Lock on the Door

A massive timber gate and electrified barbed-wire fence block the road between Yugoslavia and Albania--respectively, the most accessible and least accessible nations in the Communist world today. Armed guards on the Albanian side open the gate for authorized visitors, then bolt it behind them with a heavy padlock. Last week Roland Flamini of TIME's Vienna bureau, traveling as a "businessman" on a British passport, flew to Dubrovnik in Yugoslavia, where he joined a guided tour that took him to Albania for a two-day visit. His report:

Though neighboring Yugoslavia has abolished visas altogether, the Albanian People's Republic continues to maintain a studiously calculated atmosphere of siege. It has revived the medieval habit of closing down for the night; the open hours are from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. The ever-present Albanian guide, reading from a slightly greasy notebook, explains to visitors that the electric border fence is there to keep Albanian animals from straying into Yugoslavia.

Inside the fence is a minute, mountainous country of 11,000 sq. mi. and 1,800,000 people, poor in living conditions, rich in anachronisms and completely alone in its bizarre comradeship with Red China, which began in 1961. That was the year that Russia broke with Albania because of Albania's support of Red China in the Moscow-Peking feud; Red China, in turn, quickly stepped in with a life-saving $125 million in credits. "Now," remarked an Italian businessman in the capital of Tirana, "the Chinese are here to stay, and stay, and stay." Fully 70% of the country's foreign trade is with Red China. Chinese movies are shown in the cinemas. Some 7,000 Chinese tractors plow Albania's collective farms. At noon every day in Tirana, Chinese delegations can be seen leaving ministries and official buildings, and boarding special buses with curtained windows to take them to a guarded villa overlooking the city.

Propaganda Tableau. Albania is using its own version of Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution to galvanize its lethargic citizens, and portraits of Mao and Party Boss Enver Hoxha hang side by side in shops and offices. Wall posters criticize laggard factory managers and party officials, women's high heels and short dresses, and everyone who dodges early-morning gymnasium classes. Like a propaganda tableau out of Red China, party members and intellectuals gather in the fields against a majestic background of snow-capped mountains, reading Hoxha's thoughts to the toiling farmers and spurring them on to greater productivity. Other workers trudge along country roads to rifle practice with flowers sticking out of the muzzles of their guns.

The Albanian Cultural Revolution, however, differs in one major respect from its Red Chinese model. Whereas the Maoists are trying to erase their cultural past, the Albanians are stressing the importance of theirs. Castles and other buildings have been declared "national monuments." Such quaint old towns as Berat and Gjinokaster have been made "museum cities." There, as they have for decades, leathery old peasants in white fezzes and baggy black trousers shuffle through narrow whitewashed streets or huddle in local cafes, sipping muddy Turkish coffee. In the fields outside of town, women still wear brightly ornamented costumes.

There can be few regions outside the tropics where so many gorgeous displays of flowers, fruit and foliage bloom in such casual profusion. The Albanians are gradually enlarging and renovating existing hotels and building new ones to more exacting Western standards of comfort with an eye to eventually attracting more Western tourists. But so far, Albania lets in only a dribble of outsiders each year and carefully screens them; U.S. citizens and those of Greece, with whom Albania is technically still at war, are automatically barred from entry. They would probably feel uncomfortable anyway. In every town and village stand the real symbols of Albania's hard-lining Communism: numerous statues and busts of the canonized Joseph Stalin.

Painful Shortages. Painfully short of consumer goods, many shopkeepers simply decorate their windows with the ubiquitous portraits of Mao or Hoxha. Whatever hazards may await the Western traveler, he can be fairly certain of one thing: he will never be run over. Only one of every 10,000 Albanians owns a car, and traffic is practically nonexistent. As a result, people stroll down the center of empty boulevards; Tirana is the only city in Albania with traffic cops, who stand idly at crossroads, waiting for the occasional passing car.

Hoxha is making a determined effort to improve things. Last year, with Chinese help, industrial production climbed 12%, agricultural production 8.3% and overall national income 10.7%. Hoxha sent thousands of "Red Guards" into the mountains a few months ago to increase the amount of arable land, has launched.a national drive to have Albanians plant and eat more potatoes. He has discreetly stepped up trade with Yugoslavia and Greece, both of which he continues to vilify. For all that, Albania has a very long distance to go before it gets even near the 20th century. An Albanian farmer earns only $32 a month; small locally manufactured radios cost $76. Worst of all is the high cost of Communism in terms of lost freedom, for which Albanians are still paying the highest price.

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