3 ms·

A father of a guy that I know was an engineer and he was part of the team that designed the highway between Tirana and Valona. Enver decided to arrest all of th

A father of a guy that I know was an engineer and he was part of the team that designed the highway between Tirana and Valona. Enver decided to arrest all of them because they were conspiring against the state and the highway was just a landing area for US airplanes to invade the country. He was really paranoid about this stuff

UltraSane 2y ago
He seems more like a moron.
- black_puppydog 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - skirge 2y ago
    for not invading Albania or what?
    - black_puppydog 2y ago
      for electing another moron president... twice!
- fifticon 2y ago
  Good thing people are no longer electing such people to high office.
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    Trump is very stupid be he hasn't (so far) sentenced anyone to 30 years in prison for not using enough rebar.
jajko 2y ago
At one point, every third Albanian had either been interrogated by the Sigurimi or they had been incarcerated in labour camps, around 25k murdered [1] Albania was even within eastern communist block considered utter shithole run by mad paranoid guy. Well, he certainly was. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha#Political_repression_and_emigration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha#Political_repressi...
- lormayna 2y ago
  Exactly. You can be interrogated by police and detained only to have watched Italian TV or listen Italian radio broadcasts. Anyway, this was a very common behaviour in Albania and it's the reason why most Albanians speaks Italian very well and know a lot about italian culture.
- lqet 2y ago
  > Albania was even within eastern communist block considered utter shithole run by mad paranoid guy. I may be wrong, but just across the northern border of Albania, things may have already been very different. Every time I visit a country of the former Yugoslavia, I get the feeling that Josip Broz Tito (the de-facto dictator of Yugoslavia from 1943 to 1980) is still respected, even idolized by some. As a German, this always surprises me, because the leader(s) of Eastern Germany (Ulbricht and Honecker) are today mostly ridiculed as bureaucrats without a trace of charisma. Tito certainly was an interesting character, and was the only leader of the communist block to challenge the leadership of Stalin. Again, I really have no first-hand experience and may be wrong, but my parents regularly traveled through Yugoslavia (mostly through today's Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro) in the 70ies and 80ies. They mostly stayed in cheap private holiday apartments, often eating dinner / breakfast with the owner families, and didn't get the impression that this was a particularly bad place to live in. AFAIK, it was also pretty straightforward for citizens of the former Yugoslavia to leave the country / travel to the West (at least this was explained to us by an older woman in Croatia who had traveled through France as a student in the 70ies to learn the language).
  - zol 2y ago
    I’ve heard this all too. My father grew up and lived in the former Yugoslavia. He’s since spoken about how well regarded Tito was and the opinion many had that he played a big hand in keeping Yugoslavia united whilst he was alive. He’s also talked about how Yugoslavia was sort of a buffer zone between the east and west and so a lot of freedoms were available to citizens there that weren’t in the full on communist countries. E.g when he was younger he did some work trips to Germany and on top of earning deutschmarks had a side hustle smuggling back jeans and records to sell. Oh yeah and my folks gave me the impression growing up that Albania was scary as hell back then.

UltraSane 2y ago

He seems more like a moron.

black_puppydog 2y ago
[flagged]
- skirge 2y ago
  for not invading Albania or what?
  - black_puppydog 2y ago
    for electing another moron president... twice!
fifticon 2y ago
Good thing people are no longer electing such people to high office.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  Trump is very stupid be he hasn't (so far) sentenced anyone to 30 years in prison for not using enough rebar.

jajko 2y ago

At one point, every third Albanian had either been interrogated by the Sigurimi or they had been incarcerated in labour camps, around 25k murdered [1] Albania was even within eastern communist block considered utter shithole run by mad paranoid guy. Well, he certainly was. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha#Political_repression_and_emigration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha#Political_repressi...

lormayna 2y ago
Exactly. You can be interrogated by police and detained only to have watched Italian TV or listen Italian radio broadcasts. Anyway, this was a very common behaviour in Albania and it's the reason why most Albanians speaks Italian very well and know a lot about italian culture.
lqet 2y ago
> Albania was even within eastern communist block considered utter shithole run by mad paranoid guy. I may be wrong, but just across the northern border of Albania, things may have already been very different. Every time I visit a country of the former Yugoslavia, I get the feeling that Josip Broz Tito (the de-facto dictator of Yugoslavia from 1943 to 1980) is still respected, even idolized by some. As a German, this always surprises me, because the leader(s) of Eastern Germany (Ulbricht and Honecker) are today mostly ridiculed as bureaucrats without a trace of charisma. Tito certainly was an interesting character, and was the only leader of the communist block to challenge the leadership of Stalin. Again, I really have no first-hand experience and may be wrong, but my parents regularly traveled through Yugoslavia (mostly through today's Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro) in the 70ies and 80ies. They mostly stayed in cheap private holiday apartments, often eating dinner / breakfast with the owner families, and didn't get the impression that this was a particularly bad place to live in. AFAIK, it was also pretty straightforward for citizens of the former Yugoslavia to leave the country / travel to the West (at least this was explained to us by an older woman in Croatia who had traveled through France as a student in the 70ies to learn the language).
- zol 2y ago
  I’ve heard this all too. My father grew up and lived in the former Yugoslavia. He’s since spoken about how well regarded Tito was and the opinion many had that he played a big hand in keeping Yugoslavia united whilst he was alive. He’s also talked about how Yugoslavia was sort of a buffer zone between the east and west and so a lot of freedoms were available to citizens there that weren’t in the full on communist countries. E.g when he was younger he did some work trips to Germany and on top of earning deutschmarks had a side hustle smuggling back jeans and records to sell. Oh yeah and my folks gave me the impression growing up that Albania was scary as hell back then.