ALBANIANS AS AN
EQUATION WITH
VARIABLES

These people know the value of freedom, happiness and life on a level with the knowledge of isolation, total control, war crimes, enemy country.

An endless number of Mercedes, the Roma and coffee hours characterize Albanians like nothing else.

Their language does not belong to any language group, their rules are not always clear even to themselves, they are poor but happy.

Not so long ago, their country in general could not be marked on world maps; communism engulfed the country, and later discord. But now it is a moderate, calm, supporting Ukraine people. Read here how the mentality of Albanians has changed and what it is now.

Far and moderate

Their language does not belong to any language group, but after a full-scale invasion it was clear without words how much they support a country so far away from them. Albania and Ukraine are geographically, culturally and mentally distant countries, but nevertheless, some common points can be found. Many of them still remember some expressions in Russian, because they were once hit by communism, and someone compares Russia with Albania's neighboring Serbia - as countries of enemies, invaders and murderers. It's hard to see the drive for something European, more innovative, etc. here. Rather, people prefer very moderate technologicalization. Still, it is difficult to answer the question: "Who are Albanians?", because Albania itself is very chaotic, and at the same time incredibly calm. You can start crossing the road wherever you want, but no one will honk at you. You can have a restaurant, but go to your competitors just to drink coffee only to drink coffee, without evaluating their work and state of affairs.

Family and patriarchal

The hot temper of Albanians appears, perhaps, only in relationships - and that's not cool. This is an extremely patriarchal society in which women are beautiful creatures, but you can hardly have a business relationship with them, or rather, a woman cannot have anything related to business, except for a businessman man. The trend is gradually, but very slowly, declining, as one Albanian friend of mine said: “I adore women. And I totally support all the girl power movements, but having two sons, I'm glad I don't have a daughter, and I don't want a daughter. Why should she suffer?". 

Men here spend a lot of time on their appearance, but pay little attention to their manners. Male Albanians are guided by the phrase "I asked", they do not listen to anyone else but themselves, they look at the other sex as an object. What's more, always. Absolutely always. Albanian women choose either the most natural look, or all possible procedures and preferably more. Gradually, they get more and more jobs. But family is valued here in the classical sense: parents spend a lot of time with their children, and children, being adults, spend a lot of time with their parents. They calmly sit and drink coffee on the seashore or take a slow walk along the embankment. If the mother mostly sits with the child, then on weekends the father pays a lot of attention to them, giving the mother time to rest.

Poor and happy

Albanians are wage earners. Apparently, the top countries where they go to earn money in winter, late autumn and spring are Italy, Spain and Greece. They say something like: "We are poor, but we are happy", and it is true. The younger generation is more focused on "re-mentality" - to stay here, build everything here, but also to change from the inside, the older generation sees no harm in living here only in the summer.

They are very simple. And it is difficult to give an assessment. On the one hand, Albanians are open to help, they do not have a pronounced social division: he works as a janitor, but comes to a restaurant to eat pasta and drink red wine, which is cool, but on the other hand, there is a certain thoughtlessness that looks like irresponsibility: garbage scattered everywhere, untidy stretched cables and wires that constantly break due to which the Internet disappears, lack of traffic rules and a lot of other things.

The Roma, Mercedes and bunkers

You can see a very large number of the Roma on the streets of Albania. You can read more about these people here. This is not so impressive, because these people can be seen in many countries. What really immediately catches the eye is the number of Mercedes. Any Mercedes can be seen here: painted, new, old, beaten, stolen and so on. They drive here almost in columns, and when the column has passed, you can see an infinite number of bunkers. Currently, they are implemented in the general architecture, make fun of it, make tourist products, and not so long ago, Albania suffered from, let's say, a bunker fan - Enver Hoxha. There are versions and hypotheses as to why this is so, but the fact is that under his policy, each family had to have its own bunker, that is, the bunkers are of different sizes, but mostly designed for 4-6 people. The dude was afraid of a nuclear war, so it's hard to even imagine what happened to him now. In any case, Hoxha fell out with Khrushchev in the 1960s, and Albania generally ceased to exist for Moscow. So it is not surprising that today the neighboring but still hostile Serbia is more pro-Russian. In general, Albania cannot be blamed for slow development: at some point they were completely closed off from the world. I was told how the whole country literally sobbed when Hoxha died - Albanians could not believe that they had the opportunity and the right to live on. It seemed to them that they would no longer be without their leader. In short, dictatorship, information vacuum, communism worked 100%.

In general, there was nothing in this Albania - a country with an extraordinary history. Only the last 50-70 years include a huge number of events: from the Albanian mafia to NATO troops. I advise you to read this article. 

Friendly and appreciative

Albanians are clearly a patriarchal society that does not have enough speed to realize their full potential. There is a foundation in the form of positivity, optimism, benevolence, but they have to work a lot and a lot, not for the comfort of foreigners here, who are used to something else, no. They have to work hard to improve their situation, first of all, the female half of the population. There are many myths about the Balkans as such, such as that they are simply abnormal, killing every soul that moves crookedly. In fact, they are cute, somewhat desperate. Despite all this, my Albanian friends were the first to write messages of support on February 24, despite the time difference, many here helped Ukrainians with free apartmens and food, because they care and understand the value of human life and freedom, which means a lot to them.