The Shadow Royals

Across Europe, the descendants of dethroned monarchs believe they have something to offer in the 21st Century

- By Helen Lewis. Photographs by Jelka Von Langen

One peculiarity of European aristocrats is that their names pile up, like snowdrifts. It's lunchtime in Tirana, the capital of Albania, and I am about to meet Leka Anwar Zog Reza Baudouin Msiziwe Zogu, crown prince of the Albanians.

The Albanian royal residence is easy to miss, tucked away on a quiet side street behind the national art museum. While Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms, including 188 staff bedrooms, 19 staterooms, and 78 bathrooms, the Albanian residence would be among the smaller, more understated houses in a wealthy American suburb. Its front gate opens onto a yard where the country stores its unwanted Soviet statues: Lenin, Stalin, and the Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha all gaze with stony fortitude at a generic Stakhanovite maiden. Lenin has no arms. Hoxha's nose is missing. The gate is guarded by an elderly manservant for whom the term faithful retainer might have been invented. Because I am British, his thinly disguised irritation at my presence makes me feel right at home.

And here is the prince: 39 years old, more than six feet tall, with a sandy beard, navy blazer, and soft South African accent, saying goodbye to his wife, Crown Princess Elia, and their 1-year-old daughter, Princess Geraldine. The pair are about to go to the park—without bodyguards—and Prince Leka II takes me inside, to the drawing-room, where the faithful retainer brings me an espresso. Next door is a room devoted to Albanian history (“what a lovely scimitar, I find myself exclaiming, my reserves of small talk inadequate at the sight of the family's sword collection), and beyond that is a cozy lounge with a leather sofa, its domesticity slightly compromised by the bows and arrows hanging on the wall.