At Daphne's Club Hotel on the southern shore of the Gulf of Corinth, there is a man who, for almost 30 years has swept the patio and verandas, repainted the blue metal gates and fences, changed lightbulbs and tended to the plants, most of which he planted. The mature Elaeagnus stands high above sprawling Jasmine and Wysteria creating pleasant dappled shade in which to shelter from the Greek summer. He is an unassuming man mostly seen in tracksuit trousers and a white polo T-shirt which bears the hotel's logo and though he speaks no English he has been known to throw out an enthusiastic "Yes"! as you pass or state as though narrating to unseen observers "Market", when you return carrying shopping bags.
Though he doesn't own the hotel it is in many ways his; everywhere you go you see if not the man himself, then the work of his hand and how it has shaped the image and feel of this place. From the basement to the rooftop, he lives here. And if you do see him, you will find him carrying out his work with a contented ease, a pace that says he could continue for a thousand years. His name, at least these days is...
DIMITRI
In 1960 a boy was born to a farming family in Saranda, southern Albania. The fifth and final child, the parents named him Mitro, but after 30 years he would no longer have any use for that name and in an effort to integrate as much as possible into Greek society, to become Greek, he would change his name to Dimitri. But that's getting ahead of the story.
Dimitri's birthplace is a little known republic in the Balkan peninsula with a population of around 3 million, low considering her traditionally high birth rates. Her immediate neighbours are Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Greece, while Italy lies 120km west, across the Adriatic sea. Agriculture employs just under half the population of the country on small to medium sized farms which during the 40 years of socialism were all state owned along with almost everything else. This has been changing steadily since the fall of communism and the country is moving towards a mixed economy in preparation for entry into the EU. It is safe to say that Albania has known a turbulent and oppressive past which to most in the western world remains a cautionary tale of fictionalised obscurity, pieced together from a an amalgam of Orwellian intrigue laced with James Bond absurdity. That turbulence dates back hundreds of years and as a testament to the successful education program of Enver Hoxa, the nation's Stalinist leader, Dimitri is able to recount a good deal of it. Despite his humble position at the hotel Dimitri is no idle mind and during our interview he effortlessly ushers me through 600 years of Albanian history, through the rule of the Ottoman Empire and liberation from it in 1912, the fascist occupation during WW2 and it's defeat by the socialist Albanian forces led by Hoxa, who eventually rose to power, sealed the borders, cutting off trade and communications with almost all of the rest of the world. So followed 4 decades of suffocating isolation, mounting paranoia and deadly political purges.
So what forms had the asphyxiation of Albania and her people taken? During Hoxa's the time the nation was one of the hardest countries to gain access to or leave. If a citizen was caught attempting to escape, the punishment was 25 years in prison with no chance of getting off the hook. "No lawyers. No discussion". Borders closed on a nation which had experienced mass emmigrations through the ages. These date back to the beginning of the Albanian diaspora in the 15th century when the country was defeated by Ottoman forces and since then waves of people have fled their homeland headed for other European nations (most notably Greece and Italy) and more recently the Americas. Over half a million Albanians were legally in Greece in 2005 making it the largest immigrant population in that country. As always happens when large numbers of people settle in another land, deserved or not, Albanians in Greece developed a bad reputation and many of them, Dimitri included, did not want to be seen as Albanians and so changed their given muslim names to Greek or Christian ones, converted to Orthodoxy and hid in plain sight.
The lack of influence from the rest of the world was almost absolute; Dimitri and two of his friends were a few of an unknown number (which was undoubtedly very small) who were able to subvert the jammers that the state had put on foreign TV channels coming into the country. They were able to do this by virtue of two things: 1- they had access to a television and 2- they lived at a high elevation near to the Greek border. When the parents of the television owning friend had gone to bed, the three boys would switch from the state channel to whatever was being broadcast in Greece; sport, music, news, movies, and in doing so risked their already restricted freedom.
Dimitri and his now ex wife at their Greek Orthodox baptism.
When the Albanian borders became permeable, the sizeable Greek minority who had been living there were able to semi repatriate on a 10 year visa which could be obtained with a birth certificate from a local police station. Not being a slouch, Dimitri didn't miss a trick and went to the forgery outlet of his local Mafia branch and came away with a crisp new birth cerfticate which, under the heading NATIONALITY read GREEK and cost him only €100. Of this he says, "They did such a good job. How did they get it looking so good"?
At the time, he said, it was still scary crossing the border as it was still manned by the same armed men who had unthinkingly stopped those who had tried to leave before, condemning them to life imprisonment. But being a Greek national on paper meant that he was given no trouble. He saw this in a manner as racism because, "We lived as brothers and sisters on the other side".
Once in Greece, Dimitri's plan was to stay for a few months to make some money, then return to his wife and children who he had left in Albania having not wanted to bring them on such a journey of uncertainty. According to Dimitri it was easy to find work for two reasons, firstly, "Greeks are a little bit lazy" and secondly (which probably gives rise to the first view), "Albanians came strong and hungry for work".
Some of this strength could undoubtedly be attributed to the fact that the Hoxa regime had determined that no technology be employed to do a job that a citizen could do, consequently fields were tilled and sown by hand and building foundations were dug without the use of heavy excavators. And the hunger? For a society that had been inured to labour, taught to value it so highly and afforded so little frivolous leisure time, the collapse of this structure could do no less than create a vacuum in the lives of individuals and even a sense of shame. The values of the regime were pragmatic and materialistic, women featured in most of the workplace propaganda and often were central in the pictures; why waste a good labour force because of backward looking traditions which made women the expendable or returnable property of their husbands? Progress was made either technologically or scientifically; academia was in a straight jacket being able to consider no ideas which overtly or implicitly criticised the state and spirituality was out; In 1967 most of the properties owned by religious organisations were reposessed by the state and either closed down or turned into warehouses, gymnasia, workshops and cultural youth centres. By 1976 secularism was written into the constitution, "The State recognises no religion, and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in the people".
The punishment for those who tried to dodge work under the regime was public shaming; if a person was found to be avoiding work with no good reason to do so, members of their immediate community, friends and family would be brought together to question them as to why they were doing this, failing their country and their government which gave them everything, shaming their own family and friends who gave them life and love by knowingly neglecting their duty and leaving others to pick up their workload. Lazy lazy selfish shameful and ungrateful you. And if anyone could stand up to this level of peer pressure, there was always incarceration.
So after having worked for some time in a petrol station that was supporting and eventually ruined by the habit of an alcoholic, Dimitri decided to go full time at the building site which was to become Daphne's Club Hotel and ultimately his workplace for the next three decades and most likely beyond. When the construction was complete, Dimitri's fears of being out on the street looking for work again were allayed thanks to George, the hotels owner, who had seen Dimitri's candour and commitment to his work. He told Dimitri that as long as the hotel stands, he will have a place here. This meant a lot to Dimitri who had spent years avoiding the stigma that Albanians were viewed with, but had eventually begun to tell people the truth; that he was not one of the Greek minority but full blown Albanian, that he had forged his papers and been living and working illegally in the country for so long now. Dimitri had been aprehensive about telling people the truth and was surprised by the response he received; people told him that he should have just said in the first place, they liked him and it was no problem.
Many years on and Dimitri is still in the hotel which is now run by George's daughter, namesake of the establishment and translator for our interview with Dimitri, Daphne. He is working every day with his new love, Tinka who is the hotel cleaner. His kids are grown and have been granted Greek citizenship but Dimitri is still on temporary papers which he must renew every six months after it was discovered that he had been using fake documents. He had to go to court to be allowed to stay, won that case and is currently fighting another which he is sure he will win.
"I will be renewing my permit until Albania enters the EU" he says.
Daphne points out that Albania is not even a candidate country yet, to which he replies, with the same contented patience with which he carries out his daily tasks, "It is only a matter of time".