The impressions of a Russian travel blogger about Tirana, Albania

Photo: alexblock /Instagram

Alex Block is travel blogger from Russia, a guy who has visited more than 44 countries and more than 400 cities. He was recently on a trip to Albania and in the capital Tirana. What he sees more interesting in Tirana are the two museums located near the city center, the House of Leaves museum and Bunk’Art2 museum.  Alex is also impressed by the colorful facades of apartments in Tirana.

Read some impressions about his trip:

“Tirana is doing its best in making city little more colorful: many people know it for controversial project of repainting buildings in different colours, but they got very cool idea of painting electricity booths with pictures of iconic figures like Charlie Chaplin, Pokemon, Mickey Mouse and lots of others. It’s really fun to check it! Also there are several modern art installations around city, which is very cool and have a great chance to go viral!”

Photo credits: Alex Block

House of Leaves is former central office of spying in Albania. This is a house, which got a lot of rumors around it for decades and it’s a miracle, that now it became a museum! It shows a lot of story behind it, explains how Albania watched their citizens, what was the purpose of it, who was the victim of the regime, what equipment they use and how they build all this empire. It was especially interesting, how they welcomed foreigners at that time. It was possible to visit Albania during Soviet time, but everyone coming should act and look appropriately. If your hair was too long, they got a hairdresser right at the border, which would make appropriate haircut. If your cloth wasn’t appropriate, you also had to change. All hotels were equipped with hidden microphones and cameras. The House of Leaves was the place where they will listen all that you will say! It’s absolutely fantastic, that all the numbers, statistic, some documents and technics are available now and set as a museum exhibition! That was definitely one of the most interesting I ever seen!

Photo credits: Alex Block

BunkArt2 is located in a former bunker right in the city centre. It tells a story of Albania in interactive and interesting way. Museum is full of sounds, installations and interesting not only as a Bunker, but also as an opportunity to learn more about history of Albania since it’s independence from the early 20th century and all the invasions from that time. Albania definitely had very hard 20th century history and it’s very interesting to learn!

Nightlife is very busy time in Tirana. After the sun goes down, lots of people feel the streets to sit in numerous cafes and bars. There is big bar district with plenty of nice and modern places in Tirana, so The party in Tirana is more about sipping a drink and talking, sometimes with some DJ or life music, so it's more on relaxed side, than on party hard side.

See original article here!