Tirana - Enver Hoxha Mausoleum

Tirana - Enver Hoxha Mausoleum 
The Enver Hoxha pyramid 

Albania will tear down a pyramid-shaped landmark built as a museum for the late Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, opening the way for a new parliament building, according to a new law.

"We can no longer keep a place that holds the ghost of the dictator," parliamentary deputy Enkeleid Alibeaj said. "We shall build a new complex where the spirit of democracy will thrive."
The bill passed with the votes of 72 deputies out of 74 present. The opposition Socialist Party has boycotted parliament recently in protest at what it says is electoral fraud, a chronic problem in Albania's young democracy.
Built shortly after Hoxha died in April 1983, the pyramid on Tirana's main thoroughfare displayed items and photographs of the Albanian leader who kept Stalinism alive in Europe for decades after the Soviet dictator died in 1953.
Shaped into a cement and glass pyramid from the street level, it resembles an eagle with spread wings from the air. It was turned into a cultural centre after communism's fall.
Plans to build a new parliament to honour the 100th anniversary of Albania's independence after 500 years of Ottoman domination have divided the small nation of 3.2 million because of feelings about the building's history, architecture and cost.
The government earlier spent about five million euros to turn the building into a theatre and more than half a million euros to renovate the current chamber before it decided to build a new parliament building.

Vit Hassan
October 2011