The ribbon was cut……we are now open and fully in service!

It was a great evening on October 10th when, in our new building in Tirana, a variety of guests and long term friends joined us in the official opening of our offices and related facilities.

Over 150 people enjoyed touring our spacious offices, with full staff conveniences, training rooms and Library services, viewing the large, permanent displays of archival documents and mementos of the Ivanajs, and watching on our brand new, and still unique for Albania, type of technical equipment, an historical video of our accomplishments so far.

(Click images to view in full size)

As part of our opening and first cultural event, we also featured an art exhibit of a couple dozen paintings by the well known Albanian artist from Pogradec, Anastas Kostandini, some of which are among his newest works displayed for the first time in Tirana.

The speeches evoked emotional moments among many attendees and the picture taking just burst out at the end along with the conversations and the background music by excellent cellist, Jona Bodinaku.

 

A video of this entire evening is in the works, and it will soon be uploaded on this site along with a full gallery album of still pictures of this event.  Meantime, the texts of the speeches are available in both Albanian and English versions in our ‘Cultural Center Opening Event’ page.

Kudos and renewed thanks are due to our entire staff, all our volunteers and pro-bono collaborators who were instrumental in making this opening a great success!