[Music] theit your face you be like when the your Balkans and the countries within it are likely familiar to many of you these countries are typically small in size inhabited by warm people and generally have temperate weather conditions they consist of sparely populated Nations that have separated from various empires in the past and subsequently shown limited development one of these countries is Albania with only 28,000 Square kilm in size and a population of approximately 3 million it is a small Balkan country however do not simply see them as a nation of 3 million because in
North Macedonia one out of every three individuals identifies as Albanian and in Kosovo more than half of the population speaks Albanian and identifies themselves as Albanian we had the chance to stay there for a week and we will try to describe the country to you in three videos the first two videos will be based on the information provided by our Albanian guide where we will learn quite upto-date information about the country the third and final video will solely focus on our own observations of life in Albania during our weekl long stay for example if you
go to the capital tyana and want to have a local breakfast specific to their culture you will encounter pastries just like in North Macedonia and Kosovo albanians do not have a unique breakfast style of their own they start their day with pastries similar to other Balkan countries we don't have anything special but we have B these pastries are called bork and those who do not want to eat them can buy a slice of pizza from different corners of the city people in the Balkans tend to make their pastries quite oily some borck can contain meat
while others are filled with cheese or spinach if you are someone who does not eat every type of meat it's advisable to ask what kind of meat is in the buric when buying from these shops because Albania has various religious beliefs with Muslims abstaining from pork while Christians May consume it one way to distinguish these shops from each other is by looking for the phrase halal food on the signs of Muslim run establishments especially in the recent past like many states in the Balkans Albania was also part of the Ottoman Empire and after the Ottomans
lost these lands the country was invaded by countries such as Italy Greece and Serbia following these occupations the Albanian Society trying to find itself gradually fell under the influence of Communism even today when you visit there you can see that the Ottomans and Italians have had a significant impact on their culture Cuisine and way of life for example they have given Italian leaders names to squares such as Victor Emanuel Samuel Square or given Italian names to well-known albanians such as Mother Teresa after the Ottomans and Italians the country entered a period of Communism those familiar
with history know that albanians had a very famous and important communist leader known as en hawar this man led the Albanian labor party from 1941 to 1985 en hawar who managed to be the leader of Albania for about 41 years is said to have increased the country's literacy rate from about 5% to 90% built various Railways in the country and ended epidemics nevertheless he was someone who closed all religious institutions in the country and turned the country into a secular structure in other words religion was completely banned in the country and the country evolved into
a kind of atheist structure in fact if you go to Albania today you will see countless underground tunnels in the country many of which were built by en hawar himself as a precaution against possible war and are now turned into museums one of them is located in the heart of the capital we went inside and if you are interested in the legacies of Communism the rooms and objects in these underground tunnels can really grab your attention Once Upon a Time people were subjected to difficult and harsh conditions and now the memories of those people are
open to visitors in conclusion we can say that after the collapse of the Soviet Union the effects of Communism also ended in Albania en hawar the communist leader passed away in 1985 according to our guide when communism ended in the country it fell into a governance vacuum in fact some albanians were even given the chance to migrate to Italy and acquire Italian citizenship some of the young albanians at that time migrated to Italy and various regions of Europe in fact our local friend says that as a result there is a shortage of middle-aged people in
their country now and if you visit the capital you will see more generation Zid youths aged 18 to 20 and very elderly people albanians despite being under the influence of other nations and cultures for so many years have managed to reach the modern times without assimilating however although they identify as Albanian many aspects of their daily lives are a combination of the influences of the Nations they have been under for example the fact that half of the country's population is Muslim or that they eat dishes derived from Turkey culture and some people's appearance has characteristics
inherited from the Ottomans while their Fashion sports and clothing styles are influenced by Italians is an example of their being influenced by Italians in fact when you talk to some albanians you'll find they don't follow their country's football teams they watch Italian leagues instead as a result they feel closer to Europe than to Asia the thing is that being in um Albania we're like very very close to Europe we're not Europe okay uh we're Balkans we're stronger Believers that we're Balkans um we consider ourselves very close to Italy I think that is part of the
history from the Roman times uh to the times that we were under the Italian influence uh and their political economical control and moving to the otoman Empire yes of course we do consider ourselves very close to Turkey I think that that comes from the uh otoman Empire and the the fact that they were over here for a couple of centuries uh that makes the food similar to them that makes the um we have a lot of words but also we do still feel a little bit European we don't feel like very Turkish we still feel
a little bit Italian a little bit European but in the real core of ourselves we do know that we are [Music] [Music] Balkans Albania has a distinctive flag While most national flag Flags tend to have cheerful bright tones this country's flag is composed of as Dark Shades as possible it has a dark red background with an eagle which they describe as the Albanian eagle in the foreground the Albanian flag gives me a somewhat gloomy feeling the guide says that the red background of their flag symbolizes the blood of the people killed during the wars in
Albania and especially during the Communist Regime she also says that the eagle in front of the flag is a symbol of power in fact even during the Eastern Roman Byzantine period the eagle was used as a symbol of power and this understanding was passed down to them the fact that the eagle has two heads symbolizes the unity of the Albanian people we know that most people living in the Balkans are lowincome individuals and that their money is less valuable compared to Europe since many of them are not members of the European Union they use their
own currencies even countries like Romania and Greece which are members of the European Union still use their own currencies the currency of Albania is called the Albanian le as we are writing this text we can say that one Euro corresponds to 102 Albanian lexs if you are among those who earn euros and think that you can buy plenty of things with one Euro which equals 100 Lex when you go to Albania unfortunately that's not the case my friends the value of everything from supermarkets to rest restaurants and shops in Le is quite high and there
is hardly anything below 200 Le therefore albanians have very large Bank notes for example they have Bank notes worth 2,000 Le similarly they have coins with high unit values such as 5 20 and even 100 Le for example you can think of this 1,000 Albanian currency in the guid's hand as equivalent to 10 euros you can understand the approximate Euro value of each Albanian currency by removing two zeros so compared to the euro Albanian money remains quite low in value albanians have their own unique language officially known as Albanian although it has been influenced by
Greek and Serbian due to the 10,000 years of Eastern Roman rule and by Turkish and Arabic during the 400 years of Ottoman rule it Bears similarities to Latin and Germanic languages therefore an Albanian speaker can usually understand and quickly learn Italian and German however only Albanian is officially recognized in the country for instance according to the guide there are no official language education other than Albanian in schools similarly you need to use this language to conduct business in public institutions for instance we asked the guide to say a few things in Albanian and she explained
to us how to pronounce and what they meant um so the first word that you need in Albanian uh is how to say hello hello in formal Albanian is person or for normal people which is what's up um how do you say thank you in Albania you say F but also if you listen to people saying R which means which means I wish you a long life it's similar to thank you um also how do you say please when you're asking for something say them how do you say good morning and if you're going to
say good evening you're going to say how do you say good night it's Nat and if you're going to say goodbye and you're seeing someone again you say MIM which in Albania it means I hope that I will see you good [Music] [Music] not all people living in Albania are Albanian according to the guide 82% of the population consists of albanians while the rest includes Italians middle easterners various Balkan communities and of course Roma communities uh 82% we are albanians there is no nothing different the small percentage that is left they um Romanians bulgarians monans
that live in the countries Greek uh the small Rome Community as in all Balkan countries you can see gypsies begging children almost everywhere in Albania these people are really not ashamed of Begg children foreigners from different parts of the world come to this country to do business and settle with their families for example Italians can open clothing stores or Arabs and Turks can open Kebab shops those coming from outside Albania First Step foot in the capital tyana unlike most other Balan countries Albania has a significant advantage in that it has direct access to the Sea
therefore people can enter the country by sea or by land but assuming you're flying into the capital tyrana you should know some important locations there you will definitely see scanderbeg Square in the heart of the capital albanians consider this place the heart of the capital it is indeed a huge square and one of the busiest locations surrounding the square are the Opera House mosque National Museum statue of scanderbeg and various cafes if you're wondering who scanderbeg is he is a figure from the early 1400s who is now now considered the national hero of albanians this
Square used to be closed to pedestrian traffic during the Communist Regime and after the collapse of this regime it was decided that this vast area would be a social space for the public aside from the main Square in the country they also have quite a large pyramid and if you bother to climb to the top of this pyramid you'll have the chance to see most of tyana from Above This pyramid was built in honor of En Hoka during his time and it was designed by his son-in-law besides the main squares in the capital it's also
necessary to talk a bit about the characteristic features of the people living here especially albanians this way you can roughly understand the social structure before coming here for a visit or to live at least the guide mentioned one negative aspect unlike the silly nationalist Pride like we have no negative traits as seen in North Macedonia she didn't go into that the guide mentioned that her people are lazy so Balan people are famous for being especially albanians are famous for being very lazy very lazy this explains why we don't like working that much and then Employment
may be High um well I think laziness is a point um we're not very active indeed despite being right next to European countries Bulan countries like Albania haven't developed and one wonders why there's a kind of indifference in countries like Albania people seem to live day-to-day leading an unplanned life I guess this situation stems from recent War traumas the influence of bad political leaders or maybe the people really just don't like to work additionally Albania doesn't often make headlines in daily life frankly I don't see albanians in the world news much they're not experts in
any field fi of work and I haven't heard of any famous Brands associated with them perhaps these people are really not hardworking what sets them apart from neighboring Balan countries like Kosovo and North Macedonia and makes them relatively more developed is probably their much larger tourism income due to their Coastline directly on the sea especially many people from Europe come to places like Albania for cheap Beach vacations however the general positive characteristic of the people is that they are friendly helpful and War War towards Outsiders this trait is common in almost all Balkan countries I
guess the beautiful climate in this region with sunny temperate weather makes people have positive characters and smiling faces I also asked the guide if albanians are racist she said they are entirely friendly and not prejudiced against Any Nation she mentioned they are extremely nationalistic but not racist they just look at black African people more attentively when they come to their country because black people are not commonly seen in the Balkans um we are very nationalistic yes when it comes to racism I don't feel that we are racists honestly to be honest um well it's not
acceptable to say but I'm going to say if you are black uh we are going to stare at you a lot but it's just out of curiosity because in Albania uh we are only Albanian we don't have mixtures of our local friend Ana says that cities like Vora and Sanda are even more expensive than the capital tyana so it's worth asking how much the average person earns monthly and whether they earn enough to survive as a family the minimum wage nowadays well since 2023 the minimum wage is400 so if you're let's say a waiter or
a bartender that's what's going your wage to be around okay it's like 400 EUR maximum that you can get tips and everything is 600 um how many how much they get paid per hour we don't get paid per hour in here rent is expensive depending on the area the closer you are to the center as far as I understand even though there is Seaside tourism here monthly incomes are not very high the minimum monthly income in the country is only equivalent to €400 albanians earn an average of around 500 to 600 a month from their
jobs I guess there is a complaint about this as Albanian leaders are trying to raise salaries to the €900 EUR range for example in various countries in Europe like Switzerland and also in the United States people receive wages on an hourly basis if you come to live in a country like Albania from a country where wages are based on an hourly rate you should know that such a concept does not exist in these lands people in countries like Albania earn money based on a fixed monthly salary not according to working hours it should also be
clearly stated that there is a tendency towards foreign countries in the country as in other Balan countries especially young people after completing their education tend to go to more developed European countries for a permanent life rather than staying in the Balkans among them are countries like Germany France and Italy which offer a wide range of jobs additionally looking at the monthly rents of apartment buildings in the capital Tiana online it's almost impossible to find a rental apartment below € 400 so we can say that for a decent living in Albania's capital at least two out
of a family of four people need to work and a minimum net income of around 1500 per month needs to be brought into the household the reason for mentioning the monthly cost for four people is that like in other Balan countries Albanian people also lead a family oriented life family means everything to them and they stick together in life a husband and wife usually see two children as sufficient in this country if you go out on a Sunday and observe the surroundings a bit whether in Parks or cafes people are always sitting with their families
spending time with them some spend Sundays at home with their families While others spend the outside so for them Sunday means spending time with family in terms of religion there is religious freedom in the country in the Balkans people believe in whatever they want and there is no religious oppression this region has been ruled by both European kingdoms and Muslim states like the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years today in countries like Albania in the Balkans there are numerous mosques and churches throughout the day you can hear both the call to prayer from mosques and
the ringing of church bells since religious beliefs are not a symbol of power in the bulans they are not directly a source of political power people in these countries are not subject to politics based on religion and therefore politicians have to produce smarter policies in fact within the same family there are individuals who adhere to both Islam and Christianity for example in a Christian Albanian family during the Ramadan month even if there is only one Muslim in the family a good good example is shown on the last day or two of Ramadan Christian individuals in
the family also fast out of respect for the Muslim individuals beliefs on the other hand there are some Notorious aspects in the country as well just as the country has positive values like Albanian liver it also has negative reputations like the Albanian mafia especially this bad reputation about the country is known in almost every part of the world for example serious Mafia organization in the Balkans are generally run by albanians and are known as the Albanian mafia the Albanian mafia is recognized as one of the most serious criminal organizations in the world some claims even
suggest that some people running businesses in Albania pay protection money to the Albanian mafia there are even those who claim that if you are going to open a business in a busy area of tyrana the mafia will surely harass you in some way however if you are only going to the country for tourism purposes rest assured that the country is quite safe this video was the first part about Albania we will publish two more videos about this country in the coming days we would be glad if you like the video and subscribe to the channel
goodbye
