By Raimonda MOISIU
-The life between two loves and the ordeal of pain of the Korcar architect Rustem Myteveliu-!
Memorie.al / The well-known Korça architect, Rustem Myteveliu, were born on March 14, 1930, ‘summer’s Day’, in the city of Korça, and exactly in the same house that the founder of Korça, Iljaz Bey Mirahor Myteveli, built and lived in. It is the heir of the family of Mirahori the Great, a beyler door known for its patriotic and national traditions. He is 83 years old, but he is very well maintained and gives the impression that he is a man of about 65. Very hardworking and fatherly man. Until the age of 75, he continued to work as an expert in the urban planning office in Korça.
Raised in a very aristocratic environment, with strict rules according to the rites of the Muslim religion, in a large and beautiful house, where he was surrounded by rose flowers and decorative trees, for the future Korçar architect, for his brothers and sisters, he would two nannies looked after; Tushe and Velihani. Both nannies were treated at the door of the Mytevelinj beylers, as maids of the house. They were orphans from childhood and lived and grew up in this venerable Beyler door. Dado Veliani and his grandmother, Gjylistani, who came from the door of the well-known revivalists of Frashërllinje, Abdyl, Naim and Sami, would take care of the future Korçar architect, in a special way.
Grandma Gjylistani had an admirable memory and knew by heart the verses of the poems of Naim, Sami and Abdyl. She educated her grandchildren with the spirit of the famous Frashërllinj Renaissance people, who were her grandchildren. Every night at the Frashërllinje’s guest house, she recited verses or poems expressing Albanian patriotism and patriotism. The house had a room called “Konaku i Frashërllinje” and Naimi, Samiu and Abdyli, when they came to Korçë to their aunt, Gjylistani, they stayed in this guesthouse. It was absolutely forbidden for other people to enter or stay in that room.
This is how patriotic feelings, patriotism and pride of being Albanian began to be cultivated in the Mytevelinj children. Then with the occupation of Albania by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, the door of Mytevelinje is connected with the Movement of the National Liberation War and made war available; home, wealth, hatred for the enemy, making an unparalleled contribution to this war. From this door is the “Martyrdom of the Motherland”, Floresha Myteveliu, while the Korça architect, Rustemi, would line up with the debaters. The anti-fascist activity of the Mytevelians caught the eye of the Italian occupation authorities and they were exiled to Porto Romano, on the outskirts of Durrës. While some other members of the family go underground. With the liberation of Korça, the whole family would return to Korça, to their home.
Now for Myteveli, another life would begin. Again, the Myteveli people, as hardworking people, would line up in the reconstruction of the country, destroyed by the war. Rustemi initially, in the years 1946-’47, worked as a laborer, in the drying of the Maliqi swamp. In 1947, Rustemi won the right to study at the Unique School of Elbasan. In the years 1948-’52, he attended the “7 November” Polytechnic in Tirana, where he participated in many actions for the reconstruction of the country. In 1952, he worked in the “Road of Light” in Shkopet.
Then it was informed through the newspaper “Voice of the People” that he had won the right to study, for URBAN PLANNING, in the Soviet Union. So Rustemi went to study in Moscow. While he was studying there, he met and fell in love with the beautiful girl from Moscow, fellow student, in the same course, the Russian, Valentina. In those four years of studying in Moscow, the Korcar student also married the Russian girl and in 1957, their first child, Iliri, was born. They named the child ILIR, because the boy Korcar came from the land of the Illyrians. The first fruit of their love, their son Iliri, a Korcar student with a Russian woman, was born when they were defending their degrees.
Rustemi defended his degree with excellent results, and he also helped his wife, who had just given birth. After graduation, Rustemi and Valentina, together with their child Iliri, returned to their homeland. Both husband and wife were appointed to work at the Institute of Urbanism, near the Ministry of Construction, Tirana and at the same time, they were also involved in the study of planning projects for cities and residential centers, presenting various projects as architects. . Life continued more than normal, and in 1960, the second child of the Myteveli couple, Eleonora, was born.
But the happy life of the couple would not last long. Successive traumas would shake the family of the architect Korcar. With the breakdown of relations with the Soviet Union, Valentina began to be viewed by the communist regime as a foreign agent, and after pressure and numerous threats, she was forced to leave Albania and go to her hometown, Moscow, taking her 3-year-old daughter Eleonora with her and left in Albania, Illyria, 7 years old. But even in Moscow, Valentina would be seen with the same eye, that is, as an agent of communist Albania. It seemed that the communist system had the same face everywhere, paranoia and hypocrisy.
Rustem is called to the Party Committee and forced to file a divorce and cut off correspondence with Valentina and her daughter, under the pretext that the letters are agents and influence the overthrow of the government in Albania. But Rustemi was listed as married in the civil registry of Moscow and not of Korça, so the divorce could not take place. Coming from a family with outstanding patriotic traditions and that had given so much to that communist system, they could not imprison the Korça architect, Rustem Myteveliu. While the persecution would continue in different ways and silently, on Rustem and his son Ilir, with a Russian mother. Iliri is denied the right to continue his studies and Rustemi is transferred to various jobs with demotions and out of his profession.
The first postcard, from Eleonora’s daughter…!
In 1986, Rustemi receives a postcard from Frankfurt, which is given to him by the relevant authorities of the Albanian Post, after 6 months, of course, after the control by the State Security. His daughter, Eleonora Gerber, sent the postcard to Myteveli. She wished her beloved father a happy birthday and expressed that she missed him a lot. To this day, Rustemi is still listed as married to Valentina, in the Civil Registry in Moscow. The letters sent by Valentina and Eleonora were investigated and censored by the relevant authorities.
Iliri’s meeting with mother Valentina and sister Eleonora, after 28 years…!
After the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of 1989, a new political climate began, not only in Europe, but it seemed that something was moving in Albania as well. The eldest son Iliri, missing his mother Valentina and sister Eleonora, did the impossible and managed to go to Moscow after 28 years. He gets his visa at the Soviet embassy in Budapest, since at that time; there was no Russian embassy in Albania. The meeting was very touching. The mother lived by herself in Moscow, while Eleonora, the sister, was married to a German engineer in Ahn, Germany.
She already lives in Ahn with her husband, daughter Tanja, but is still known as Eleonora Gerber Myteveliu. Valentina is also known as Valentina Myteveliu to this day. Iliri stayed with his mother for a year and also meets his sister, Eleonora. After the 90s, Iliri used to go freely to Moscow, so did his mother and sister, they go to Greece to see Iliri and his family.
The meeting of the Korcar architect with his wife, Valentina and daughter, Eleonora, after 30 years!
Valentina Myteveliu still appears married in Moscow to Rustem Myteveliu. After Valentina sent a guarantee to her husband, Rustem (notarized and legalized according to the rules), he received a visa at the Russian embassy. Diplomatic relations between Albania and Russia had already been restored and Rustemi left for his ex-wife, traversing the route; Korça-Selanik-Sofia-Bucharest-Kiev-Moscow, by train. A long way to meet love denied. At the “Kievski Vogzall” train station, Valentina, together with a friend of theirs who was also a student, waited for the poor boy, who had already become a man from age and troubles.
Strong emotions, trembling hands, body, trembling voice, teary eyes, hugs, both from the Russian girl and the Corchar boy. He was 60 years old, while she was 57 years old. Valentina lived alone. During the one month that Rustemi stayed in Moscow, they met many co-students of the urban planning course and among them they met the chief architect of Moscow, their close friend. Emotions increased every day. Iliri also comes there, reuniting the family as before, 30 years ago. Moments of longing, emotional, touching.
Meeting with daughter Eleonora, after 33 years…!
After meeting his sweetheart, Valentina, Rustemi went to Germany to meet his daughter Eleonora, now 33 years old, married to the German engineer and with their daughter, Tanja, 7 years old. Very impressive, sad, touching moments at Dusseldorf airport. Rustem was welcomed there by his daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter and Valentina, the latter, for the second time. As he was leaving the airport platform, Rustemi would hear the voice of a child, calling in Albanian: “Grandfather” and the acoustics of the airport carried him everywhere, that warm, childish voice.
A 7-year-old girl was seen running towards him. Between her moist hands, she tightly clutched the bunch of carnation flowers, one of the most beautiful ones she had chosen for her grandfather. Next to the child, there was Valentina, who was telling her granddaughter and daughter Eleonora, her grandfather and father, while he was going down the stairs…! Little Tanja threw herself on her grandfather’s neck and held him tight, as if she had known him for a long time…! “Oh, how much Eleonora has grown…! How beautiful she has become, she looks a lot like Valentina, when she was young, like when we fell in love for the first time and got married”, thought Rustemi as he hugged his daughter, after 33 years.
For the Korčar architect, the boy that the communist dictatorship with that “hypocritical humanism” had separated the parts of his soul, body and heart, was one of the most painful and difficult moments in his life. But the life and the traumas he had gone through seem to have made Rustem spiritually and morally strong, they had given him strength and courage to face such touching situations and he was passing this on to Eleonora, Valentina and Tanja, who they had missed so much in life. All the time she stayed in Germany, with the family found after 30 years, granddaughter Tanja, would not be separated from her grandfather, for a single moment.
They communicated in Russian. Rustem Myteveliu knows four foreign languages, at an admirable level, speaking and writing in; Russian, Italian, French and Turkish. Rustemi still maintains correspondence with his family in Russia and Germany. He, Valentina, Eleonora, Tanja and Iliri meet once a year in Athens, Greece, where Iliri has finally settled with his family…!
The second marriage in Albania, after the departure of Valentina
Single life would be very difficult for the poor architect. Rustemi fell very spiritually and psychologically, because of the forced separation that the communist regime made him, with his family. His relatives advised him to get married so that he could calm his troubled and hurt soul somehow. Thus Rustemi marries, with a noble girl in spirit and temperament from a beyler door of Berat. She would stay and continues to stay by Rustem’s side, with her warm words, supporting and understanding her husband, not only in his work as an architect, but also in the feeling of human love.
Rustemi appears married in Moscow to Valentina and in Korça to the noble girl from Berata. From his second marriage, Rustemi has four children, three daughters and one son. Rustem’s children from the second marriage have excellent relations as real sisters and brothers from the same mother, with Eleonora and Iliri. With this spiritual and very human behavior, they show the love they have for their parents, but also the care for their father, who suffered so much from the separation of the first family. Even Rustemi’s daughter, Floresha, (from her second marriage), studies social sciences and Balkan affairs in Germany. She has a very good relationship with her sister Eleonora and spends a lot of time with her and her family at her sister Eleonora’s house.
Anxiety in the second family on New Year’s Eve…!
It was December 1991, when Rustemi met Valentina and Eleonora, after 30 or so years. The month was flying by and the New Year was approaching. The anxiety in the second family in Albania increased day by day; that the father would return to the bosom of the family?! Rustem is asked by Valentina and Eleonora to stay with them forever, but the architect Korcar, just as he knew how to make plans for the arrangement of residential centers, would know how to consolidate his double family relationships, as a man with a big heart, where there was room for a lot of parental and conjugal love.
This is how Jetona Myteveliu, Rustem’s daughter from the second marriage, former dean of the Faculty of Nursing at the “Fan Noli” University of Korça, who is a lively, energetic, beautiful and very expressive girl, says: “Anxiety was excruciating in our family, for the father’s return to the bosom of the first family. It was the New Year and the mother had faith that he would return, she perfectly knew the soul and character of her husband. He calmed us by telling us from time to time, he hugged us and smoothed our hair, and whispered to us: he will come! But Valentina and Eleonora also need him; they also have their share in Rustem’s heart, just like you do! Mother continued to prepare New Year’s dinner.
I was amazed at my mother’s courage, spirit, and noble behavior. I was glad that my mother understood my father so well. My father, for certain vital reasons, could not leave us orphans with a living father. No, no, I knew my father and his heart well! I knew that he could not repeat the story of the ordeal of pain. It was 9 o’clock in the evening. The phone rings. I picked up the receiver. I recognized him; it was the father with his compassionate parental voice.
Even he recognized my voice” – Jetona continues her emotional confession with sad tears in her eyes and tells me: – “Jetona, my daughter! I am at the border with Greece, at the customs of Kapshtica, in 30 minutes I come home. Lay out the New Year’s dinner’. My hand was shaking, tears mixed with longing and sorrow, joy for my father’s return home, I couldn’t hold back. Crying and laughing with joy, I shout as much as I could in my head, in the whole house: – Father came among us again! After 30 minutes, there is a knock on the door and the father enters the house with Ilir!” – concludes Jetona’s testimony, wiping the tears that flow down her cheeks.
This is the sad story of the renowned architect Rustem Myteveliu from Korça, who, with his fatherly spirit, knows how to forgive a lot of love. Respect for you, for your life, your courage and your big heart, which has so much room for human love, – dear architect! Memorie.al
