[May 2024] The next thing we saw in Tirana, the capital of Albania, was a building called the Pyramid.
It was built as a museum to honour the achievements of Hoxha, the country’s dictator, and was also called the “Mausoleum of Hoxha.”
It opened in 1988, and until 1991, when the country’s system changed, it was used as an educational facility to learn the teachings of the Communist Party.
When our guide, Giorgio, was a child, he was taken here about 20 times a year.
However, after the visit, it was a playground.
Now the slope is a staircase, but originally it was just a slope, and children competed to see how far they could climb.
They enjoyed climbing up with cardboard boxes with them and sliding down when they reached the top.
Giorgio said, “But we had to be careful. We only had one pair of trousers.”
When they grew up, they used the Pyramid as a meeting place with friends.
After all, there was only one phone in a whole apartment building, and the phone was in the house of a Communist Party member.
Ordinary people did not have a phone.
So it was customary for everyone to come to the Pyramid first and decide what to do with their friends.
“It was here that I first smoked a cigarette and it was here that I kissed my first love” said Giorgio.
The pyramid is filled with the various thoughts and memories of the citizens of Tirana, but now it houses classrooms where citizens can study for free and some shops to raise funds for its operation.
We didn’t go inside, but listened to the story on the pavement across the street.
Then we looked at the prime minister’s official residence from a distance.
The current prime minister is Edi Rama.
According to Giorgio, he is “a man who failed to became a painter and instead, became a prime minister.”
And he apparently holds exhibitions of his own paintings in the official residence and sells them at high prices.
The area around the Prime Minister’s Official Residence was home to many homes of government officials, and it used to be off-limits to the general public.
