LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Albania: People
built 646 days ago
Enver Hoxha and another veteran of the Spanish Civil War, Mehmet Shehu, eventually rose to become the most powerful figures in Albania for decades after the war. The dominant figure in modern Albanian history, Enver Hoxha rose from obscurity to lead his people for a longer time than any other ruler. Born in 1908 to a Muslim Tosk landowner from GjirokastÎr who returned to Albania after working in the United States, Hoxha attended the country's best college-preparatory school, the National LycÈe in KorÁÎ. In 1930 he attended the university in Montpelier, France, but lost an Albanian state scholarship for neglecting his studies. Hoxha subsequently moved to Paris and Brussels. After returning to Albania in 1936 without earning a degree, he taught French for years at his former lycÈe and participated in a communist cell in KorÁÎ.
Source:
In the mid-1920s Ahmed Zog, a chieftain from the Gheg people of northern Albania, took control of the country. Despite his early alliance with Yugoslavia, King Zog increasingly relied on Italy for economic support, in return for which Albania provided Italy with industrial and agricultural raw materials.
Source:
In 1992, after the sweeping electoral victory of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha became the first democratically elected President of Albania. Berisha began a more deliberate program of economic and democratic reform but progress on these issues stalled in the mid-1990s, due to political gridlock. At the same time, unscrupulous investment companies defrauded investors all over Albania using pyramid schemes. In early 1997, several of these pyramid schemes collapsed, leaving thousands of people bankrupt, disillusioned, and angry. Armed revolts broke out across the country, leading to the near-total collapse of government authority. During this time, Albania's already inadequate and antiquated infrastructure suffered tremendous damage, as people looted public works for building materials.
Source:
In August 1945, the provisional government adopted the first sweeping agricultural reforms in Albania's history. The country's 100 largest landowners, who controlled close to a third of Albania's arable land, had frustrated all agricultural reform proposals before the war. The communists' reforms were aimed at squeezing large landowners out of business, winning peasant support, and increasing farm output to avert famine. The government annulled outstanding agricultural debts, granted peasants access to inexpensive water for irrigation, and nationalized forest and pastureland. Under the Agrarian Reform Law, which redistributed about half of Albania's arable land, the government confiscated property belonging to absentee landlords and people not dependent on agriculture for a living. The few peasants with agricultural machinery were permitted to keep up to forty hectares of land; the landholdings of religious institutions and peasants without agricultural machinery were limited to twenty hectares; and landless peasants and peasants with tiny landholdings were given up to five hectares, although they had to pay nominal compensation.
Source:
Albania's climate is very similar to that of Hawaii, just without all the crack addicts and hurricanes. Some people compare Albania to paradise not only for its climate but for the Slavic whores that Albania has to offer.
Source:
The majority of the people in Albania are Muslim, which can be influential in the way many Albanians lead their lives. Another factor worth mentioning is that in Albania, it is custom to nod your head to say no, and shake your head sideways to say yes; please take this fact in to account in the daily interactions with these people.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
People