Albania’s first submarine to go to the Czech republic

PRAGUE, March 14 – Czech media reported that an Albanian submarine will soon become part of the Czech military, considered an unusual phenomenon for this land-locked country.
The old, discarded submarine will not, however, be used as a weapon but will be on display in the Military History Museum in Lesany, Central Bohemia, according to the daily Lidove noviny newspaper (LN).
The Russian-made submarine, Whiskey, was commissioned in 1954 and served in the Albanian navy until 1994, the newspaper wrote.
The opportunity of acquiring a submarine for the Lesany museum became a reality several years ago when Albania discarded the outdated ships. Czechs knew there were a number of discarded submarines in the south and last year , Czech Defense Minister Vlasta Parkanova asked her Albanian counterpart, Fatmir Mediu, for one submarine during his visit to Prague.
At present there are only a few details left to be decided upon before the Czech-Albanian agreement on cooperation in military history is signed, the paper writes.
Regarding the size of the submarine, only a part of it will be transported to the Czech Republic, the paper writes.
“It is a huge colossus, so we may only bring the fundamental artifacts,” Knizak said. The Czech Republic is also interested in other Albanian weapons of historic value, Military History Institute director Ales Knizek told the paper.
“We have discovered in Albania, for example, an 18-metre-long anti-aircraft gun version 37 made by the [Czech] Skoda Plzen with production number 6, which is absolutely incredible. It even bears inscriptions in Czech besides others in Serbian-Croatian,” Knizek said.
In Albania, there also has been found old rifles and pistols made by the Czech arms producer Brno Zbrojovka, as well as other weapons of Czech production used in both world wars, he said.
The arms were brought to Albania by Italian soldiers who took them from their campaign in the former Yugoslavia, Knizek said.
“Our cooperation is good and it would be great to acquire the weapons,” Knizek said.(Tirana Times Staff)