Bugging devices
Hidden microphones and cameras of the era.
Bes-ART — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jcornelius — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Senada Kusi — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bruno Rijsman — CC BY 2.0 · Eno Sukulli — CC BY-SA 4.0
The House of Leaves is Albania's National Museum of Secret Surveillance, a two-storey 1931 villa in central Tirana where the communist secret police, the Sigurimi, listened in on the country until 1991. Named after the climbing plant on its façade, it opened as a museum on 23 May 2017 and won the Council of Europe Museum Prize for 2020. It began as a private obstetric clinic, Albania's first, founded and run by the physician Jani Basho. The Gestapo used it briefly during the German occupation of 1943–1944. Soon after the war it became an investigation centre where prisoners were tortured; from the 1950s it housed the Sigurimi's technical-scientific branch, which ran bugging, phone tapping and postal checks, plus the unit watching foreigners and diplomats. Its 31 rooms on two floors trace the system: hidden microphones, cameras and recorders, files on informers known by code names, plans of the bugging network around hotels and embassies, and recordings of tapped voices. A 1970s living room is set with period furniture, the old clinic laboratory served to develop film, cut keys and open letters in secret, and one room lists people jailed or executed for political reasons. Concrete doors guard a tunnel entrance in the garden. It stands on Rruga Dëshmorët e 4 Shkurtit, opposite the Orthodox Resurrection Cathedral; allow one to two hours. In a straight line, Skanderbeg Square is about 260 m away, the Et'hem Bey Mosque and Bunk'Art 2, a police and Sigurimi museum in a former bunker, about 270 m each, while Bunk'Art 1 lies 4.5 km north-east.
Hidden microphones and cameras of the era.
Where film was developed and letters opened in secret.
A list of those jailed or executed for political reasons.
Opposite the Orthodox cathedral, central Tirana
Skanderbeg SquareThe main square at the heart of Tirana, named after the Albanian national hero S3 minutes walk4.4
Et'hem Bey MosqueA small historic mosque on Skanderbeg Square, begun by Molla Bey around 1791 and3 minutes walk4.5
Pyramid of TiranaA pyramid-shaped building of concrete and glass in central Tirana, opened in 1987 minutes walk4.1
Great Mosque of Tirana (Namazgah Mosque)Tirana's great mosque, known as the Namazgah Mosque after the old prayer ground 8 minutes walk4.9Yes. The museum's website lists 210 lek for pupils and students, 350 lek for pensioners and 500 lek each in groups of more than 12; children enter free (the age limit is 12 on its Albanian page, 8 on its English one), as does everyone on 18 April, 18 May, 21 May and 29 September, with proof needed for any reduction.
Few people: the museum says 1970s Tirana had only about 1,500 home telephones, granted by special permission mostly to families of the ruling elite and their circle. When the Sigurimi turned on a member of that elite, the phone was left in place as a listening line.