She believed her parents loved Enver Hoxha’s Stalinist regime. But once Albania’s communist system collapsed, Lea Ypi began to realise nothing was as it seemed …
• Read an extract from Lea Ypi’s memoir, Free
One day, when Lea Ypi was a child, an empty Coca-Cola can appeared in her house. This was communist Albania, in the 1980s, and the country, run by Enver Hoxha along Stalinist lines, was reputed to be the hardest to enter or exit in the world. So a Coke can was a rare and enviable sight. Her mother had put this new ornament in pride of place, on an embroidered doily. Then it disappeared – only for a Coke can to appear on top of the TV next door. Was it the same one? Perhaps.
The neighbours, who had been close, fell out. Finally, after a chilly stand-off, peace was brokered. At a party to celebrate the rapprochement, people were expansive, praising each other’s food, drink, generosity, when a young Ypi spoke up cheerily and silenced the room. “We were going to have a photo of Uncle Enver [instead],” she said, but “I don’t think they like Uncle Enver.” Eventually, as she tells it in her memoir, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, her neighbour, a communist party member, called her to him. That was, he said sternly, “a very stupid thing to say … Your parents love Uncle Enver. They love the party. You must never again say these stupid things to anyone.” Her parents said nothing.