Meanwhile, Albania’s tall prime minister was busy putting brush to paper. The son of a sculptor, Rama studied at Tirana’s Art Academy as a teenager, before turning to basketball as a means to overcome Albania’s travel ban, as professional sports people were exempt. This allowed him to visit galleries in other countries, such as Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Later he became a professor of painting at Tirana, before heading to the School of Fine Arts in Paris on a fellowship. He returned to Albania after he received a call from the then-prime minister, who was looking for a new culture minister, a move that started Rama’s political career.
