Since the topic of the condition of Parashkevi Simaku was opened, I am really sorry, but Parashkevia once chose to make a total break from Albania. In 2003, I go to the USA as a Top Channel journalist, to follow the then president, Alfred Moisiu, at a UN session in New York and I used the time to interview the Albanian singers who lived there (Anita Bitri, Aurela Gace, Merita Halili, Gëzim Nika and Parashqevi Simaku).
Paraskhevia had a live in a small bar. She was accompanied by her ex-husband. A few years ago she had released an album under the name 'Vivian Simaku' with something of the new age-ethno type which I had happily bought. (Sorry if I don't remember if it was an album, or if it was part of an album with different artists.)
I approach to speak to Parashqevi and she speaks back to me in English. She refused to speak Albanian even though she was kind and sweet, as she had communication skills. She talks to her husband and tells me that "for now I will sing". I tell her that "I came from Albania" etc., but it was not too late for her.
I get her on the phone again because normally she would be doing news in Albania and she told me textually "My manager doesn't want me to talk". The manager was her husband. When I return to Albania, I tell the bosses at 'Top', who even added it as a text in the documentary even though I was against it.
Anyway, Parashkevia could be called delusional by many, but she, perhaps alone in a large country and under the hypnosis of her husband (I think they both hypnotized each other), projected herself only for the American market and wanted to enter and was presented there as an American. Two years after she left, she returned to Albania with Robert and spoke Albanian with an American dialect. 2 years!!! (The people of Arbëresh speak Albanian better.)
Her desire to assimilate completely was almost extremist. Being an idol and sex symbol in Albania and the collision with an insensitivity of American showbiz to foreign artists, perhaps too much trust in her husband without any management background and much less qualified and not as successful as my wife , were probably the first hits for him. Someone even told me that when she came to Albania, she claimed that her wedding would be broadcast on CNN.
Of course, in the 90s, Albanian artists did not have that much information about America. Parasquevia who was initially received by the American community as a GOD, and even poured a lot of $$ to help her career, had every right in the world TO DREAM AND FOLLOW THE DREAM.
But 29 years old, with a dialect and a biography not very attractive for the American market and perhaps AT THE WRONG TIME, she could not become 'the POP Star', a place reserved for Americans, Canadians and English.
The point is that Parashkevia, in my judgment, flew higher than it should and refused to touch the ground and moreover, refused to feel the mother earth as well.
She used a little of her connection with Albania in the album 'ethno', in the late 90s (I bought that album in the USA), but maybe she was still looking for that star she had in her homeland.
It's unfortunate to say, but considering my personal experience, the Parashkevia with three names (Vivian and now Simaku) is a victim of its fall from the long flight above the clouds and perhaps from too much trust in people who sought to format it into something that difficult to do after 29 years in an isolated communist country.
She erased Albania because she thought it would hinder her, but she sought the sky of America like an Albanian star.
This is a finding of mine, but obviously I know nothing about her other personal stories and challenges with family and mental health.
However, her intentional disappearance for her plans in America turned the artist into an icon in Albania. She "died" for us in a big way, like Vaçe Zela, who left the microphone long before she left this life. So this video that came out now was shocking, because we had already removed him from life among living artists with Instagram concerts and put him in a mausoleum with the great dead.
Paraskevi is alive, with a different name, and collecting aid.
Our idol, our 'pop star', the first 'sex symbol' in Albania, 'Malena' of the 80s, appeared weak, vulnerable, abandoned.
This was the meeting that Parashqevia would never wish for herself in 1000 years.
It would have been better if we hadn't seen that video, we did, and maybe it didn't happen without purpose.
Vivi pushed Albania away on purpose for so many years, but today if she is able to understand, she can see that Albania is the one who loved her the most and would never let her wander the streets as an "old woman who he enjoys a blanket".
