“In a building on ‘Rruga e Durrësit’, near the Yugoslav Embassy, right where there were so many spies, Kirov, a big TV set, had placed a…”/ The story of the “master” who challenged the dictatorship

By Edison Ypi

Memorie.al / Italian private televisions had started to appear. People whose souls had become zehr, waiting for tens of years to dress like people and eat with golden spoons, but ended up with rags and soup with pig’s feet, feverishly exchanging experiences on tools and ways to see foreign televisions. They talked with trusted acquaintances about electronics, jugs, transistors, resistors, capacitors, screws, sheet metal, steel tubes, copper tubes, aluminum tubes, some of the strangest schemes, even improvised, but rather taken from Russian magazines the 60s, left in the basements of the National Library from where God knows how they managed to get them out, or at the bottom of some old moldy trunk, of those who had been in Russia with studies, because of the woman Russian, they ended up in the mud.

There was no end to the desire to do everything, I begged, without seeing any movie at all, or to listen to any fragment of the news, at least some words like some scared wrens about the poor Albania, which no one ever remembered.

There was talk of white nights searching for channels that came and went depending on the weather, clouds, temperatures, turbulence, fragments of films they took for commercials, fragments of commercials that looked like films, fatigue, red eyes from insomnia, fear of spies or by fools with excessive zeal in defense of ideological purity, fear of the pensioners of the mahalla, who saw in every antenna an excess, a deviation, a hostile intention that had to be punished, had to be punished as it deserved, as severely, as wild, merciless.

There was even talk of surreal, futuristic ideas, such as how to watch some satellite television. Jokes were also exchanged. For example, once, Agron Nallbani said: “You Edison make the best can in Albania.” But since canoe-making is a craft practiced only in Albania, you are the greatest canoeist in the world.”

Among the successes that were achieved, a shocking case became famous: In a building on “Rruga e Durrësit”, near the Yugoslav Embassy, right where there were so many spies, that you had nowhere to throw a grain of sandalwood, a television set had placed an extremely high antenna, a super-antenna, a super-antenna.

That Antenna was so high and so visible, that you could pass by “Rruga e Durrësit” and not see the masterpiece of the brave man who dared to raise it by “throwing a dance into the wolf’s mouth”, which is impossible .

The magnificent antenna that openly and gravely challenged spies and espionage and their dirty services, in favor of the dictatorship of the proletariat, stunned everyone, left everyone speechless.

His name was Kirov.

I was not lucky enough to know Kirov.

They say for nothing that patience, apart from that of a pig, is the brother of success. These days, Kirov took me on the phone. About the magnificent Antenna, Kirov said: “I liked Lucio Batisti, Massimo Ranieri, Lucio Dalla and others. I had them. I wanted to see them even more.

I put you to work, like the Turk Sumbula. I got the support pipes and bars for the base from NMI. The concrete, with trowels, tools, everything, was brought to me by a friend with a cart, from a building that was being built nearby.

The copper pipes were brought to me by someone else from the “Dajti” Plant. For the rest of my life, I put iron bars in the copper pipes, to better absorb the TV waves; the one who had been a sailor brought me to Pashaliman’s submarines.

The elements of the antenna in the shape of a swallow’s tail were given to me by another friend at the “Traktori” Factory, which was given to him by Sofokli Karpuzi, who prepared them with a special self-made stamp.

In order to calculate the weight and dimensions of the foundation and the amount of concrete, so that the giant Antenna over 20 meters high would not be overturned by the wind, a construction engineer at “Street  Bridge” helped me with the relevant calculations.

To prevent it from being stolen, I blocked the antenna with a horizontal transverse bolt, which clamped the outer tube to the inner tube. Don’t let the thieves loose with the hex wrench, I saw off the head of the bolt. But headless bolts can be loosened with a parrot key.

My grave has spoken, as long as I can, I blocked the blocking bolt, so that no parrot could open it. I threw acid at the bolt. It had no effect. Again he was released with a parrot.

I wet it thoroughly, nothing.

I also tried it with melted Rrogozhine soap, then battery solution, rat grass, dog poison, snake medicine, pig fat, ladies’ butter, men’s margarine, no results; the parrot turned and loosened the bolt easily.

Then I tried to wet the bolt one by one, with all the sours, brines, spirits, vinegars, leaves, kelp, pocakirs, which were given to the workers to eat and drink in the mills. No result.

The solution, like all ingenious solutions, came suddenly. One afternoon I went out on the terrace, took out the grapes, made the bolt. Complete success.

Nocturnal attempts to steal the antenna of the mutt, by loosening the bolt of the winch, failed successfully. The blocking effect of the threshing floor triumphed. Shura had been the solution. Shura saved my antenna from theft. The discovery was shocking. My fame took off. I was almost awarded the title of “Grand Master”.

At a Collective Meeting, someone proposed to pull out the barbed wire and enclose the whole of Albania with steel plates, to be tightened and locked with bolts wet with my crowbar, which would henceforth be as valuable as was quoted on the Stock Exchange.

I am proud that my saw, wet so high, and with stolen items and screwed bolts, I managed to make the highest antenna in the world. Memorie.al