In the mid-1990s, Albania appeared to be a nation on the rise. Emerging from decades of isolation and communist rule, people poured their savings into investment schemes that promised extraordinary returns. But many of those schemes were little more than giant Ponzi scams. When they collapsed in early 1997, millions of people lost everything. The financial meltdown triggered mass protests and armed uprisings. The government lost control of large parts of the country and Albania teetered on the edge of civil war. In this episode, we revisit one of the most dramatic financial disasters of the post-cold war era. Host Robin Wigglesworth speaks to Ortenca Aliaj, the FT’s banking editor who was a child in Albania during the crisis, about what it was like to live through the chaos, how the schemes captured an entire nation and what the collapse reveals about the dangerous mix of financial speculation, weak institutions and public trust.
Further reading:
The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein
Credits: Getty Images
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Host: Robin Wigglesworth
Producer: Laurence Knight
Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa
Original music: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Gioumpasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
Video editor: Kristen Kenyon and Josh Divney at Podcast Discovery
Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at thestoryofmoney@ft.com.