Hello you're listening to the witness podcast from the BBC World Service with me Monica Whitlock.

We're going back to Albania in January of 1997.

Stalinist communism had ended and capitalism had arrived and almost every

Albanian family had invested in get-rich quick schemes known as Ponzies or

pyramids. A new era was dawning all over Albania in the 1990s and nowhere

was the spirit of change more thrilling than the capital Tirana.

Tirana was an exciting place to be.

Caffes and restaurants sprang up everywhere so the streets were just overflowing

with people sitting out and enjoying themselves.

They were gleaming with life and is green and the girls are pretty.

Lorena Natchu was 18 years old, living with her parents in Tirana and working hard for her final school exams. Her grades were excellent and she was aiming high.

All of us, my friends and myself, we were making plans to study abroad. I had my sights at going to study architecture at the

University of Milano. Everybody, especially the young people, were so extremely eager to have this new experiences.

Everything was looking up at the time.

Albania's pyramid schemes seemed to be the essence of the new capitalism.

All you had to do was invest in a company, sit tight and draw out a profit at

the end of a month. First people invested their salaries and savings and then remittances

from abroad and then their houses.

Out in the countryside farmers sold their land and livestock.

The government too relied on and supported the schemes.

People started to sell every possession they had.

It just became something that you had to do, including my family,

...