Many because of SWLing Publish contributor, Don Moore–famous creator, traveler, and DXer–for the most recent installment of his Picture Album visitor put up sequence:
Extra of Don’s touring DX tales will be present in his ebook 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 high of the checklist. 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 large TVs tuned to soccer video games (or soccer if you happen to favor). Boutique accommodations, trendy outfitters, and glossy workplace buildings full the scene. It’s simply one other upscale neighborhood within the international 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 crammed 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 sturdy and burns my throat. No marvel Albanians have survived all that they’ve been by way of over the previous six centuries. You need to be robust and resilient to drink these things. Or possibly it’s consuming raki that made Albanians robust and resilient.
The bar is staffed by two hipsters. I inform them about how a long time in the past (lengthy earlier than they have 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 have been amazed to comprehend it was heard in america. I believe they have been additionally amazed that somebody from exterior Albania would have needed 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 numerous previous 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, lined patio crammed 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 desires to be inside. The principle room is empty aside 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 footage of previous radios, and remembering Radio Tirana.
The Kantata M mannequin radio was produced in Murom, Russia by the Murom RIP Works within the 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 Pink Lantern Mannequin 269 was made in Shanghai within the Sixties. It predates the Normal Electrical Tremendous Radio by no 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 finally conquered Albania and far of the Balkans however the delay possible 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. And so they 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 elevate the double-headed eagle flag of Skanderbeg and insurgent towards Ottoman rule. And every time the revolt 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 gained their freedom. In 1912 these international locations went to conflict towards the Ottomans to achieve extra land for themselves and as a facet consequence Albania gained its independence. Then two years later World Conflict I got here and Albania and its neighbors have been overrun by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
When a conflict is over the victors normally 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 obtained assist from america. The Woodrow Wilson administration made certain that Albania would live on with its pre-war borders intact.
Nonetheless, Albania’s greater 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 appreciate that Mussolini’s plans for Albania weren’t pleasant and he regularly 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 coming 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, but it surely 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 Road, not removed from Skanderbeg Sq.. In 1938, King Zog’s authorities confiscated one of many buildings, the Italian-Albanian Tradition Middle, and made it the primary residence of Radio Tirana. The brand new station was formally inaugurated by King Zog and Queen Geraldine in a reside ceremony on 28 November 1938. Just a few months later, on 5 April 1939, the station had its first information scoop when it introduced the start of Crown Prince Leka to the world.
Queen Geraldine and King Zog on the 1938 inauguration of Radio Tirana.
The prince’s start was excellent news for Albania, but it surely 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 start), Mussolini invaded Albania. The Italian plans had been drawn up shortly and haphazardly and would possible 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 educated military was no match for the 100,000 troops that got here ashore. In only a few days Albania had been overrun and King Zog and his household had fled to Greece (and finally to England).
What occurred over the subsequent 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. With the intention to not alienate the inhabitants, the station tried to take care of 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 have been doing. That ought to have ended the resistance however a brand new power, Albania’s tiny Communist Occasion, stepped in to fill the management vacuum. In contrast to King Zog’s males, they already knew learn how to function an underground motion. Step by step 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 shifting in. Their rule was extra brutal than something the Italians had accomplished and that pushed extra Albanians to affix the resistance. By October 1944 the motion had grown to the purpose that its leaders had the boldness 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 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 photographs I would like. I hand a beneficiant tip to one of many bartenders. He was form 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 take a look at all just like the kind of place a nationwide ruler would reside, 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 is likely to be present in an upscale American suburb. Subsequent door is the Abraham Lincoln Middle, a college that teaches American English to Albanians. It’s a great factor, I believe, that Enver Hoxha is lifeless. Enver hated america and he would by no means have been pleased with these neighbors.
Sadly, the home isn’t open for excursions so all I can do is stand exterior and take footage. As I take 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 remains to be having its impact on me. Only for enjoyable, I open up Google Maps and sort in Radio Tirana. Surprisingly, I get a consequence and it’s solely two blocks additional down the identical road. However the large Radio Televizioni Shqiptar constructing on the nook with Rue Ismail Quemal seems to not be the Radio Tirana constructing I had seen within the previous 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 previous constructing close to Skanderbeg Sq.. I’m about to depart however then I flip round. “Does that previous constructing nonetheless exist? I would love to see it if it does.”
The younger lady takes out her telephone and pulls up an Albanian language newspaper article from 2021 with footage 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 group of recent eating places, banks, and outlets, however the facet streets maintain some previous buildings. None of them, nevertheless, match the images within the article. I hand over and head again to my AirBnB.
Picture from the 12 January 2021 concern of Tirana’s Gazeta Si newspaper.
Later that night I attempt to copy the article into Google Translate to be able to learn it. That doesn’t work as the online developer had disabled copying within the newspaper’s web site. No downside. 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 offers a abstract of Radio Tirana’s historical past and says that the previous constructing will quickly be torn down. Largely it’s an editorial decrying how so many historic buildings in Tirana have been demolished to make means for contemporary development. The creator pleads for extra effort to be made to protect and repurpose constructions such because the previous Radio Tirana constructing.
I then pull up Google Road 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 photos are a number of years previous. Possibly it has already been torn down.
The subsequent 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 lined with skinny material. A poster with two official-looking paperwork in Albanian has been positioned on the wall that surrounds the positioning. Google Translate does its work once more and I be taught that the previous Radio Tirana constructing has been saved. It’s to be renovated and changed into 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 have 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 international locations. The Albanian Communist motion was fully homegrown. However because the three teams fought side-by-side Enver Hoxha solidified his place on the high 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 international locations of central and japanese Europe. However little thought was given to little out-of-the-way Albania. Tito made a critical try to have Albania integrated into Yugoslavia as that nation’s seventh member republic. However Stalin stood behind Albania and for that Enver Hoxha grew to become a staunch hardline Stalinist. (This was one of many components that prompted Tito to interrupt with the USSR in 1948.)
Enver Hoxha modeled his rule and his plans for Albania on Stalinist Russia. He was possible the one Communist chief really saddened by Stalin’s 1953 demise. Then over the subsequent few years Hoxha grew to become 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 pal 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 vital base in one other a part of the world. And Albania acquired … nicely … goodies. The Chinese language shipped grain to Albania, armed its navy, 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 subsequent 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 have been used each to relay Radio Peking (because it was then referred to as) and to broadcast Radio Tirana in a number of languages. One of many smallest and poorest international locations in Europe now had some of the highly effective worldwide broadcasting transmitter websites on the planet.
Enver Hoxha was, if nothing else, constant in his dedication to Stalinist Communism. When China started forming a relationship with america within the 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 international locations have 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 navy radio utilized by the Albanian military within the 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 keep in mind listening to Radio Tirana within the Seventies and Eighties. Once I was in Tirana I assumed that the station had broadcast from the previous villa till the tip of the Communist period. However now, weeks later whereas doing background analysis, I notice the reality. The Radio Tirana I knew broadcast from the large cement constructing on Rue Ismail Quemal. If I had identified on the time of my go to I might have requested the younger lady 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 Seventies and Eighties the shortwave bands have been crammed with worldwide broadcasters and there was nothing significantly memorable about most of them. Radio Tirana was completely different. For those who have been listening to shortwave in that period you keep in mind Radio Tirana. It was not like every other broadcaster. It had a singular character and definitely a singular political perspective. I by no means would have gone out of my approach to find the unique constructing of Radio Portugal or Radio Budapest. However doing so for Radio Tirana excites the creativeness.
I keep in mind the primary woman 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 critical. When different Jap bloc stations used phrases like “imperialists” and “aggressors” it felt as if the announcers have 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 means. The Nationwide Museum on Skanderbeg Sq. has a whole room devoted to the victims of his regime. The partitions are lined 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 hundreds 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 keen 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 possibly that’s exactly what made Albania and Radio Tirana so attention-grabbing. Enver Hoxha stood as much as everybody.
However in contrast to the crazies of at the moment comparable to Iran and North Korea, tiny Albania by no means threatened anybody. And after Stalin advised Tito to maintain his fingers off the nation, nobody ever threatened Albania both. Nonetheless, wrapped up in his personal paranoia and delusions, Enver Hoxha saved his individuals always targeted on conserving Fortress Albania secure from enemies, overseas and home. But Enver Hoxha by no means grew to become critically concerned with undermining different governments or offering weapons to guerillas in distant lands.
Resulting from Albania’s small measurement, 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 attention-grabbing however not one thing to be taken too critically. Nevertheless, world wide 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 have been Radio Tirana’s actual viewers. Thus Albania had an affect in revolutionary actions across the globe far larger than could possibly be anticipated given the nation’s tiny measurement.
And that simply would possibly reply a thriller. Who tied a Brazilian flag to the scaffolding in entrance of the previous Radio Tirana constructing?
I don’t know how the flag acquired there. However there’s a story that I need to consider. Within the 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 approach to Tirana after which tying the flag there in reminiscence of his fallen companions. That will be an actual legacy for Radio Tirana.
