THE PHOTOS
During those first visits to Albania in 1987 and 1988, I had taken photographs. Like the descriptive sections in The Red Fortress, these images showed a world that no longer existed and I began to wonder if they could somehow be integrated into the book. If I could find the exact spots where I’d taken the original photos, maybe I could use them as a visual barometer of change to complement the text.
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Almost all the photographs were colour slides stored in boxes. I hadn’t looked at them for more than thirty years. The quality varied - some were pin-sharp, others murky - but all of them, regardless of quality, were reminders of how different communist Albania had been. It wasn’t exactly scientific, but the old photos did provide a measure of sorts, a baseline to assess how much (or little) post-communist development was changing the landscape. Comparisons between old and new could help me build a fuller picture not just of what Albania had been but what it was becoming.
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I began scanning the slides. It was a slow process. Sometimes I had to scan a slide two or three times to get rid of the particles of dust. But by November 2017, I was ready for a trial run. I had planned a visit to Fier in central Albania. I knew from The Red Fortress that in 1988 we’d stopped for a night at Hotel Apolonia in the town centre and that in the morning, there’d been time for a walk around Fier. So all the old photos of Fier - there were ten of them - would have been taken in the town centre.
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I was standing on the main street outside an electrical shop, old photos in hand, trying to decide if a blank wall was where there’d once been a communist mural of a worker with a pickaxe. The shop owner came out to see what I was up to. His name was Ylvi. He spoke good English and offered to show me round Fier and help me find the other locations.
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As we walked, it became clear that the photos were far more than a record of a previous version of Albania. For any Albanian aged over forty, they were a key that unlocked memories, good and bad. Prompted by the photos, Ylvi told me about his life, how he’d survived during the chaos following the collapse of the old regime and how he’d built himself a new life when things had settled down.
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In 2018, I started matching the photos in a more structured way. With my partner Kirstie, we followed the routes Albturist had taken in 1987 and 1988. The first leg took us south from Shkodër, through Laç, Krujë, Durrës and Berat. The following year, we started in Sarandë and worked our way north through Gjirokastër, Tepelenë, Ballsh and then to the capital, Tirana.
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As well as providing insights into the landscape, the old photos helped me make connections in the here and now. They’ve brought me closer to Albania and Albanians in a way I would never thought possible during those first visits when it was dangerous for Albanians to talk to foreigners.
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Some of these photos have been reprinted in black and white in Enver Hoxha’s Long Shadow. The selection here is in colour. All the ones in the book are here as well as others that didn’t make the final selection.
Northern Albania | Southern Albania | Tirana
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All images are copyright and may not be used without permission.