It was not easy to prepare the objective, find a suitable angle and light and focus on photographing the streets of a communist country, to reflect the sad reality of the people, thus disrupting the retouched and full-color view that the regime itself presented for what was called the “capitalist world”. In most cases, the camera was controlled by secret service agents and the photos were sequestrated. Everything was monitored. But still, they did it. There were at least 12 Dutch photographers who made it possible. Their mission was to let the world know the other side of life inside the Communist Bloc. Albania was a destination as well. In 1987 Dutch photographer Piet den Blanken photographed the isolated communist country, not as was programmed in the official protocol, but as the one hidden behind the facade, and was kept out of the curious tourists’ attentiveness. Mr. den Blanken said that Albania was one of the most isolated countries in the world and he had to hide the photographic film into the luggage, inside a colleague’s car, in order to take it abroad, otherwise those evidences would have disappeared. 30 years later, these exact photos returned to Tirana, as part of a joint exhibit. A photo exhibition titled “The Other Side of Albanian Communism” was inaugurated at the main hall in National Historical Museum. It brought together famous Dutch photographers, who documented the entire period before and during the various revolutions in the former Eastern Bloc countries. They have testified historical moments, such as the 1980 establishment of the Polish trade union Solidarity in Gdansk; fall of the Berlin Wall and the Revolution in Romania in 1989. However, they have captured even the usual moments of everyday life. The whole picture represents an unpredictable and multifaceted view of the Eastern Bloc of that period. A special part of the exhibition is dedicated to the work of photo journalist Piet den Blanken, who traveled to Albania in 1986, as part of the group “friends of the ideal”. Despite the fact that contacts between Albanians and foreign visitors were prohibited, as well as shooting photos in the streets, he did make a lot of photographs of ablanian’s daily lives under communist regime. “The Other Side of Albanian Communism” is an exhibition that tries to view the history of the development of communist rule in the public life of Eastern Europe in an integral way. For the first time are released photos of Albania’s recent dictatorships years in the eyes of a foreign photojournalist. It is true that our country has been a special case within the Empire of Evil, but it has in common the difference in the human misery of the dream for a better life and the sad reality that had captured the Eastern European countries in the late ‘ 80s. The exhibition itself is a call for an open dialogue with the past and an anthropological and visual evidence of the past for what Albania represented in the late 80s” said in his speech, at the opening ceremony Mr. Koçi, Director of National Historical Museum. The Dutch Ambassador to Albania, Mrs. Dewi van de Weerd, also honored us with her presence. The exhibition was supported by the Embassy of Netherlands in Tirana, the National Historical Museum and the Albanian Rehabilitation, Traumatic and Torture Center, whose executive director is Mr. Adrian Kati.
