Visiting and paper shuffling

Yesterday I received two courtesy visits. In the late morning an old friend, whom I consider like a brother, came to spend some time with me and catch up with our mutual news. Our parents, now long deceased, used to be close friends their entire lives, and we, as babies, used to play a lot together way back then. WWII forced our lives to take separate paths and this went on for 54 years. It was a very emotional moment when we rediscovered each other upon my return to Tirana for the first time in 1993. Now, whenever we have the chance to get together, we update ourselves, try to forecast the future for the younger generations, and talk a lot about the past, especially about the history of Albania, much of which I’m learning through him, who has lived every moment of it, throughout his entire life inside the country. Time flies when we chat and we even forget to eat.

The other visit by a friend of recent years was in the late afternoon. This is the time when people who work take the time to get off from the daily routines. They usually have late lunches (especially state employees, whose work day ends at 3pm); consequently, they dine late. As in many European countries, the in between hours are dedicated to “la dolce vita”, enjoying a stroll, stopping at a café’ for a chat, or visiting family and/or friends.

Today all my activities were mostly sedentary. At the computer before a brief lunch at home, and then off to the National Library where I planned researching some old historical documents that I’m interested in. Spent 3 tiring hours sifting through dusty bounded volumes of the “State Official Gazette”(1940’s). These collections are invaluable for their content and are perused on a daily basis by loads of people, trying to collect documentation, history, and references about their families, their properties, and the laws that affected them in the past.

It's an exhausting, but fascinating trip into the past, where one can visualize the trials and tribulations of the entire population under the communist regime. The records are incredibly detailed in many cases: from the list of actual confiscation of real estate properties, to the home contents of the persecuted people (sold at public auction); from the verdicts of condemnation of political dissidents, to the military decorations of the soldiers and officers that distinguished themselves to defend the country from the abhorred foreigners.....the list goes on and on, the aging pages are heavily marked in pencil or pen, a lot of them are torn, and falling apart. I guess, however, that these documents are preserved also in microfiche format, as I know are the confiscated personal documents of the people that were arrested, tried, and imprisoned for years. A large part of the Albanian population went through these processes, and entire families ended up spending their lives in concentration camps. There their children were born, their parents and grandparents died, and many never knew what it means to live in a free world!

Enough of reminiscences for one day....Was glad to leave the stuffy library, which was filled to capacity by all sorts of people, young and old, all intent into their various diggings...and to get back into the nice afternoon breeze. The sun was starting to set and the large central square, named after the national hero “Skanderbeg”, was in full swing, and I could not resist taking pictures of the well known structures (see above) that surround this wide open area.