In a video published at the “Tirana from the air” event, Rama says that, “who has not lived in Tirana on the eve of 2000, is unlikely to believe that these images were captured on its streets at that time.”

The “Scanderbeg Square,” once an empty space that was crowded only on the occasion of the grand manifestations staged by the dictatorship of the proletariat, turned into a gloomy void, where beggars found themselves bathing in the old fountains, Rama emphasizes.
“River Lana, vanished between the two long trains of unauthorized buildings, littered with rotting garbage reeking with stench, burst the banks when it rained to flood the streets,” Rama adds.
“The old polluting cars increased in number despite the messy traffic jam, while the urban buses were aging, completing the city’s soundtrack with their last breath,” underlines Rama.

“The livestock was slaughtered and sold in the corners of the neighborhood, as the small entrepreneurship was in its infancy, ” says Rama.
“Hospitals, schools, old institutional buildings and shops were the European mirror images of the third world”, says Rama.

“The city was surrounded by settlers from the suburbs of Albania in search of their little America, who built their houses with the money of family members in emigration”, adds Rama.

“These images were taken for this show from the collection of the amateur photographer Carlo Kuhni, who lived for some time in Albania, while the then collection of Alket Islami was burned in a fatal accident and no longer exists,” adds Rama.

“A lot of aerial photos taken in the early 2000s, which mark the beginning of the renaissance of today’s Tirana, which 10 years from today will be the European capital of the Balkans, disappeared like that,” concludes Rama.
/r.e/sm/