"Çë kur të lashë, nani të shoh" [Da quando t’ho lasciata, ora ti rivedo] Diario, foto e ricordi di viaggio nell’Albania del 1983

Abstract

I share here the Diary of my trip to Albania made in August 1983, which has been the first of a long series of journeys made during these last thirty-years. I present for the first time the unabridged transcription of my diary supplemented by a series of recently written texts containing both extensive descriptions of communist Albania and an historical, cultural and economic introduction. The whole text is illustrated by many other documents such as pictures and original materials which I have gathered and kept of that trip. So, I give here my witness from within the then Albanian communist gulag which in 1983 was still forbidden to most people but that revealed itself to us, young university students, with all its contradictions, with its extraordinary unbelievable beauty and with the virginity (now lost) of all those wonderful places we were lucky to visit thirty years ago.