ALBANIA
«Certain mornings when the sky was clear, from my house I could see the mountains of Albania. Only the time has kept me away. I have often hoped to land on those lands from which so many people were fleeing. Once there, it takes little to understand why so much desire to leave. Albania is a country of contrasts. Before you even get off the ship, the panorama of Valona offers a first show of iridiscent skyscrapers and buildings reflected on the sea. From the outset the streets appear dusty and disused. For the more curious and bizarre travelers encountering a Swedish wooden chalet type hotel ten meters from the seaside is the most desirable pretext to begin an experience of this nation “blessed” by the Mediterranean. Wrong road signs, non-conventional DIY, monuments to the fallen road victims near curves and overhangs guide motorists along the winding and impassable arteries of the country. Whether in town or on the dusty rural roads a host of old Mercedes and SUV speed without rules, dodging pedestrians, farmers and shepherds moving on the roadside with their herds, donkeys and mules. The country of the Eagles badly built their nests, defacing habitat and lands. The Albanian thaw is favored by the constructions of skyscrapers, new churches and minarets: these first buds of a post-communist spring rise undisturbed in the capital and along the coast. Albania is the country of the new castles, of the boat-shaped houses and of detached three-storey buildings, strictly illegal and “unfinished”. A slap to the social-realism, so beloved by Hoxha. Speaking of “cementification” devalues the nation commitment to achieve a reconstruction, although harmful and regressive. In Albania we can forget the pristine landscape and get used to the harsh rules of composition; whereby reading nature, bunkers, scraps and garbages as a whole. Eco-sustainability, environment, ecology and conservation are not yet part of the Albanian lexicon. Albania has re-made the same mistakes of western countries on environmental issues. All this seems to threaten the identity and sense of belonging to a population forced to flee its homeland.»
© All copyright remains with photographer Simone Massafra