Valentina Buci, 87, of Worcester died peacefully at home on Sunday, June 7th. Her husband of 45 years, Pandi Buci, died in 2004.
Hers was a remarkable life of defiant love and quiet strength that carried her through some of the hardest years of the last century. Born in Borisoglebsk, Russia, she was a young university student training to be a teacher when she met Pandi, an Albanian sent to Russia for pilot training. When he returned home, she finished her degree, then in 1960 traveled alone across borders to join him, settling in Vlorë and later Korçë.
Their years together were tested by a brutal regime that treated her harshly as a foreigner, yet she never wavered in her devotion to Pandi and their daughters. All the while she taught mathematics, Russian, and technical drawing, and quietly shielded her students at real risk to herself. To this day they still call her "Mësuese Vali." Cut off from her homeland for thirty years by the Iron Curtain, she was later the subject of books and documentaries. In 2006 she immigrated to the United States to live with her daughter Diana. To her grandchildren and great-grandchildren she was simply "Nëna Vali," the laughter in the room and the steady ear they relied on.
A woman of deep faith, she was a devoted member of St. Mary's Assumption Albanian Orthodox Church and treasured her time with the Daughters of St. Mary's and her friends at Illyrian Gardens. She loved her cats, Ginger and Puci, and her dog, Buddy, and took joy in her garden. She never let go of the things she loved as a girl: ice skating, Russian classic songs like "Kalinka," her flowers, and traveling the world from Russia, Albania, Bulgaria, USA, Canada, Ukraine, Mexico, Dominican Republic and more.
Above all, she will be remembered for her warm heart, her gentle spirit, and the love she shared with all who knew her, a legacy that will bloom in the lives she touched.
She is survived by her daughters, Elena Agushi and her husband, Sabiel, of Korçë, Albania, and Diana Progri and her husband, Tomi, of Rochdale; her grandchildren, Erion Agushi and his wife, Marsela, Jurgen Agushi and his fiancée, Elena, Ligoraq Progri and his wife, Sofia, and Vaske Progri; her great-grandchildren, Anja, Ksena, Michael Pandi Progri, who proudly carries his grandfather's name, and Prayla; her sister, Nina; and many nieces and nephews.