Albania My First Posting A Bloodstained Surprise. How did this come about?
So it was on a cold and windy January morning in 1998 that I arrived at Heathrow airport to catch my early morning flight to Vienna en-route to my final destination Tirana the capital city of Albania. With all the background briefs on the country I had read up on, I was setting off on this, my first overseas posting with a lot of excitement and more than just a little bit of apprehension and trepidation, determined to do a good job come what may.
Having changed planes in Vienna, I boarded the small Austrian Airlines BAe146 for the final leg of my flight to Tirana. Because of the ongoing unstable situation that still prevailed in Albania at that time, very few regular airlines were still flying into the country. Austrian was one of them and despite the relatively small size of the BAe146, it was virtually empty with the crew very nearly outnumbering passengers.
As the plane descended steeply, coming out of the fog enshrouded mountains to land at Tirana airport, there was a thick blanket of snow on the ground with a strong, stiff wind blowing which made for a very bumpy landing. Disembarking from the aircraft we boarded a lorry (no bus here) for the short trip from the aircraft to the single-storied airport terminal.
After passing through immigration control and collecting my bags, I stepped outside the unheated terminal into the freezing wind where thankfully there to meet me was Larry, the Management Officer (MO) in charge of administration at the embassy.
Quick introductions over, we quickly jumped into an armoured embassy Discovery and set off for the 17 Kms drive to Tirana. On the way, Larry handed me an embassy arrival pack labelled “Welcome to Albania”, loaded with useful information and colourful photographs of wonderful scenery, traditional costumes and happy smiling faces. He then proceeded to say that I should forget what was written in the pack as most of it was not relevant given what had recently taken place and he proceeded to brief me verbally on the current security situation.
Of course I was fully aware of all of this but out of politeness listened, displaying what I hoped was the right level of interest and attentiveness befitting a new boy. As I was listening, I couldn’t help glancing out of the window as we travelled along the rutted road. The whole landscape was pretty featureless under the covering of snow and gradually thickening fog, not much to see really, but what were all those large snow enshrouded lumps in the ground that appeared with great regularity all along our route?
I interrupted Larry, apologising as I did so for stopping him in mid flow and posed this question to him. He said that they were pillboxes that had been constructed during Hoxha’s regime. Apparently, over the course of thirty years or so, tens of thousands of ordinary citizens had been mobilized to construct nearly a million of these round, squat, concrete bubbles all over the country. For some reason, Hoxha was paranoid that Albania was ripe for invasion from foreign powers, hence the strategic necessity for this defensive measure.
Getting back to Larry’s briefing, he continued his spiel by saying that currently things were pretty quiet in the capital, but it would be advisable to keep a low profile, especially during the hours of darkness as there were still outbreaks of sporadic shooting and looting taking place in the city, although this was now decreasing as the government got to grips with the situation. He finished by saying that the plan now was to get me settled into my accommodation but first he had to apologise for the fact that the allocation of this property for me had to be done at short notice. In addition he said, it had not been cleaned up after the recent incident there.
Incident! What incident? What had not been cleaned up?
He saw the puzzled look on my face and then went on to elaborate by saying that a couple of weeks earlier, my predecessor had got into a serious and violent argument with his Albanian waitress girlfriend resulting in her stabbing him multiple times to such a degree that he had to be airlifted to hospital in Italy for urgent medical attention.
The local police had arrested the girlfriend. Larry further explained that because he had been dealing with the logistics of carrying out the medical evacuation, he had not had the time or the staff to bring the apartment up to standard. All of this was news to me and needless to say I was more than a little perturbed not knowing what to expect.
At last in the fading light we entered the outskirts of Tirana heading for the centre and my first impressions of the city were not good.
There was very little traffic around at that time which was probably a good thing as there was no street lighting, but the thing that struck me the most was the state of most of the buildings we passed, the majority of which were drab, neglected and in a bad state of disrepair. The areas we passed through were a mixture of splendid old turn of the century buildings that had probably in earlier times been quite elegant but had over the years been left to decay.
These buildings were interspersed with communist-era three or four storied apartment blocks, grey, unpainted and in desperate need of repair. The other noticeable thing that was very apparent was the amount of rubbish piled up outside the buildings and along the streets. It looked like the recent unrest had led to a breakdown of some or all of the public services.
Driving on a bit further, we passed through Tirana’s main square. Skanderbeg Square was named after Albania’s national hero and had by the looks of it been transformed into some sort of huge, giant bazaar. There were literally dozens of small, shabby, makeshift market stalls of various sizes selling everything under the sun, most of it pirated, smuggled or counterfeit as I later found out. Even on a cold, wintery evening such as this, with darkness descending, the square was crowded with locals all looking for a bargain or a hard to get item.
Larry made a point of singling out a large number of individuals who seemed to be wandering around the square with large bundles of cash in their hands. He said that these individuals were money-changers and money-lenders. They dealt only in US dollars or Euros and apparently their rate of exchange and rates of interest were extortionate but that they were doing a thriving business as most of the population had lost faith and trust in the local banks since the collapse of the recent fraudulent get rich quick schemes which had led to the mass civil unrest.
After passing through the square, we proceeded down what was the city’s main thoroughfare and turned off into a long, narrow side street just behind a futuristic, pyramid shaped building, which I discovered later was the International Centre of Culture (formerly named the Enver Hoxha Museum). Here in this area, the quality of housing appeared rather better than what I had seen before and Larry explained that this district was where most of the foreign diplomats lived, hence the higher standard.
It was also the main area where most of the government ministries were located. Shortly after, we pulled up outside the small two-storey block which housed my apartment, we got out and Larry from the depths of his rucksack produced a large bunch of keys that would have made a Yeoman Warder of the Tower feel proud. Apparently these were all for my property.
Larry then pointed to a large detached house that backed on to the rear of my property and said that it was our Ambassador’s official residence. I felt like making some joke about noisy neighbours, but wisely refrained from doing so.
He then proceeded to unlock the iron gate leading from the main street into a small garden before tackling the building’s main door which was wrought-iron plate with double locks with just inside another inner barred cage door, again with double locks. Getting through these successfully, we went up a short flight of of stairs reaching another set of double doors, which thanks to Larry’s Raffle-like skills with the keys finally gained us entrance into my apartment.
By now, I was not totally surprised by what I found inside. Every window was barred and the main bedroom door was also reinforced with metal plate and double locks. With the main bedroom, there was a good reason for these internal security measures as this room was to be my “keep” or safe room where I had to hunker down in times of emergency and wait for someone to come and get me. The bedroom was also equipped with a base radio station to keep me in direct touch with the embassy and other UK colleagues if the phone network were to go down.
However, this was not my biggest shock.
The walls of the living room, hallway and kitchen were smeared extensively with dried, dark brown smudges, which also gave out a pungent, musty smell that pervaded the whole apartment. Larry apologised for what he described as the dried blood and he said the apartment was due to be repainted as a matter of top priority.
Given the amount of dried blood I saw, it must have been one hell of an argument and quite frankly I was surprised my predecessor had survived judging by the amount of the red stuff splashed around the various rooms. Weeks later I found out the full story behind this incident but that is a tale for another day. The full story is in the attached link.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12320456.british-diplomat-stabbed-by-albanian-girlfriend/
Before taking his leave, Larry pointed out that they had put some provisions in for me until such times as I could change money and do a proper shop. He also said that a car would collect me the next morning and take me to the embassy for my first day of work. As he was talking, the power suddenly went off, plunging the apartment into darkness. Larry then, as if by magic, produced a small torch which gave out a dull beam of light and said that power cuts were a daily occurrence and that there was no timetable for these cuts except they varied sometimes for an hour or two or in some cases most of the day and evening.
Apparently the main power station had been partially destroyed and looted leaving the city with a haphazard and intermittent power supply, a state of affairs that was to last for the remainder of my tour in Albania.
Then with a farewell shake of the hands, Larry departed into the darkness taking his torch with him and a parting shot to make sure all my doors were locked after they left, something I eventually managed to do with great difficulty in the darkness.
My first night in my new apartment on my first posting and I could not see inches in front of my face. At that time I was a regular smoker, so I took out my lighter and guided by its flickering light I managed to find some candles among the provisions in the kitchen, which I quickly lit.
I made a note there and then to lay in a plentiful supply of candles for the future as well as a torch and batteries. It is amazing how much you take regular, efficient power and light for granted and it is only when you do not have both that you fully appreciate what you do not have.
So by candlelight, I unpacked my suitcases and laid out my suit and shirt ready for my first day of work the next day. Because there was no power these crumpled items of clothing could not be ironed and I hoped that at some stage the power would come back on before morning so that I could iron them and present at least a smart and impressive appearance on my first day.
Well, the rest of the evening passed slowly. The power did not come back on and before bedding down for the night I managed some bread and fruit by candlelight before hitting the hay. Needless to say with no power, there was no heat, so I actually went to bed with more clothes on than I had travelled in just to keep warm.
After a restless night, I awoke early the next morning and managed somehow to have a very brief cold body wash and an even colder and uncomfortable wet shave that resulted in more than one bloody shaving nick. Having applied some small pieces of tissue to the offending scars in the hope that it would stop the bleeding, I dressed. I must admit I did not present a very impressive appearance, crumpled shirt, creased suit and a face that looked as if I had gone more than one round with Mike Tyson.
I heard a car horn sound outside and presumed that this was my cue to leave and head for the embassy. It took me an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out which keys fitted which locks to get me out of the apartment and then re-locking the doors. Eventually I managed to get out, opened the front gate and there was the embassy vehicle ready to take me to work.
My driver, who was to become over the period of my posting a very close friend was called Benny One (more of the name later) who had been in the good old days of Enver a bit of a celebrity as he had been the Albanian national cycling champion for a number of years I learned later.
As I climbed into the car, I could see that he was not impressed by what he saw as gauged by the look he gave me. He pointed to my face and I realised I still had the two bloody scraps of tissue covering my shaving nicks. I quickly (and carefully) peeled them off my face leaving two small, wonderful and impressive weeping scabs in place.
With that we set off for the ten minute drive to the embassy. Being chauffeured around was not the norm. It had apparently been decided by the Ambassador that while there was still unrest, it was best to ensure the safety off staff going to and from work by allowing them to use the embassy vehicles, which were all armoured. When I say embassy staff, this was British staff only and not a privilege afforded our local staff.
As we drove to the embassy, the city was coming to life, It was obvious by the hurrying throngs of people I saw that work must start early in Albania (for those that had work). I was also struck by the large number of spanking new Mercedes that seemed to be speeding along the streets weaving their way haphazardly past tractors towing trollies laden with fruit and vegetables and old Soviet era cars which had seen better days.
I mentioned the impressive number of new vehicles to Benny One who just gave me a wry smile. What did that mean, I wondered?
We again passed through Skanderbeg Square and turned off down a side street at the entrance of which was a police checkpoint. I liked the look of this, a visible sign of security at last, very reassuring. Benny One waved to the scruffily uniformed AK-47 toting policeman on duty who opened the barrier and let us through.
We were now on what was called embassy row. Most of the foreign embassies in Tirana were located on this one street cheek by jowl. We drove past the very large and impressive Chinese embassy and then stopped outside our embassy. A locally employed embassy guard opened the drive gate and let us in.
The embassy looked like a fairly large residential detached house and apart from the Union Jack flag flying from the flagpole and the diplomatic plated vehicles on the driveway, you would have been hard pressed to know that this was an embassy.
I later discovered that the FCO crest (which is displayed outside all UK diplomatic buildings) had been stolen and they were awaiting a replacement to come out from London in the diplomatic bag. Apart from the crest, the building had escaped the attention of looters when the staff evacuated the previous year (unlike the German embassy just down the road which had been completely trashed) and was in quite a good state of repair although it could have done with a lick of paint here and there.
Benny One after parking up then took me into the embassy leading me past the largest generator I had ever seen – no power problems here I thought – straight into Larry’s office. Larry gave me a quizzical look when I first entered, but had the good grace not to tell me what a mess I looked. He told me that before he took me up for my formal welcome interview with the Ambassador, he would take me around the various sections in the embassy and introduce me to the local staff.
This he quickly proceeded to do and needless to say I immediately forgot everyone’s names as more and more people were introduced to me. We then went upstairs to where the Ambassador’s office was located. It was situated next to what would be my office. He quietly tapped twice on the Ambassador’s door and led me in for my welcome meeting. After introducing me to the Ambassador he then took his leave closing the door on his way out.
After a quick shake of hands, he motioned for me to sit down. My first Ambassador!
I marvelled at his well-cut suit, immaculate coiffure and well-clipped moustache. Oh dear. I became all too aware and self-conscious of my own unkempt appearance and bloodied face so I thought I would firstly apologise for this before he got going. He did not make any comment.
There was no small talk; instead he just launched into yet another verbal briefing on the current security situation and what the role of the UK in Albania was.
He followed this by reinforcing the point about being especially vigilant as foreigners were now being subjected to burglaries, muggings and other crimes. Reassuring I thought. He went on to say that with the collapse of the Pyramid schemes, people who had lost everything were desperate for money and they were not too choosy how they obtained it. They could not rob other Albanians who had nothing, hence the focus on criminal activity against foreigners.
With this last warning, that was the end of the interview.
Short, sharp, not really telling me a lot. I was not impressed. Nothing was asked about who I was, what I had done in the past, family connections, nothing. He came across as a bit of a cold fish, not inspiring and not engendering much warmth or feeling of inclusion.
Then suddenly, he stood up thus signalling the end of the interview and I duly exited his office. Larry was waiting for me just outside the door and proceeded to take me into what would be my office. Because it contained the communications equipment along with the associated codes and cyphers, the entrance door to the office was security protected by a combination lock.
It was a small office, very shabby and festooned with paper and files scattered around the communications equipment. Larry apologised for the mess, but explained that they were just getting back to normal after returning from the evacuation and that it would not take me long to clear up.
Thanks Larry I thought, I just wished he would stop apologising. His apologies were always portents of bad news.
With that he left and I was finally alone to survey my little empire. So far, not really a morale-boosting start to my overseas diplomatic life, but surely it could only get better – never be swayed by first impressions has always been my mantra in life.
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