Many because of SWLing Publish contributor, Don Moore–famous creator, traveler, and DXer–for the newest installment of his Photograph Album visitor publish sequence:
Extra of Don’s touring DX tales will be present in his e-book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. Don visited Albania in March 2024.
Of all of the locations that I’ve been to however wouldn’t have imagined visiting forty years in the past, Albania is unquestionably on the prime of the record. But right here I’m wandering round in Tirana’s coolest and most fashionable neighborhood. I stroll by an Argentine steak home, a number of Italian trattorias, a Texas cowboy-themed hamburger restaurant, and several other sports activities bars with big TVs tuned to soccer video games (or soccer in the event you want). Boutique resorts, modern clothes shops, and glossy workplace buildings full the scene. It’s simply one other upscale neighborhood within the world village. And it’s in Albania.
I hadn’t deliberate on getting a day drink till the Radio Bar Tirana popped up on Google Maps. How may I not cease by a spot with a reputation like that? The cabinets behind the bar are stuffed with bottles of imported gin, whisky, tequila, and cognac, however I order a glass of raki, Albania’s model of a budget firewater that each tradition appears to have. It’s robust and burns my throat. No surprise Albanians have survived all that they’ve been via over the previous six centuries. You need to be robust and resilient to drink these things. Or perhaps it’s ingesting raki that made Albanians robust and resilient.
The bar is staffed by two hipsters. I inform them about how many years in the past (lengthy earlier than they had been born) I used to take heed to Radio Tirana on shortwave in america. That they had by no means heard of Radio Tirana’s shortwave broadcasts and had been amazed to realize it was heard in america. I believe they had been additionally amazed that somebody from exterior Albania would have wished to take heed to the station throughout these horrible instances. The bar, they clarify, has nothing to do with any radio station however takes its title from the various outdated radios that line the partitions. And it’s clear that I slot in higher with the dusty wall décor than with the younger bartenders or the stylish patrons.
The again of the bar opens onto a big, coated patio stuffed with Albania’s model of well dressed younger professionals. Late afternoon is the time to drink and to community. However the day is heat and sunny and nobody needs to be inside. The principle room is empty apart from the bartenders and a person within the nook making an attempt to work on his laptop computer regardless of the loud voices coming from the patio. I’ve the within to myself so I wander round sipping raki, taking photos of outdated radios, and remembering Radio Tirana.
The Kantata M mannequin radio was produced in Murom, Russia by the Murom RIP Works within the Nineteen Seventies.
Rodina-52M receiver made in 1952 by the Voronezh Elektrosignal Radio firm in Voronezh, Russia. Thanks to Anatoly Klepov and Wojtek Zaremba for his or her help in figuring out these two Soviet-era receivers.
The Purple Lantern Mannequin 269 was made in Shanghai within the Nineteen Sixties. It predates the Normal Electrical Tremendous Radio by not less than fifteen years so the “2 Band Tremendous” title was not a takeoff on the favored GE receiver.
Yesterday, I had visited the huge Nationwide Historical past Museum on Skanderbeg Sq. within the coronary heart of Tirana. All of the peoples of the Balkans had a golden age and for Albanians it was the mid-1400s. The Ottoman Empire was the strongest and most aggressive energy within the area however George Skanderbeg and his successors held off the Turks for 50 years. The Turks ultimately conquered Albania and far of the Balkans however the delay probably prevented them from taking much more of Europe together with Italy.
The Ottomans would rule Albania for over 4 centuries and in that point most Albanians transformed to Islam. It was the one Ottoman territory in Europe the place that occurred. However Albanians continued to recollect Skanderbeg, the Catholic who had led the battle towards the Muslim Turks, as their nationwide hero. They usually by no means took their Islam as critically as most different locations. That’s why they nonetheless drink alcoholic raki.
Over the centuries, the Albanians would periodically increase the double-headed eagle flag of Skanderbeg and insurgent towards Ottoman rule. And every time the riot could be brutally put down. However by the early twentieth century the Ottoman Empire had been considerably weakened and Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria had already received their freedom. In 1912 these nations went to conflict towards the Ottomans to achieve extra land for themselves and as a facet end result Albania gained its independence. Then two years later World Conflict I got here and Albania and its neighbors had been overrun by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
When a conflict is over the victors often divide the spoils and World Conflict I used to be no completely different. Secret negotiations among the many European powers included a plan to divide Albania between the brand new nation of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy. When the plans leaked out Albanians as soon as once more raised the double-headed eagle flag in defiance and this time acquired assist from america. The Woodrow Wilson administration made certain that Albania would live on with its pre-war borders intact.
Nonetheless, Albania’s larger neighbors, particularly Benito Mussolini’s Italy, continued to intervene within the nation’s affairs. In 1928, at Mussolini’s urging, Prime Minister Ahmed Zogi declared Albania a monarchy and topped himself as King Zog I. Because the years handed King Zog got here to understand that Mussolini’s plans for Albania weren’t pleasant and he progressively distanced his authorities from the Italian ruler. The single king additionally knew that his dynasty wanted an inheritor. In April 1938, 42-year-old King Zog (a Muslim) married 23-year-old Countess Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Appony, a Catholic and daughter of a Hungarian nobleman and his American spouse.
In the meantime Albania was slowly getting into the fashionable world and that included radio broadcasting. In 1937, a brand new radio-telephone station was put in exterior of Tirana. The three-kilowatt shortwave transmitter was additionally used to broadcast a number of hours of programming per day, nevertheless it wasn’t a proper radio station. Within the early Nineteen Thirties a number of four-story Italian fashion villas had been constructed alongside Kont Urani Avenue, not removed from Skanderbeg Sq.. In 1938, King Zog’s authorities confiscated one of many buildings, the Italian-Albanian Tradition Heart, and made it the primary house of Radio Tirana. The brand new station was formally inaugurated by King Zog and Queen Geraldine in a stay ceremony on 28 November 1938. A couple of months later, on 5 April 1939, the station had its first information scoop when it introduced the beginning of Crown Prince Leka to the world.
Queen Geraldine and King Zog on the 1938 inauguration of Radio Tirana.
The prince’s beginning was excellent news for Albania, nevertheless it was a darkish time in Europe. Only a few weeks earlier Adolf Hitler’s Nazi military had marched into Czechoslovakia with out penalties. To not be outdone by his German counterpart, on 7 April (two days after the prince’s beginning), Mussolini invaded Albania. The Italian plans had been drawn up shortly and haphazardly and would probably have failed towards a formidable opponent. However the handful of patrol boats in Albania’s navy may do nothing to cease the 2 battleships, six cruisers, 9 destroyers, and quite a few smaller ships that carried the invasion power throughout the Strait of Otranto. And Albania’s tiny poorly skilled military was no match for the 100,000 troops that got here ashore. In just some days Albania had been overrun and King Zog and his household had fled to Greece (and ultimately to England).
What occurred over the following few years is a fancy story. Mussolini’s objective was to show Albania into an Italian client-state. The invaders set about to Italianize the nation whereas additionally benefiting from its assets and workforce. As Radio Tirana was a key a part of that course of, the Italians modernized the studios, put in new antennas and transmitters all through the nation, and professionalized the programming. In an effort to not alienate the inhabitants, the station tried to keep up a stability between selling Italian tradition whereas additionally carrying Albanian tradition and music.
In the meantime, a resistance run by loyalists to King Zog fought again. That they had some preliminary successes however quickly the Italians quashed the motion by killing or capturing most of its management. They hadn’t made a lot effort to cover what they had been doing. That ought to have ended the resistance however a brand new power, Albania’s tiny Communist Social gathering, stepped in to fill the management vacuum. In contrast to King Zog’s males, they already knew function an underground motion. Steadily the Communists shaped an efficient guerilla power in Albania’s mountainous inside.
Italy’s give up to the Allies in September 1943, ought to have been excellent news for Albania however the Nazis shortly despatched in troops to take over and forestall the Allies from transferring in. Their rule was extra brutal than something the Italians had finished and that pushed extra Albanians to hitch the resistance. By October 1944 the motion had grown to the purpose that its leaders had the arrogance to launch an all-out assault on Tirana. For 3 weeks preventing raged back-and-forth within the metropolis streets till on 17 November the final German troops withdrew beneath the quilt of darkness. Tirana was as soon as once more dominated by Albanians and one of many leaders was a person named Enver Hoxha.
Albanian partisans in entrance of Radio Tirana after liberating the town. Tirana was the one European capital freed by its personal partisan forces with none assist from Allied armies.
My glass of raki is empty and I’ve all the images I would like. I hand a beneficiant tip to one of many bartenders. He was type sufficient to maneuver some bottles so I may get a transparent image of the “Radio Bar” signal. I proceed up the road within the route I had been heading and a block later come to my subsequent vacation spot, the home the place Enver Hoxha lived whereas he dominated Albania.
The home doesn’t have a look at all just like the kind of place a nationwide ruler would stay, not to mention one who dominated with a lethal iron fist. It’s extra just like the sort of Frank Lloyd Wright impressed home that could be present in an upscale American suburb. Subsequent door is the Abraham Lincoln Heart, a college that teaches American English to Albanians. It’s an excellent factor, I believe, that Enver Hoxha is useless. Enver hated america and he would by no means have been proud of these neighbors.
Sadly, the home will not be open for excursions so all I can do is stand exterior and take photos. As I have a look at the home I believe again once more to Radio Tirana. I hadn’t deliberate to go to any radio stations on this journey however the raki continues to be having its impact on me. Only for enjoyable, I open up Google Maps and sort in Radio Tirana. Surprisingly, I get a end result and it’s solely two blocks additional down the identical road. However the big Radio Televizioni Shqiptar constructing on the nook with Rue Ismail Quemal seems to not be the Radio Tirana constructing I had seen within the outdated image within the nationwide museum.
Inside, two younger ladies are working on the reception desk and one speaks glorious English. I clarify how I used to take heed to Radio Tirana on shortwave. In contrast to the bartenders, she is aware of all about it although she is clearly in her early 20s. She says that in these days Radio Tirana would have been broadcasting from the outdated constructing close to Skanderbeg Sq.. I’m about to depart however then I flip round. “Does that outdated constructing nonetheless exist? I would like to see it if it does.”
The younger girl takes out her cellphone and pulls up an Albanian language newspaper article from 2021 with photos of an deserted dilapidated constructing. She sends me the hyperlink and on Google Maps factors out the approximate space the place the constructing stands, a couple of ten-minute stroll away. I head out the door. The principle road within the space she identified is a set of recent eating places, banks, and retailers, however the facet streets maintain some outdated buildings. None of them, nonetheless, match the images within the article. I surrender and head again to my AirBnB.
Photograph from the 12 January 2021 difficulty of Tirana’s Gazeta Si newspaper.
Later that night I attempt to copy the article into Google Translate in an effort to learn it. That doesn’t work as the online developer had disabled copying within the newspaper’s web site. No drawback. There are methods round that. I save the webpage to my hard-drive, open the file in a textual content editor, after which painstakingly delete all of the HTML code to get clear Albanian textual content which I can now paste into Google translate one paragraph at a time. The article provides a abstract of Radio Tirana’s historical past and says that the outdated constructing will quickly be torn down. Largely it’s an editorial decrying how so many historic buildings in Tirana have been demolished to make method for contemporary development. The creator pleads for extra effort to be made to protect and repurpose constructions such because the outdated Radio Tirana constructing.
I then pull up Google Avenue View and start perusing the streets of that neighborhood. Inside a minute I discover a constructing that clearly matches the one within the image. I had walked by the spot a number of instances. However the photographs are a number of years outdated. Possibly it has already been torn down.
The following morning I head straight again to the neighborhood. I see why I had missed the constructing the day earlier than. Scaffolding has been erected in entrance of the constructing after which coated with skinny material. A poster with two official-looking paperwork in Albanian has been positioned on the wall that surrounds the location. Google Translate does its work once more and I be taught that the outdated Radio Tirana constructing has been saved. It’s to be renovated and was a cultural middle. And that’s ironic as that’s what the constructing was initially constructed to be.
After liberating Tirana, the Albanians joined forces with the Soviet military and Yugoslav partisans beneath Josip Tito to finish the liberation of Yugoslavia. However the Albanians had been an enigma to the Russians and to the Yugoslavs. Remarkably, not solely had not one of the Albanian Communists ever visited the Soviet Union, however none of them had ever had contact with fellow Communists in different nations. The Albanian Communist motion was fully homegrown. However because the three teams fought side-by-side Enver Hoxha solidified his place on the prime of the Albanian management and gained the belief of the Soviets.
When the conflict ended, the Western powers jockeyed with Stalin’s Russia over who would dominate the nations of central and jap Europe. However little thought was given to little out-of-the-way Albania. Tito made a severe try and have Albania integrated into Yugoslavia as that nation’s seventh member republic. However Stalin stood behind Albania and for that Enver Hoxha turned a staunch hardline Stalinist. (This was one of many components that brought on Tito to interrupt with the USSR in 1948.)
Enver Hoxha modeled his rule and his plans for Albania on Stalinist Russia. He was probably the one Communist chief actually saddened by Stalin’s 1953 loss of life. Then over the following few years Hoxha turned more and more dismayed as Khrushchev moved the USSR away from doctrinaire Stalinism. Hoxha fully broke with the Soviets in 1961, however within the meantime he had discovered a brand new buddy in Mao’s Communist China.
The partnership between little Albania and the world’s most populous nation proved to be mutually helpful. China gained a diplomatic ally and an necessary base in one other a part of the world. And Albania acquired … properly … goodies. The Chinese language shipped grain to Albania, armed its army, developed mines, and constructed hydroelectric dams.
In 1965 a brand new Chinese language-built state-of-the-art broadcast middle was opened in Tirana and over the following few years the Chinese language upgraded Albania’s current transmitter websites in order that by 1969 the nation had forty-four shortwave transmitters and eight extra on medium-wave. The five hundred-kilowatt medium-wave transmitter in Durres was among the many strongest in Europe. The transmitters had been used each to relay Radio Peking (because it was then known as) and to broadcast Radio Tirana in a number of languages. One of many smallest and poorest nations in Europe now had some of the highly effective worldwide broadcasting transmitter websites on this planet.
Enver Hoxha was, if nothing else, constant in his dedication to Stalinist Communism. When China started forming a relationship with america within the Nineteen Seventies, Hoxha noticed that as a betrayal. He continued to work with China for a number of years however the relationship grew more and more strained till all connections between the 2 nations had been severed in 1978. Tiny Albania would go it alone towards the remainder of the world. And Radio Tirana would have unique use of all these Chinese language-made transmitters.
Chinese language-made 601-C army radio utilized by the Albanian military within the Nineteen Sixties. Per the show it used 14.400 kHz with 42 watts.
“In 1965 a brand new Chinese language-built state-of-the-art broadcast middle was opened in Tirana …” Oh. I started DXing in 1971 and I bear in mind listening to Radio Tirana within the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties. After I was in Tirana I assumed that the station had broadcast from the outdated villa till the top of the Communist period. However now, weeks later whereas doing background analysis, I notice the reality. The Radio Tirana I knew broadcast from the massive cement constructing on Rue Ismail Quemal. If I had identified on the time of my go to I might have requested the younger girl if I may get a tour of the constructing. Now it’s too late. However I actually loved Albania and plan to return. Subsequent time.
Within the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties the shortwave bands had been stuffed with worldwide broadcasters and there was nothing notably memorable about most of them. Radio Tirana was completely different. In case you had been listening to shortwave in that period you bear in mind Radio Tirana. It was not like some other broadcaster. It had a singular character and definitely a singular political perspective. I by no means would have gone out of my strategy to find the unique constructing of Radio Portugal or Radio Budapest. However doing so for Radio Tirana excites the creativeness.
I bear in mind the principle girl announcer with Radio Tirana’s English service had a really heat voice. We now know that her title was June Taylor and she or he was from New Zealand. She used to deal with the viewers as “Expensive Listener” and we joked that she knew the station solely had one listener. The strident programming felt each comical and really severe. When different Jap bloc stations used phrases like “imperialists” and “aggressors” it felt as if the announcers had been simply studying from a translated script. When Radio Tirana used phrases like that there was an earnestness to it that the opposite stations didn’t have.
Radio Tirana represented an evil authorities. Enver Hoxha’s rule was brutal in each method. The Nationwide Museum on Skanderbeg Sq. has a whole room devoted to the victims of his regime. The partitions are coated with lengthy lists of all of the identified victims of the interval plus images of the labor camps and of a small sampling of the 1000’s of Albanians who died in these camps. It’s a sobering place to go to.
But there was one thing to be admired on this tiny nation and its plucky tinpot dictator prepared to go it alone and thumb his nostril concurrently on the USA, the USSR, and China. We just like the underdog even when he’s loopy. And perhaps that’s exactly what made Albania and Radio Tirana so fascinating. Enver Hoxha stood as much as everybody.
However not like the crazies of as we speak corresponding to Iran and North Korea, tiny Albania by no means threatened anybody. And after Stalin instructed Tito to maintain his palms off the nation, nobody ever threatened Albania both. Nonetheless, wrapped up in his personal paranoia and delusions, Enver Hoxha saved his folks continuously targeted on protecting Fortress Albania protected from enemies, overseas and home. But Enver Hoxha by no means turned critically concerned with undermining different governments or offering weapons to guerillas in distant lands.
Because of Albania’s small dimension, Enver Hoxha had only one weapon that he dared to wield towards the remainder of the world: the broadcasts of Radio Tirana. And with these highly effective Chinese language-built transmitters they did it very successfully.
To SWLs and DXers, Radio Tirana was fascinating however not one thing to be taken too critically. Nonetheless, all over the world there have been radical activists who agreed with Enver Hoxha’s politics and admired him for his fearlessness in standing as much as extra highly effective nations. They didn’t need their model of Marxism to be run from Moscow or Beijing both. They had been Radio Tirana’s actual viewers. Thus Albania had an affect in revolutionary actions across the globe far larger than might be anticipated given the nation’s tiny dimension.
And that simply would possibly reply a thriller. Who tied a Brazilian flag to the scaffolding in entrance of the outdated Radio Tirana constructing?
I do not know how the flag acquired there. However there’s a story that I wish to imagine. Within the Nineteen Seventies a Marxist guerilla motion operated within the jungles across the Araguaia River in central Brazil. The motion recognized with Enver Hoxha and so the guerillas would have listened to Radio Tirana’s Portuguese broadcasts. Image a gray-haired former guerilla discovering his strategy to Tirana after which tying the flag there in reminiscence of his fallen companions. That might be an actual legacy for Radio Tirana.
