Cicero's Songs

Albania is a country that tries, quite exuberantly, to live in the present. The youngest country in Europe in terms of demographics also has a special reason to ignore history. In Albania history is too unspeakable and too near to be discussed objectively. Take this morning, I was taking some potentially significant Western investors to visit various companies, and as we broke up a meeting, we adjourned to the nearest coffee bar. That coffee bar was in a rather ugly 1960's house that, unusually for that part of Tirana , sits in its own grounds. When I first visited the country 16 years ago, it stood alone and heavily guarded. Now it stands surrounded by new office buildings. It was once the house of the dictator, Enver Hoxha . It was with frankly rather mixed feelings that I sat nursing an espresso in Hoxha's parlour, for the dictator was one of the most evil humans to have walked the planet. That his crimes have been dwarfed by Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or Kim Jong Il was only ...

The declaration of independence that the Parliament of Kosova approved on February 16 th has been greeted by the international community with a certain weary resignation. The seventh country to have been carved out of the wreckage of Yugoslavia now takes its first toddler steps in the face of a certain amount of international dismay. We are told that Serbia has lost the core of its history- yet, how true is this? The province is named after the word for a blackbird in Serbian- Kos - in fact it is named after one particular battlefield: Kosovo Polje -the field of the Blackbirds. The battle took place on June 28 th 1389. The battle took place at a key time for South East Europe, with the Ottoman Sultan Murad seeking to surround the declining Byzantine State and advancing into Europe. The army that faced the Ottomans was led by a Serbian princling , Lazar Hrebljanovic , and the various rulers of the petty states that emerged from the Serbian Empire of Stefan Dusan who had died in 1...

"O! Land of Albania, thou savage nurse of noble men" was how Byron hailed the place in Childe Harold. For me too I feel I have come, once again to the dark tower. As always the country seems to be very hard work for a visitor- you end up hot, dusty, thirsty and faintly revolted by the poverty, the dirt and bad smells, the gimcrack buildings and the neediness all around you. Tirana is a crumbling fly blown city which makes Easterhouse look like Paris. It is an increasingly eccentric place- all the crumbling commie buildings are painted lurid colours which, in a strange way, makes the place look a bit like art deco Miami. Skanderbeg square, the central cross roads of the city, has a quartet of Zogist , faintly Fascist buildings, which, not withstanding their brutal origins, are probably the most harmonious in the city - the other side is dominated by a massive Communist mosaic depicting the triumph of Mother Albania- the full Stalinist works on the front of the Parliament...

It has been a busy day, enduring the pelting rain in the Albanian capital. My purpose was to meet with various public figures and discuss ideas about investment. The first port of call was The President of the Republic. As the traffic in the crowded streets of Tirana began to delay us, I got out of the inevitable Mercedes and strode out, in order to meet my appointment on time. I was-just- on time, but President Moisiu has a military sense of timing. I was reminded that "punctuality is the politeness of Kings", as I arrived in his office about five minutes later than 11.00. Nevertheless it was interesting to see way that such a man engages with the new Albania. As a general in the Albanian army he was given the job of building the famous "bunkers"- three million pill boxes- that the Dictator decreed. Although Hoxha was a megalomaniac, even he must have been surprised by the effectiveness of the army in completing the task. President Moisiu is known as conciliator, a...

I am "enjoying" the dubious pleasures of Stansted Airport as I wait for my flight to the Albanian capital. I am due to meet with senior figures in the government of Albania to discuss the results of a meeting that I hosted between Estonian political figures and the Albanian PMs advisor in London. I will also be discussing aspects of a potential involvement between the firm that I advise and the Albanian financial system- such as it is. However already, the extra immigration checks and the rather piratical figure of the Albanian Airlines rep are setting the usual tone: that Albania is still too poor and chaotic to be either trusted or liked by the European powers. Nevertheless, the fact that those who sent me are interested enough to do so, and that those who have issued the invitation understand why, is encouraging. Albania is still in the middle of a long and hard journey, but recent progress has been swift- I sense similar things beginning to happen in Albania as have alrea...