The Albanian capital during the eighties as seen by Serena Luciani, director of the Italian Institute of culture
Times seems to have stopped in the streets, squares, buildings, houses and everywhere, even in the lives of Albanian men and women.
“Clean and carless, Tirana always looked good at the eyes of a western visitor. To most Albanians, it looked boring”. This is how the Italian writer Serena Luciani remembers Tirana in the ’80. Her description of Dajti Hotel, hotel Tirana, the untouchable Pyramid, the almost mystic area of Blloku, etc seems likewise distant.
After two years in the Albanian capital, caught between the sadness of a slow life and the poor culture of an isolated country, often finding herself between secrecy and espionage, Luciani writes: “In fact, Tirana was not so special without the traces of an ancient story. One could see along Lana, which was not even a proper river, some soviet era buildings that used to have a sort of architectonic dignity”.
Two years were just enough for Luciani to witness events that led to the fall of communism in Albania. In the meantime, she also got more acquainted with the Albanians, their customs and character. She became familiar to the non-smoking Albanian woman that was way too devoted to the family, as a western saw it. That’s how she depicts a usual morning for an Albanian woman: “Every morning at 5 o’clock am, before heading to work the Albanian woman would leave the kids in the kindergarten, would queue to get a bottle of milk. By eight o’clock am all this was over and everyone was at their workplace.”
