Albanians Look to Italy for Inspiration

Forty miles and half a century away from Italy, the people of this Albanian coastal city dream about life without communism.

“We all dream of Italy,” a waiter at a government-run restaurant said with a sigh.

Albanians interviewed recently on the daylong ferry trip from Italy all expressed desire to go abroad.

Some said they wanted to live better. Others longed to escape the grip of Europe’s last hard-line Communist government.

Their furtively whispered confidences suggested that the discontent that drove thousands of Albanians to seek refuge last month in embassies in Tirana, their capital, was no isolated phenomenon in this tiny Balkan nation.

“There’s nothing in this country to live for!” a young economist said angrily. He and the others spoke on condition of anonymity because Albanians can receive harsh punishment for having contact with foreigners.

A visit to Vlore, 60 miles southwest of Tirana and just 40 miles across the Adriatic Sea from Italy, provides a glimpse of life in Europe’s poorest and most isolated country.

Most of the city’s 70,000 residents live in five-story apartment houses built in rows like matchboxes. Laundry flaps from lines strung on the balconies. In the rocky, bare dirt spaces around the buildings, thin children in patched clothes and rubber thongs play in a baking sun.

To a question of whether there was enough food available, a mechanic looked around to see if anyone was watching, then nodded.

The streets are quiet because of the absence of cars, which individuals are not allowed to own. On the broad, palm-lined road to the Vlore port, horse-drawn wagons rattle past bicyclists.

Yet nearly every apartment house has a television antenna, and Albanians watch Italian TV.

On spotting a group of Italian tourists recently, several local people called out the names of Italian soccer players and a few could compare notes on Italian pop stars.

One student, a member of the Roman Catholic minority, said he liked to see Pope John Paul II via Italian television. Until recently, religious observances were banned in Albania.

“When I see him, I cry,” he said.

It was over Italian TV that many Albanians learned about last year’s revolutions in Eastern Europe, and about the “boat lift” that carried about 4,500 Albanian emigres to Italy and France recently.

Many of the Albanians had spent more than a week packed into embassies in the capital before the government decided to let them leave under the supervision of foreign diplomats.

Some Albanians interviewed recently said there is widespread discontent in this nation of 3 million people, but they do not expect to see a revolution like those elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

“There are so many simple people here,” the young economist said.

A university student said that most Albanians would be content if the Communist government carried out the limited reforms it announced earlier this year. They include giving everyone 16 and older the right to a passport and to travel abroad. Albanians have not had been allowed to travel the last 45 years.

Those promises, however, were not enough to appease a group of factory workers standing outside their plant.

Asked about living conditions, they laughed bitterly and one swore. They asked if there were jobs in Italy.

Most of those interviewed spoke quietly and circumspectly, showing the widespread fear of the Sigurimi, or secret police.

At one point, a police van pulled up at the government-run restaurant. All but one of a group of youths who had been talking with a Western reporter shrank away.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” the remaining youth declared as policemen glared at him.

A moment later, several officers returned and ordered him to leave.