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My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

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Hello, thanks for downloading the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Rob Walker. Today's programs about the collapse of communism in Albania

events which began in 1990, but what's a bit different about today's program

is that we'll be seeing those events through the eyes of someone who was a child at the

time. But first of all, let's get a glimpse inside Communist Albania.

This remains the world's last Stalinist state. Only

occasionally does a second-hand imported bus disturb the pedestrians. Here as

elsewhere in Albania private cars are banned and bicycles are bound.

For four and a half decades Albania has remained a closed society.

That's a rare report from inside Albania in 1989.

Since the Second World War, Albanians had lived under a rigid and repressive communist regime.

Emma Hodger, the ruthless dictator, had ruled the country for 40 years until he died in 1985 and not

much changed after that. Albanians weren't allowed out and hardly any journalist managed to get

inside.

State control was absolute.

School was very politicized, so we had these moral education classes in which we were told

...