “Gorky” automobile plant in the USSR.

Combined with a caramel brown and a synthetic orange, they glide along Stalin Boulevard towards the Council of Ministers. Albania also has a system telegrafik, and a telephone network. There are four telephones on Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu's desk alone. But the Tirana Telephone Directory has only 90 pages, with an average of 12 numbers per page.

Beer is drunk in the city.

In the evenings in Tirana or even in the port city of Durrës, people can gather in cafes called “Volga” and drink a beer. Although with its vineyards Albania should be a country that produces wine in large quantities, beer is the standard drink in the cities. There are so many Russians in Albania and their influence is so great that even Albanian toothpaste has the same aroma as that of Moscow.

No one can say how many Russians there are in the country. It must be several thousand. There are advisers, experts, trade delegates, security specialists, military personnel and engineers. A large number of them populate the upper floors of the Italian-built hotel on Stalin Boulevard. They sunbathe on the white sandy beaches of Durres and drink in open-air cafes.

A Soviet engineer who had spent three years in the United States smiles at us almost friendly as he finishes his aperitif of brandy. “What people,” he says. “You can’t imagine what they are like. What a place.” He shakes his head ironically and sadly and begins to talk about Broadway, Times Square, the small buildings in New York, the crowds of people on Forty-Second Street, “packed like a wall.”

There is no doubt about the country he would prefer. Difficult roads for cars. Gomer continue to be the main transporters in the mountains. All-powerful Russian advisors and the daily life of Albanians "proud" of the working class, but without money to shine their shoes. Below, the third part of a series of articles from Albania.

Grateful industrial class

What Albanians think of themselves is difficult to find out? Even after a dozen conversations, always through a Foreign Ministry translator, it is difficult to be sure. Of course, the proletarian class of the small country feels grateful to the forces that brought it into being, the Albanian Communist Party and the Soviet Union.

As for the villagers, they have nothing to say to strangers. They give us some incomprehensible signs of happiness and well-being. Their physical structure seems to express chronic diseases of surrender.

Perhaps the best impression we could get was from an English-speaking Albanian who had lived and worked in the US for 15 years before the war. “I worked in Cleveland,” he says. “In 1939 I went back to see my people. The war caught up with me here and I couldn’t go back.”

I said, “It’s not much like Cleveland here.” “Brother,” he said, realizing that the Albanian agreed, “you can’t even imagine the difference.” “How do you manage to stay?” I asked. He shrugged. “I just forgot everything. I told myself; I’ve never been to America. It’s the only way to survive.”

It would be easy, and not at all unfair, to write that Albania is a fragment of Stalinist Russia that has anachronistically managed to survive in the post-Stalinist world. But that is only one side of the coin. A traveler to this Muslim country under construction on the Adriatic immediately discovers that Albania is a country that the West has forgotten.

Bitterly poor, severely wounded by World War II, devastated by the hostilities of the "Cold War", Albania is drowning and in such a state that its inhabitants, in whose history there is only tragedy, desperate from this terrible situation, are ready to try anything.

The state of the country today is not at all satisfactory. The standard of living is the lowest in Europe or very close to the lowest. Only in remote areas in Siberia or Central Asia can one see so many unshaven and unclothed people. But it must be added that the improvement of the cultural and economic situation has been improved by the communist regime, which has been helped by the fact that the West has brutally refused to have anything to do with this country.

The visit of several correspondents and a small group of tourists from Britain and France seems to indicate a need, however small, to improve hostile and isolating relations with the West. Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu insists that Albania wants to normalize relations with the West. There is ample reason to believe that Moscow would not allow such normalization, but at least it is a step forward and a big change from the situation two years ago.

If Albania is in this bad state, a large part of the blame lies with the country itself and its leaders, but it is also a truth that very few Albanians know, that the West's distance, negligence, and hostility towards a small country with proud people have also contributed to this.

First impression

My first impression when I landed at Tirana Airport was that I had landed somewhere in the Soviet Union, perhaps somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains. The first thing I saw was a handful of soldiers, dressed in what looked like dirty, tattered Soviet uniforms. All of them were carrying long rifles with bayonets attached.

There seemed to be Soviet officers everywhere, even Soviet policemen in their characteristic blue uniforms with red stripes on their summer shirts. The policeman directed the non-existent traffic, making hand signals similar to those of his colleagues in Moscow, and standing in the middle of a black and white cross, the same as the one in Moscow. The writing in the waiting room at the airport was in Russian and Albanian.

Only later did they explain to us that the soldiers were Albanian and the officers were Albanian, but the country had adapted the style of Soviet uniforms for years. In my notebook I wrote: “Women working in the streets and soldiers everywhere. Even in the Soviet Union, I have never seen so many soldiers. The hotel, a very beautiful Italian building, was well-kept in a block of buildings facing a wide boulevard, named after Stalin.

Two blocks away is the Central Committee of the Party, guarded by two guards armed with machine guns, ready to shoot. We took a little walk. Some interesting buildings, a nice new stadium, calculators in the grocery stores. Soldiers, soldiers. A hotel full of Russians. Waiters who speak Russian.

Other impressions

This impression, of a great military preoccupation and the influence of the Soviet Union on everything, did not fade from our minds during the entire week we stayed, which included trips to the main cities and stays in vacation spots. However, during our stay we formed other impressions as well.

Albania suffered 500 years under Turkish occupation and violence, before it overthrew them and declared independence in 1912. Apart from 25 years of resistance in the 15th century, led by their National Hero, Skanderbeg, Albania has known only poverty, oppression, and violence.

The rule of King Zog, which was established before the war, could be called renaissance, but it was followed by Italian and then German occupation and finally leadership by a command of guerrilla fighters. The post-war communist regime was established only after being catapulted by the USSR and rose to power during the conflict between the USSR and Yugoslavia.

The conflict between the two powers divided the Albanian communists. It led to the massacre of pro-Yugoslav leaders and for about 10 years the country was in a state of alarm, sometimes for fear of an attack from abroad, sometimes for fear of internal rebellion.

It should not be too surprising that the country looks like a military camp and has done very little to heal its social and economic wounds. The head of the Albanian Communist Party, Secretary Enver Hoxha, and Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu are aware that it was only Soviet aid that kept the regime alive during 9 very difficult years.

The worship of Stalin

For many Albanians, the Soviet Union means only Stalin. Here Stalin is the most revered man, his words are written in the hydroelectric power plant near Tirana, on red letters in the lobby of the National Museum.

His name has been given to the largest industrial work, a textile combine, while his statue dominates Tirana's main square and the city's boulevard. In the mountains with peasants, in the offices of farm administrators and in cities along the Adriatic, Stalin's portrait and bust have been given a place of honor.

Not a word against Stalin has been said in Albania. They are proud to paint themselves as “Stalinists.” If you tell them that his image is being toppled, they only respond with angry eyes and a shrug of the shoulders. Officials carry out their duties with the same bureaucratic system, policemen work with the same methods, and the suspicion and xenophobia are those of the dark days of the Soviet dictator.

The date of Stalin's death, March 5, 1953, seems not to have been marked on the Albanian calendar. Albania seems like a colony of the Roman Empire, which has not yet realized that the barbarians have destroyed Rome. Long cut off from the West and kept away from it by the tactics of the "cold war", unfamiliar with Western concepts and Western thoughts, the Albanians have eyes and ears only for Moscow.

Every Albanian believes that his country is surrounded by enemies, whom the West supplies with weapons and who are ready to attack, and the only defense is that of a strong army and support from the USSR.

The same suspicion is also expressed about the possibility of internal enemies. Only in times of war can you see so many soldiers on the normal streets of a city, and apparently the fear of an internal revolt is the reason why they become more frequent as the night progresses.

Albanians blame the US

Many of the curses for the small daily concerns of a simple Albanian are directed towards the United States. The Albanian lives in a world that seems to him overpopulated with enemies, and the greatest of these is the United States. Now, high officials have directed the propaganda and the main hatred goes to Yugoslavia, which is blamed for all the guerrilla wars in the North of the country, on the border between the two states.

Likewise, Greece and Italy, in Albanian propaganda for years, have been known only as allies of Yugoslavia, in the attempt to overthrow the regime in Albania. In this country, probably, six out of seven capable men are in uniform. And, this has prevented the country from developing economically and healing the wounds inherited since the time of King Zog.

The standard of living has increased, but the regime has been forced to become completely dependent on the Soviet Union in order to survive. Whether the Soviet leadership has helped Albania is debatable. When the communists took over the country, it was 99 percent agrarian. Birth rates were high, but so were deaths during childbirth, and death from starvation was common!

There were only a few concession mines. King Zog was the largest landowner and the main exporter of goods. If the Soviets had pushed the country towards industrialization and cooperativism, an independent peasant economy would have helped Albania develop more economically and Albanians would have lived better.

But that the extreme conditions have changed, this can be demonstrated by the doubling of the population, which has mainly come from the reduction in the number of deaths ...! While major medical campaigns are being carried out in the country to combat infectious diseases, posters are being distributed, strong medicines are being used and people are being educated about cleanliness ...!

Albanians have reserved their greatest hatred for internal "traitors". They accuse the country's "bourgeoisie" that, unlike the bourgeoisie in other countries, did not help the revolution by aiding industrialization...! "The bourgeoisie in other countries", says a former partisan fighter, now a director at the National Museum, "built industry and helped the revolution. The Albanian bourgeoisie did nothing of the sort"!

The State Museum is built on the building that once served as an office for the Italian gendarmerie. Many communists were tortured to death in this place. Well-preserved instruments and photographs show the violence in detail. When the director talks about the failure of the bourgeoisie to secure industry, his eyes go to the places where the instruments of torture are exhibited. At this moment it is not difficult to read his thoughts.

All of "Socialist Realism"

Any suggestion of a little fun and excitement is ridiculed by Albanian youth. There may be such things in Poland, but not in Albania. When I quoted the Soviet author Vladimir Dudintsev and his highly controversial novel, entitled Not just with bread, a group of Albanian writers looked at me with hostility and laughed at me. “We don’t have Dudintsevs here,” said one of them, mincing his words.

“We have no disagreements. We are all Socialist Realists.” Often the young people who had studied in Moscow and worked on farms in Cërrik, Elbasan and Vlorë would drop their hostile looks when I started speaking to them in Russian. No one greeted you here, nowhere did you find the warm hospitality you received in the Soviet Union. There were no lavish dinners, lunches or friendly toasts, not a shower of questions about New York, Hollywood or at least the plight of black people.

The only one who asked about the United States of America asked about the workers. When I told that man that in the United States the workers were experiencing a progress in welfare, which was worth noting, he smacked his lips and said no more. On the other hand, the young man who served as our guide and came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had several difficulties in convincing the factory managers to open the doors to a correspondent from the United States of America.

They were often rude and suspicious and started making phone calls to the Central Committee in Tirana. In many factories that had previously been shown in Albanian documentaries, we were not allowed to take photos, even though the tour leader insisted that such a thing was allowed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Checking a riot report

For me, much of this sensitivity was similar to the reaction of a mollusk when its shell is opened for the first time. Here I can cite another incident. A news agency from the United States had telegraphed the Albanian Foreign Ministry to verify the news published in a Greek daily that there had been a revolt in Elbasan. They called me and asked me to verify the news myself, by going to Elbasan and asking people on the streets.

They stopped a man themselves and questioned him. His reaction was more than just surprise. He said that during the last four years he had lived there there had been no riots. Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu himself was so incensed by this dark report that he mocked it during a public speech. This summer a handful of British tourists visited the place. They managed to photograph a good many aspects of Albanian daily life, but this again aroused a deep sense of resentment.

These are just a few of the anger and bad impressions produced by the West's attitude towards Albania so far. The young people here have no choice but to keep their eyes on Moscow. They have no free path to New York, London or Paris, even if such a heretical idea manages to enter their heads.

If the present opportunity is positively assessed, if, disregarding the bad behavior of Albanian officials and their innate hostility, the opportunity is opened for a program of diplomatic relations, cultural exchanges, and commercial exchanges, an unexpected success can be achieved.

Albanian youth, like young people all over the world, are energetic and impatient, impressionable and fresh. They want a better life, for themselves and for their country, and so far only Moscow has shed a glimmer of light towards the future. /memorie.al/

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