Skip to main content

Dangerously Fashionable

Two more Western newspapers carried stories on Albania at the weekend. The San Francisco Chronicle published a piece by Bill Fink on Sunday, Not Such a Joke. Here is a sample:
I arrived in Tirana expecting to see a city with a new surface but rotting at the core, a painted pig of a capital wallowing in its own filth. But as disasters go, it was another disappointment. Central Tirana parks are now filled with kids playing around new jungle gyms. Parents sit on public benches amid neatly manicured, trash-free lawns. Multicolored buildings create a skyline resembling a postmodern Lego set. Couples stroll through the formerly forbidden and now fashionable "bloc" district of bars, cafes and restaurants. At night, young groups order cocktails and listen to chill music in Euro-hip bars, while men sip their thimbles of coffee and smoke away the time in sidewalk cafes. People walk home without fear of mugging.
The same day, The Independent on Sunday published a piece by Alex Wade, taking issue with AA Gill's recent hatchet job in the Sunday Times. Here is a sample from his article, Wild Albania-Coming in From the Cold:

As I reflect on various trips to Albania, I recall sitting on a veranda in Gjirokaster, sipping a glass of raki, watching the sun set on the Lunxheria mountains. I think of swimming in the glistening Ionian sea, drinking coffee in Tirana, wandering among the exquisite ruins of Butrint.

I remember all the instances of friendliness from Albanians, and I think of Byron's words: "[The Albanians] are brave, rigidly honest, and faithful ... perhaps the most beautiful race ... in the world."

If anyone comes across good - or bad - articles on Albania why not pass them on? I will mention them here and maybe put together a post containing all the articles that I have mentioned and linked to in previous posts.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Great articles and keep up the great work... i enjoy reading this page and reading news from back home
Thanks
Anonymous said…
Thanks for your frequent links to articles about Albania. And, of course, thanks for your posts. They are wonderful. I love that idea of having all the articles in a list of their own.
Will gladly point to articles of interest when I'll come across them, but you are way ahead of us...and I don't mean only time zone wise....:-) !
Keep up the good work, Alwyn -- the proposed collection is an excellent idea, and thank you for the great service you provide to many of us.
olli said…
You are all very welcome. I'm glad people find this stuff useful. I'm also thinking of putting together a single page linking to all the official reports I have highlighted in the past year.

Popular posts from this blog

Dy Rame Per Tirane

I was watching Top Channel last night, first the news, then Fiks Fare. According to them Tirana's citizens now have a choice not only between Rama and Olldashi, but also between Rama and Rama. A minor right-wing faction, Parti 'Balli Kombetar' , submitted papers to the election authorities registering their candidate, Akile Rama. The people on Fiks Fare got hold of the papers and sent a reporter and camera team to the address listed for Mr A Rama. After much ringing of the bell the gate was reluctantly opened by a middle-aged woman who refused to speak to the reporter and tried to close the gate on her. Back in the studio Saimiri and Doctori - the two presenters of Fiks Fare - revealed that Mr Akile Rama was 73 years old, in hospital, and did not know he was now a candidate for mayor. They also compared two documents - the papers submitted on his behalf, and a genuine document he had signed. The signatures were not even remotely similar. There was an interview with the lea

Albania and the Perils of the 21st Century

Another article on religion in Albania appeared yesterday. Patrick Poole, writing in the American Thinker , argues that Saudi funding for the construction of mosques and the training of imams is a threat to Albania, since these mosques and imams reflect the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia.

Guide Turistike

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council , the future is bright for Albania. The Council ranks Albania ninth out of 174 countries for tourism growth over the next ten years. A summary of the Council's report is available, as is the full report complete with many pages of graphs, charts and spreadsheets. This summer I have seen a number of tourists on the streets of Tirana. Some of them may well be Albanian expats, or people of Albanian descent returning home to visit family, but others are genuine 'foreigners'. Judging from their appearance, they are probably best described as 'independent travellers' - the kind of people who are not interested in luxury hotels or crowded beaches. This is a good start, but independent travellers are not the kind of big spenders that the tourist industry likes. In the longer term, if Albania wants to bring in the kind of free-spending tourists who currently holiday in Croatia or Slovenia, there will have to be a huge invest