Scenes of Albanian life in Tirana

In this capital the new modern structural (steel and glass) high raisers of this millennium are mixed in with a variety of old brick buildings, dating back to almost one hundred years ago. Some are originally Albanian (low 1-2 story) single family homes, while others (with 3-4 stories) were built by the Italians before and during their occupation during WWII (late 1930’s - mid 1940’s), followed by the ones during the Russians (1950-60’s), and Chinese (1965-70’s) influences that conditioned the country at the end of the war. This is the situation in many parts of the city, and also in the very center of it. The once private backyards (with grape vines and mandarin trees) are disappearing and living conditions are now crowded everywhere. Few are the remaining 2 story villas of the old fashioned wealthy families, which are now being renovated and can maintain a private garden area around.

Notwithstanding the clusters of assorted constructions and the incredible congestion of vehicular traffic that permeates the city, one can find astonishing quiet in their own quarters. Away from the main boulevards (4-6 lane wide), the movement of cars in the narrow passage ways in between the buildings has to proceed at a snail pace, parking spots are continually negotiated and inventively created, with the humble pedestrians carefully trying not only to avoid the traffic, but to find a few inches where to squeezing their way through. At night, even with open windows, there is complete silence in my apartment, with not a sound to be heard.

Due to closeness of the buildings, however, during the day, when the shutters are rolled up, I cannot help but observe how life in this city is lived. From the glass enclosed balcony of mine, just sitting down at my desk, I can see women appear and disappear often on their open balconies to hang and reposition their laundry, as it dries. They even talk to each other across the way, and some of them lovingly attend to their planted pots that display a variety of flowers.

As I got up this morning and opened my bedroom window I could see a city sanitation truck quietly picking up the garbage that accumulates fast in the open bins that are strategically positioned in the midst of the buildings. The system is the same as the one in Italy, where the metal bins are called “cassonetti”, but the trucks I see here are not specifically built for such a task. They are regular open vans and the men have no choice but to use bare hands and shovels to collect the stuff and throw it on top of the truck. They work in pairs and one of them, from time to time, walks on top of the collected pile to ‘compact it’ with his feet….
Here I never hear the noise produced when the trucks come rolling by for similar collections such as in NY or in Italy, but I do know that these rounds are faithfully made every 2 days. I also see quite often men and women wearing blue or orange uniforms carrying a sack and a picker and broom; they roam around and sweep away and collect paper or trash discarded in the streets. Such are some facets of Albanian life in Tirana these days.