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By Sidonja Manushi The first time Robert D. Kaplan was in Albania, the country was still isolated, deprived and unknown. Although communism was in its final throes, it had not officially fallen, and so nobody from the West had been in the capital, let alone rural areas, for decades. Passing through the now modern Skanderbeg Square with a tour group from Greece, Kaplan, who was no stranger to the Balkans, then saw a very different image from what one sees strolling down Tirana’s center today: a number of gangs, made up of ten-year-old boys, harassing and pickpocketing around old stores,…
