Albania-Netherlands 0-1

Two days ago, for the first time I went to the stadium. It was exciting to see this football (or soccer...) match. The final result doesn't show the balance during all the match and Albania had even opportunities to win it. The goal arrived at the very last minute, few minutes after one Albanian got the red card. Albania has not ambition to qualify for the Euro Cup, but it would have been a nice satisfaction to beat the Netherlands!

Here you can maybe recognize Marco Van Basten, the Dutch trainer...He is the first one standing near the green...

This crazy guy is Alket Islami and he was flying over Tirana before the beginning of the match with the Albanian flag... and a sponsor, of course...

And a couple of videos...

At the end of this clip, you can see on the left corner the Dutch supporters

Bike and horse tours in Albania

I want to highlight two experiences that deserve all my appreciation.

The first one is a bike tour along Albania that took place last August and was organized by a bike organization from Puglia http://www.cicloamici.it/albania.htm. It is not the first one in Albania, but it was documented very well in this blog http://mammiferobipede.splinder.com/. I invite all the Italian speaking people to go read it. The other ones can enjoy the nice pictures!

The second one is a tour riding horses! A couple of British is documenting their experience in this site http://www.transalbania.com/RideAlbania/Welcome.html and they are going to produce a book and a documentary out of this amazing trip.

Air pollution in Tirana

I already mentioned in one of my first posts that Tirana was declared as one of the most polluted capital in the world. A recent article confirm this news. I paste below the text from our daily press review (it is dated 28 August)

Koha Jonë (an Albanian newspaper) quotes Director of the Environment Protection Civil Office, Sazan Guri, as saying that around 1,400 people die every year in Albania because of pollution. According to Guri, Tirana, and not Kabul, is the most polluted capital city in the world, because in Kabul the air is cleaned in ten minutes because of the terrain, whereas it takes three years to do so in Tirana. The deathly diseases caused by pollution are cancer and lung diseases. Guri added that the life expectancy in Tirana is shortened by 1,5-2 years because of the pollution.

Well, I hope my year here will shorten my life expectancy by only few weeks !

Golden tourists in Albania?

The Albanian Prime Minister, in a recent Council of Ministers meeting, thanked the Minister of Tourism for the excellent results achieved because, according to UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organization) data, Albania is the first country in the world for the amount of tourism expenditure per single international tourist arrived, as underlined by an article on The Economist website (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9570468&CFID=16761097&CFTOKEN=45436406). Every foreign tourist during his stay in Albania spend an average of 17,500 USD! A very good performance or wrong data? A political influence in statistics production or a simple mistake? I will answer these legitimate questions that many Albanian people raised recently (http://www.peshkupauje.com/shqiperia-fiton-me-shume-per-turist/2007/08/01/).
Since last February I noticed this strange data, published by UNWTO and the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT): in 2005, international tourist arrivals were 46,000 while international visitors were 748,000 and the tourism expenditure was 880 millions USD. I briefly explain these concepts in few words. A tourist is a traveller that stays at least one night in Albania, while the category of visitors include the tourists and the same-day visitors (also called excursionists). Tourism expenditure include payment made by all the visitors (tourists and excursionists).
According to these data, Albania receives a big amount of excursionists and very few tourists, but it gets a lot of money from them. Is this can be reasonable? Not really... so I started my investigations and I talked with people from the Ministry of Tourism, INSTAT and the Bank of Albania (responsible for the data on expenditure).
At the end I found a simple explanation: INSTAT gave the wrong number to UNWTO: 46000 were tourists that stayed in registered hotels, but this number was transmitted to UNWTO as number of tourist arrivals, while it is only a small fraction of the tourist population. The real number of tourist arrivals is unknown, even though often it is confused with the number of visitors. There are then other problems more technical, like the criterion of residence to use instead of nationality, so also the number of 748,000 is not correct. Or the mistake done by dividing the tourism expenditure for the number of tourists instead of visitors. But I will not bother you more. I am writing a document about all these issues and I hope the involved institutions will take it in consideration and improve the data production. It was surprising how for years nobody seemed to notice this mistake, and institutions like UNWTO or specialized magazines like The Economist accepted these data!

Llogara' National Park, Southern Albania

This tree is a Cultural Monument because it reminds the shape of the double-headed eagle in the national flag. It is called pisha flamuri, something like pine flag.

Map of the park, located south of Vlora, very close to the sea but with an alpine landscape!

A male roe deer (daino in Italian)





Testudo hermanni


Nice swimming pool in the tourist village where I stayed (http://www.llogora.com/)

Theth National Park, Northern Albania

Wonderful place...now I understand why these mountains are called the Albanian Alps!







There was still snow on the peak!

Ladi, Albanian sculptor

Few weeks ago I was invited to visit an Albanian sculptor. I was welcomed to his home, where he keeps a collection of his works. It was a very nice experience to meet this Albanian artist and talk with him. His name is Vladimir Metani. He has been working in a bronze factory for many years and from the '90s, he started his artistic creations. During the communism it was prohibited to express something not allowed by the regime and this was valid for the art too.
He works mainly the bronze, but can use other materials such as wood and ceramics. In summer when he goes to the beach, he can do huge sand sculptures! He showed me some pictures and he claims to be the only one in Albania to do them!



His main characteristic is to be inspired by the traditional tales and legends from all different parts of Albania. For example, there is the legend of the Shkodra castle, or how was born the “Blue eye” (see post http://fellowofeagles.blogspot.com/2007/03/my-little-trip-through-albania-2.html), or Kostandin and his promise to visit his mother even after death... as all the tales, they are mysterious and sometimes macabre like the habit to bury the corpses of the family members under the floor of the house or to sacrifice a virgin for the construction of a strong castle.



It was very interesting to hear so many stories, completely unknown for a non-Albanian like me. I have to thank my friend Lumturi (by the way, in Albanian it means “happiness”) who had the idea and the kindness to let me meet him. And I thank Vladimir, Ladi as nickname, and his family for their hospitality.
From these pictures you can have an idea, but you can visit this website (in German)
http://www.lifefund.co.at/vladimir_metani.htm where there are more pictures of his works.