Remains of Socialism in Tirana

I went for a walk past the National Art Gallery this morning, and at the back I saw these old sculptures/statutes. The look spooky being parked out the back. Lenin's arms are missing, and you can only just see his head. Kinda strange. Stalin seems to have survived a little better.

Albania

The Albanian language is very hard for me. Almost all the words are different from English, as this sign shows. Actually, that is a problem just about everywhere I work. Still, the people are nice and very friendly.

More Soviet luxury items

They really went in for art (particularly public art) in a big way during the old days. Here is a lovely, enormous and very colourful mosaic just by the side of the road in Bishkek.

So why don't we have caviar chippies?

Those crazy Russians - who would have thought of caviar flavoured chips? Obviously they did, because here is the proof. Think of all those wonderful consumer items that we must have been missing during the Cold War. I am yet to actually taste them - the packet and the idea are enough at this stage.

How not to take a photo. And meet my friends

Greetings from Bishkek. I was searching through my old photos, trying to find something to put here, and discovered this photo. It is perhaps about as bad a photo composition as you could imagine, don't you think? Everything seems to be wrong (except maybe the lighting). Funny, I guess.

Also, this photo is good because it shows two of the Kyrgyz guys I work with - Bakyt (pronounced Bucket by us, but I am sure it is a little different) who is a registration expert (head of the department) and Melis, who is a lawyer. He is the tall one. Melis was a popular name during the Soviet times - it stands for Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin. I wonder if he has thought of changing it?