Here’s an article I wrote for the Scotsman newspaper about researching ‘Sleeping Dogs’ in Albania. It ran earlier this month on 5th April…
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Looking back on my recent trip to Albania, I can say without doubt that it ruined my summer. But that hasn’t stopped me recommending the country to anyone who will listen. A contradictory state of affairs, and one which only makes sense if we jump across the water from Albania, to the neighbouring island of Corfu…
I have long planned to set a book in Corfu. I know this beautiful Greek island well, having enjoyed idyllic family holidays there since I was a child, and felt that the combination of elegant, well-appointed villas and low-rent partying for Brits abroad could provide a fascinating location for a Mediterranean crime novel.
Just two kilometres off the coast of Corfu lies Albania. Watching the sun set with a bottle of Mythos, I would often gaze across the narrow Strait at the hazy mountains and wonder what life might be like there. Perhaps I could set a few scenes of the book in Albania: it might provide an interesting interlude, a splash of extra colour.
After months of meticulous planning, the plot was finally worked out. The publisher’s deadline loomed; so just before starting to write, my wife and I decided to take a final research trip to Corfu.
This time, just staring across the Strait no longer seemed enough, so we made enquiries and found a twice-daily ferry service from Corfu Town to Saranda, the nearest Albanian port.
A friend recommended a local guide, and sure enough, when the catamaran docked in Saranda, Viktor was waiting, sunglassed, suited, raring to go. He grabbed our hands and escorted us with confidence to what he called the ‘Fast Track’. This prompted a rightful torrent of abuse from the lip-glossed Customs Officer, and we returned meekly to the back of the queue. When eventually we made it through, we were ushered into the back of a battered Mercedes saloon.
I told Viktor about the planned book. ‘There’s a funeral scene. I wondered if we might visit a local cemetery?’
‘Why not just go to a funeral?’
Before we could demur, the Mercedes had been crunched into gear, and we were speeding through the city. The concrete tower blocks just visible from Corfu dated from the Communist era, but a small railed-off section of Roman ruins gave hints of a more ancient past. Viktor slowed as the road grew clogged with more Mercedes, horns beeping in unison as hundreds of people milled around, ringing hand bells and waving plastic flowers.
‘The deceased was a popular woman.’
‘Are you sure we should…’
But Viktor was off again, bypassing the cortege to cut down a side street. We just had time to glimpse a blue Mercedes hearse with a metal cross welded to the roof, before we were climbing the track to the cemetery.
‘What’s with all the Mercedes?’ I asked as the car juddered to a halt.
‘All the modern Albanian wants,’ Viktor said sadly, ‘is a beautiful wife and a Mercedes Benz.’
Most of the buildings outside the cemetery were in worse condition than those by the port, rusting girders protruding from unfinished upper floors, now used to train vines for raki, the local firewater. Dangling from front doors were strange emblems – sheep’s skulls, plaits of garlic, children’s dollies. ‘To keep the Evil Eye at bay,’ Viktor said with a shrug. Yet inside the cemetery, the tombs were beautifully tended, gleaming miniature mansions of marble and granite. Surrounding them were bottles of beer and packets of cigarettes. On closer inspection, these were unopened – grave goods to appease the dead. As the mourners began to file in, my wife suggested we had seen enough, and we slipped onto the sun-baked pavement outside.
Viktor looked crestfallen. ‘We could visit the mountains, perhaps?’ he said, gesturing up at the jagged snow-capped peaks above. There were still a few hours until the ferry back to Corfu. ‘Why not?’ my wife answered for us both.
Viktor gunned the Mercedes uphill, and the cemetery vanished beneath us. ‘Lake Butrint,’ he said, pointing at a stretch of water just inside the coastline. ‘The god Pan lived there; when he died, the shepherds cried so much they made a lake of tears.’ Right on cue, a goatherd appeared, crook in hand, sheltering in what looked like a concrete igloo. An identical structure appeared round the next corner, then another.
‘What are those?’ I asked.
‘Bunkers.’
‘From World War II?’
Viktor shook his head: Enver Hoxha, the Communist dictator of Albania from 1944 to 1985, had been so sure that the West was going to invade that he built a million bunkers to defend it.
‘What’s the population of Albania?’ I asked.
‘Three million. Each bunker was built for three.’
Growing between the bunkers were thick clusters of spiny agave cacti. ‘Hoxha’s little surprise,’ Viktor added with a tap to the side of his nose. ‘To entangle the Imperialist parachutes as they landed.’
He stopped by a monument to a recent and catastrophic road accident. Three flags flapped from the top: the Albanian double eagle, the EU flag and a Stars and Stripes.
‘Why the American flag?’ my wife asked.
‘For Hoxha, the USA was the enemy. But then Clinton rescued our brother Albanians in Kosovo. Now we love him – and your Tony Blair. Many young men in Albania are called Tonibler. Or just Bler for short.’
‘And the EU flag?’
‘If they’ll have us, we’ll have them.’ Viktor drove on in silence, Beneath, a river snaked between the feet of the mountains. The water was absurdly bright, as turquoise as a spot-lit swimming pool.
‘Blue Eye Spring,’ Viktor said.
‘What causes the colour?’
‘Dragon’s blood.’
Naturally.
‘A dragon was eating the children,’ Viktor went on. ‘So the farmers left out poisoned meat. The dragon took the bait, then flew down the mountain in agony. It exploded above the spring and its blood stained the water.’ He scanned our faces, sensing the strange magic of his country starting to work its effect . ‘Want to see Hoxha’s house?’
We descended into a deep U-shaped valley. A herbal aroma familiar from student days began to fill the car. ‘Lazarat,’ Viktor said with a cough, closing the windows and pointing to a village clinging to the steep mountain slope. Surrounding it was a swathe of terraced fields groaning with twelve-foot cannabis plants.
‘Is that legal?’
‘It’s lucrative.’
A few minutes later we reached Gjirokastra, a traditional mountain town of imposing stone houses. The great dictator’s house turned out to be a museum, perfectly preserved. Ismail Kadare, Albania’s most famous writer, was also born in Gjirokastra; we asked to see his house but were told it had been destroyed.
I checked my watch. One hour until the ferry.
‘But you can’t come to Albania without visiting Buthrotum,’ Viktor said, a smile playing on his lips.
‘Buthrotum?’
‘Aeneas stayed there after the sack of Troy. The most beautiful ruins in the world.’
My wife and I exchanged a glance. Suddenly a plate of moussaka in a Corfu taverna seemed a little less exciting.
‘Do you know any good hotels in Saranda?’ my wife asked.
‘My cousin…’
A week later, back home, I reread the plot and knew it had to change. It needed more Albania. My workload was about to treble, and the clock was ticking. Our trip to Albania had put paid to our hopes of a quiet summer – but I can’t wait to go back and see more of this fascinating country.
© Thomas Mogford, 2015
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