Word: tirana
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There can be downsides to the expatriate life. Marianne Sullivan, 28, who received a master's in journalism and Eastern European politics from Columbia University last year, is co-director of a media training center in Tirana, Albania. "No one comes here for fun," she says...
...highly incendiary factor is Albania itself. A decade ago, at the time of the last serious uprising in Kosovo, Albania was a Stalinist dictatorship. Whatever their grievances against Belgrade, few Yugoslav Albanians believed they would fare better under Tirana. But now that Albania is beginning to emerge from communism to join the modern world, it will inevitably serve as a stronger magnet for the loyalties of Albanians in Serbia and a stimulus to their militancy...
After battling security forces for two days and suffering from exposure, most of the dispirited Albanians willingly got on board more than 50 military and Alitalia flights headed for Tirana. Altogether, said Interior Minister Vincenzo Scotti, 17,466 had been shipped home by last week. But a few hundred holdouts, including army deserters, have been allowed to stay while an Italian commission decides whether they qualify for political asylum...
Donkeys laden with firewood shambled about aimlessly among the crowd in the shabby central square in Mamuras, 19 mi. north of the Albanian capital of Tirana. The townsfolk's timeless talk about rain, marriages and hardship had given way to the excitement of an epochal event: the country's first free elections. "We want the same things as the rest of Europe -- freedom to go where we like, to work hard and to secure our future," said Shaban Sula, 37, who works on a nearby collective farm. But in Mamuras, where Europe seems like a distant continent, his words betrayed...
...tractor factory on the outskirts of Tirana, 4,200 workers toil on machines that have been in use since the 1940s, converting scrap metal into tractor parts. Now mass layoffs loom. Production and wages have been slashed for lack of raw materials. "We're terrified that we'll be left with no money," says Gezime Sula. Nevertheless, she supports the Democrats, even though an unbridled marketplace would almost certainly close the factory gates...