Albania is changing... and it SUCKS
Something I didn’t think about when moving to a largely underdeveloped country was how difficult it would be to see it in the different stages of development.
Places that seemed untouched and unknown are being adjusted to accommodate as many tourists as possible. A hot spring that I used to go to and camp right next to, has now paved over part of the land around it and started charging for parking. Creating and enforcing new rules, that weren’t there when I first moved.
The same thing is happening on the coast at a much higher rate. Resorts and hotels are being built at a rapid pace, and beaches that are supposed to be public are being “privatized” (whether it’s legal or not, I don’t know).
I have had the amazing opportunity over the last seven years living here to see so many remote corners of the country, that were still untouched by greed. But it seems like those corners are vanishing.
So this most recent video shows two sides of that story…
The first being in Baks-Rrjoll; a village I had never even heard of on the north coast. Still relatively untouched, it gives the image of what Albania must have been like years ago - after communism, but before there was too much capitalist influence.
And the second is Theth. A (now) well-known village, that for many years retained the charm of mountain village life. But now, it feels different…
Watch the video, if you want to know what I mean:
Thanks for sticking with me, I’ll be back soon.