Old surprise?

How can a surprise be old? The surprise I received today is about old stuff, actually about old family pictures just recently discovered!

I have been a user of Albania's National Archives since 1993 and I've had the pleasure of viewing more than once the huge amount of files and documents about my family, which were secretly preserved, with many others, throughout several decades, by the ex communist regime.

Everything that was confiscated during those dark years, when personal properties were expropriated and people were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps, was never destroyed, but actually cataloged. Archival materials were accumulated and still exist in several locations reporting to different branches of government, however. Currently lots of work is undergoing, for a variety of reasons, to re-organize these voluminous collections that not only provide an historical background of Albania, but become an important tool for current day needs by both the state and its citizens, especially involving the still thorny and debated property issues.

Anyway, the surprise that was presented to me today relates to the recent unearthing of hundreds of negatives and related prints about my early days in Tirana and about my immediate family then. This morning I was overwhelmed by the number of them, although I know that my uncle had the hobby of photography and in those days he was well equipped to perform the related development at home.


The majority of the negatives, of the old fashion type on glass, are well preserved, and so are most prints in black and white.

My mother and I
[prints on top - glass negatives below]

Today I was offered the possibility of having the pictures of my choice scanned and mounted on a CD, which should be ready in a couple of days. The surprise made my day, and provided me with quite a few ideas of how I'm going to use this newly discovered treasure of mine!