Just over a month ago, the Italian authorities contributed their five euro cents to the scandal in the noble family of the European Union. Italy no longer wants to accept on its territory those barmaley who were invited to Europe by Madame Merkel or, as Comrade Satanovsky cleverly christened her, the German "pot of hydrangea". An additional pepper in this ironic European dish is added by the fact that on August 7, a kind of anniversary is celebrated, when Italy drank in plenty of the results of the victory of European populism and the victory of "democracy" in the East. But the rake handle is apparently reliable.
August 7, 1991. Port of Durres. The Republic of Albania, just about 6 months ago, the former People's Socialist Republic of Albania. At one of the piers, the Vlora, a typical cargo ship, was unloading calmly and casually. The future traveling filly was built in Italy at the Ancona shipyards by Cantieri Navali Riuniti. The bulk carrier had three sister ships - Ninny Figari, Sunpalermo and Fineo.
The dry cargo ship was 147 meters long and 19 meters wide. Vlora's speed barely exceeded 17 knots. The displacement is over 5 thousand tons, and the carrying capacity is 8, 6 thousand tons. Launched on May 4, 1960 and put into operation on June 16 of the same year, the dry cargo ship was sold to socialist Albania the following year. Since then, having received the name "Vlora" (in honor of the Albanian port town of Vlora), the vessel with a home port in Durres began daily work.
And on August 7, 1991, the captain of the Vlora, Halim Miladi, peacefully watched as his ship unloads another cargo of sugar from Cuba to the pier of his home port. It would seem, what terrible was to be expected? Suddenly, a crowd of Albanian aborigines liberated from the communist tyranny formed on the pier. In the blink of an eye, the crowd turned into an army, which rushed to storm the innocent bulk carrier. This story, thanks to Cuban sugar, will receive the name "Sweet Ship" (Italian La nave dolce).
The captain and crew couldn't believe their eyes. In a matter of hours, in broad daylight, at the pier in the port of a large city, a gang of local punks seized a cargo ship without a single shot. The port services were absolutely helpless. Soon there were 20 thousand people on board "Vlora", and all this pirate horde demanded from the captain to deliver them to Italy. What happened?
In 1985, the permanent leader, Enver Hoxha, ordered to live long. A man who actually pulled the country out of the Middle Ages with its laws of blood feud, illiteracy and frequent epidemics, as a result, in the philistine "omniscient and omniscient" environment, will become famous as a frantic fan of bunkers and a tyrant. In fact, there was an overkill with bunkers at Enver, and, of course, Khoja was an extremely domineering person, which, by the way, was a necessity. After all, a country that for years lived according to medieval laws, which dispersed its own parliament without any regret, was occupied for a long time, partly scattered and filled with all sorts of political crooks, including nationalists, could not afford to play democracy, which is quite capable of ending loss of sovereignty. For example, the fat Churchill after the end of the Second World War did not rule out the division of Albania between Greece, Yugoslavia and Italy. What will prevent the well-wishers from behind the cordon from launching these thoughts into their cranium again?
Of course, Khoja was not an angel, everyone has their own cockroaches in their heads. Enver was known as a quarrelsome person, extremely stubborn and fanatically devoted to the ideology of socialism. So devoted that, admiring Stalin and maintaining friendly relations with him, despite the benefits of cooperation with the USSR, he quarreled with the leadership of the Union after the famous 20th Congress. It was then that the corn chief started kicking the dead lion.
With all this, Enver created a real economy in Albania, carried out industrialization, built infrastructure, and put an end to the country's total backwardness in the issue of education. Before his reforms, calculating the level of education was a sad affair, since 85% of the population were completely illiterate. In the end, he created a real army, not a partisan detachment or a surprisingly mediocre and, indeed, one of the most ineffective, SS Skanderbeg division.
But all this was in the past. Since 1980, the country has been under enormous pressure. In 1982, the anti-communist terrorist group Shevdet Mustafa, associated with criminal Albanian structures and, presumably, with the American special services, even tried to kill Khoja. This crooked detachment of Octobrists dreamed of returning the monarchy. True, they were quickly "taken" by their Albanian comrades, but Mustafa himself, before he was killed, managed to send to the next world at least two innocent civilians and one employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In spite of this, Western propaganda declared this loser a hero and notably poured this whip into its agitation, and the agitation itself into the ears of the Albanians.
After the death of Enver, the country's leadership faced the issues of reforms, the resumption of trade relations and other things. There were indeed more than enough problems. But the specificity of the manual type of control lies in the fact that after the death of the leader, either the same strong-willed leader or a whole group of comrades bound by the idea must come. Otherwise, the system goes haywire and receives foreign external doping, given the situation in Albania.
The uncontrollable relaxation in domestic politics, allowed by Ramiz Alia, the country's new leader, was met with dissatisfaction with his narrow-mindedness in some and indignation at his lack of control over liberalization on the part of conservative-minded others. In Tirana and Vlora, leaflets appeared at the end of 1989, calling to follow the example of Romania.
In 1990, the first mass disturbances began. And again students! The underachieved youth, knowing everything in the world, took to the streets and began to attack the police. The students demanded to remove the name of Enver Hoxha from the name of Tirana University, despite the fact that the university owes its appearance to Enver. And with Ramiz Aliya, the "progressive forces" of the youngsters demanded to act as with Ceausescu, who, as you know, together with his wife, was used up at the wall of a soldier's toilet. The "patriots" demanded higher wages, various freedoms and, in general, all the good versus all the bad, as well as the right to visit other countries.
By the way, the completely confused, weak-willed leadership and "waiting" Aliya gave permission for the last one. Instantly, several thousand "patriots" of the homeland flew away from the capital for the cordon. But this was only the beginning, everything went on a knurled one. The country was flooded with political crooks, and as a result, in 1992, the communist leadership of Albania was ousted from power.
All this, of course, was accompanied by a generous propaganda vinaigrette from abroad. The "democratic" countries assiduously told the Albanians that Khoja took their national identity away from them (who knew that this identity also includes blood feud, right?), Trampled on the standard of living, isolated the country, and so on. And most importantly, they vied with each other that the "civilized" world was waiting for them, that it could not even eat. And again, who knew that some comrades would take these stories seriously and in the literal sense of the word?..
Let's go back to our rams. The liberated Albanians who mounted the Vlora demanded that they be immediately transported to where, according to propaganda Western populism, they were expected day and night. The captain and the crew of the dry cargo ship tried with all their might to convince the crowd that the propulsion system of the ship needed repair, that neither provisions nor water would be enough even for an afternoon snack for so many people that the dry cargo ship did not have room for such a crowd, and if a storm caught them at sea, then tragedy cannot be avoided. But it was all in vain. The captain was forced to obey, and the ship doomed to a bright future headed for the Italian port of Brindisi.
A day later, breathing in incense, a dry cargo ship approached the Italian coast. The authorities of Brindisi and the leadership of the port of this city, seeing this circus afloat on the horizon, lost the gift of speech. It is quite reasonable, by the way, since the total population of the city did not even reach 90 thousand people, and here on the way 20 thousand foreign crooks with pirate manners are approaching. As a result, they flatly refused to accept the ship, send tugs and send a pilot.
The Vlora headed northwest for Bari. Upon arrival, the situation repeated itself - the authorities were shocked, they categorically did not want to give parking. But this time the captain was on the verge of insanity. He desperately radioed to land that there were no supplies, no water, the engine needed urgent repairs, and the people on board were thirsty, and panic would soon begin. It is quite possible that the unfortunate captain was about to throw himself onto the Italian coast.
The port authorities surrendered. The dry cargo ship moored at one of the port jetties. It soon became obvious that local law enforcement officers could not cope on their own in principle. As it turned out, while the European public was celebrating, drunk with populism, the victory of universal "freedom and democracy", the periphery began to pay for the socialist countries diverging at the seams.
The dry cargo ship was packed with very angry and hungry adult men who demanded a bright future immediately. The security forces simply did not have the resources to contain this gang of refugees. Moreover, the authorities could not figure out what to do with them. Of course, encouraging the collapse of the country in a fit of striving for freedom in the media is one thing, but accepting a horde of muddy citizens, some of whom did not even have documents, is quite another. And even more so, no one was going to fight in the epileptic of altruism, feeding up some foreign runners.
Clashes with the police were not long in coming. When the first cobblestones, hitting the helmets of the police, brought the authorities to consciousness, the gentlemen began to turn in twists and turns. To begin with, the Albanians were sent to the Victory stadium, surrounded by such affection and care that it was problematic to escape. The “expectation” of the arrival of those freed from the yoke of socialism was so strong that, in order to exclude unnecessary contacts with the Albanian hooligan, provisions were dropped into the stadium from a helicopter - you never know what.
Finally, the authorities decided to send refugees to their historical homeland. But given the aggressiveness of the crowd, a beautiful legend was composed for them that they would be sent at the expense of the state to Rome, as honorary guardians of freedom and democracy. In fact, they were going to return the runners to Tirana after getting on the planes. True, some of the Albanians found out about this trick, so they spread across Italy in an amount of 2 to 3 thousand unidentified persons. The rest returned to Albania, it is true, having experienced the first experience of Western care.
This is how the West met for the first time with the "democrats" of a new type from the East. A little later, the former populists will grab their heads, having the happiness of close communication with the Albanian mafia, comrades armed and trained in the Albanian army and all the ensuing consequences: drug trafficking, illegal arms trafficking, the slave trade, the black organ market and others.
Everything that the regime tried to hold on to was released. And the unfortunate dry cargo ship became just one of the first and, of course, unlearned lessons.
