The internet is now a well accredited source of information for all those who enter its doors. Moreover, even for people who live in, and especially outside, of Albania the amount and quality of information available about the country continues to grow exponentially.

However, when people first start out searching for websites about Albania they can sometimes become confused or just tired of sifting through the many different sources out there. I was reminded of this issue through one comment by “Goronwy” who is planning to move to Albania. The comment said this:

“I am in the process of considering a relocation to Albania to work over there. I originate from the UK but I am working and living in another EU country at the moment.
I am struggling to find much information about Albania on the Net and what there is (or what I can find) is somewhat sparse. … Can you recommend any sites (English language please) or is there a site where I could chat to Albanians to glean some information?”

Well, first of, I do not know of one comprehensive site where you can find all the necessary information about moving, and living in Albania. There are many such sites in Albanian, but obviously not that relevant to those who speak only English.

Therefore I thought about coming up with some website that may be of use to all you English speaking folks. Moreover, I would greatly appreciate your help in improving and growing this list even further. This is what I have put together so far:

Tourism, Culture & General Info

• Albanian Tourism website by Ministry (http://www.albaniantourism.com/)

• CIA - The World Factbook - Albania (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/al.html)

• Albania on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albania)

• Albania Travel Guide by Lonely Planet (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/albania/)

• Albanian - Home of Albanians Online (http://www.albanian.com/community/)

• Albanian Tourist Guide (http://www.united-albania.com/albania-hotels-guide/)

• Albanian Literature by Robert Elsie (http://www.albanianliterature.net/)

• Open Directory Links about Albania (http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/Albania/)

News & Views

• BalkanInsight.com (http://balkaninsight.com/?tpl=304&tpid=144)
• Southeast European Times - SETimes.com (http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/region/)

Expat Blogs

Living in Shkoder, Albania (from UK to Albania): Life of a Scotsman in Albania

Our Man in Tirana (from UK to Albania): Reflections on politics, culture and society in Albania from a British expat now resident in Tirana.

Stepping Stones (from Canada to Albania): A daily life sort of blog about my experience as an expat Canadian living in Tirana, Albania.

Inside Albania: Just discovered. Good insight and interesting. I like reality even when it is harsh

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This morning I got up listening to the news and to my utter disgust and dismay I heard the Prime Minister of the country speaking against one of the MPs using vile and truly offending words.

I don’t care to comment any further, if you’re interested in the scandal, watch the video.

BERISHA vs Balla

Another video here: Degjenerimi final i kryeministrit

Short article by Balkan Insight

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This morning I took my parents and my little four year old nice to the airport on their way to a vacation time abroad. My little nice was so exited about it all.

The night before, while it was still about 11 PM, she kept coming to my room to ask me how much longer it would take before they could go to the airplane and flight to the beach. She would walk in almost every three minutes and ask me the same question “how many hours till we go”. And I would answer her with the same words, “four hours, sweetie”.

To her, minutes felt like hours, and in her wondering mind, that is all they were – minutes!

Well, I have to confess, it took me only some “minutes” with her to be reminded of the wonderful power of wonder in all of us.

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These last couple of weeks my close friend and business partner has been traveling around the Balkans for a project he is working on. Yesterday, while chatting he conveyed to me some of the difficulties of traveling back to Albania, which he writes more about in his personal blog over at Dairy of Tirana.

May be some of you can share your own experiences of traveling back to Albania.

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In the last couple of weeks I’ve had to travel to two different countries for work related activities. I love traveling, but at the same time it does take some preparation each time I do, which is fine but what continues to be a major issue is the visa process.

More recently I traveled to Croatia for a sports tournament together with 14 colleagues who are all part of the soccer team of the institution I work for. Prior to traveling our group had to apply for visas at the Croatian embassy. Being the person responsible to coordinate this activity I also had to get all the documentation processed and ready for the embassy. That process took me almost one whole week. To get to the point the whole embassy experience turned into a major waste of time and frustration as the Croatian Consul was a complete bureaucrat.

After we submitted all our documents, the embassy reviewed them and then replied that there were some discrepancies which made it impossible to issue us visas also due to the short time available to process them! First of all I have to accept the fact that we had a little over a week of time to get our visas before departure date, but still that was not the major hang-up since the embassy had told use they could process them in two days.

The issue regarded about four of the applications which according to the embassy had discrepancies. These discrepancies, which I soon figured out had to do with the incorrect date format used on the forms for our birthdays. To explain what had happened, our colleagues in Croatia had mistakenly filled out the required forms using the American date format instead of the European one. Basically, the month was placed in front of the day, instead of the usual date-month-year format. To my dismay and that of the entire team, this turned out into a major ”obstacle” as the embassy would not accept our documentation and thus issue no visas.

The whole mess had me going to the embassy everyday. First on Monday, then on Tuesday, Wednesday and even on Thursday, which was the last attempt before our departure latter that night. The Croatian Consul seemed very understanding and supportive when talking with him. I even got his cell number and talked several times in order to follow up on the issue while at work.

We did all we could to push the embassy to give us the visas in time but on the last day at the embassy it all came down to the Consul admitting to me that ”his hands were tied” and that now it was all up to the Croatian Ministry of Interior. And that is what we did. We had our Croatian colleagues intervene to get approval for our visas.

We would later receive our visas at the Croatian border early morning on Friday as we drove there only with our passports and a verbal confirmation by our colleagues that everything was going to be OK.

Anyway that was only part of the adventure that we had to go through till we got to our desired destination. Thankfully we got the Croatian visas at the border as foreseen, and there were no major delays with that process as the border authorities had been notified and received the authorization for our visas. All we needed to do was submit our passports so that they could be stamped with a visa and then were on our way.

In closing, I continue to stress the need for Albanians to have greater access and freedom of movement as our neighbor countries have or are receiving from the EU. I believe that I do not speak only for myself that we are tired of wasting endless time waiting to get a visa in some bureaucratic embassy in Tirana.

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The Albanian public and the mass media were recently shaken by the sudden and quite sad death of the president of the largest media in the country, Dritan Hoxha (Top Media). Most of you probably know already about this event and may have been able to follow it through the different media sources. However, with all that has been said and re-said about the Albanian media giant, I just wanted to convey one or two of the things that impressed me most as I’ve gotten to learn more in these few days about his work and life.

I do not claim to have known him, nor to have thought of him with any high regard. I considered him just another successful businessman, who like many such people in Albania, had established one or several businesses, whose beginnings and financing were often murky or simply illegal.

But what impressed me most as I learned more about the person, from the people who knew and worked with him, was his work and passion to achieve his vision.

Many talked about his technical or digital dreams and vision, but even more important to me is the fact that the achievement of his vision has helped to sustain and broadcast Albanian culture and reality beyond our national borders. The successful establishment of fairly independent media institutions like Top Channel TV, DigitAlb paid TV, Shqip daily newspaper, Top Albania Radio, etc., have provided a essential link with Albania to those Albanians living abroad and vice-versa. But in another sense it has helped us to exercise some of the freedoms that were denied us for some 50 years under communism.

In closing, I have to admit that I have to recognize his vizion. Moreover, it goes to show that when you are committed to a worthy vision, then it can take you places where you would not have been able to go otherwise! And I guess, his vision is what others like myself have been able to identify as worthy of recognition in the life and work of this man.

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Corruption continues to be a major issue facing all levels of the Albanian society. A recent corruption survey report by the Institute for Development Research & Alternatives (IDRA) reported a 13% increase in the corruption index perception for 2008, compared to last year figures by the same institute.

According to the U.S.A. Ambassador in Albania, John Whithers, the media has condemned corruption in Albania regularly but the same cannot be said of the judicial system.

However, what was the most important part of the speech by Mr. Whithers for me, was not the assessment of corruption or the many stories about it, but the need to understand and correct our response to this phenomena in our society. Here I want to quote a paragraph from his speech:

“Albanians value honesty as much as any people in the world and as much as any people that I know. Albanians hate corruption. They hate the fact that the few who are corrupt spoil it for the many who are not.

And I particularly do not like the implication in that answer which implies that corruption is a symptom of Albanian culture; it is not. Anyone who knows the Albanian people knows that it is a violation of the ethical and moral code that Albanians have.

Albanian culture places honesty and integrity above all else. For Albanians, a promise given is a promise kept. And the principle of Besa, the quintessential Albanian virtue, is a bond that cannot be broken. So, I repeat, anyone who implies that corruption is natural to Albania is wrong; corruption is a violation of what it means to be Albanian.

So, what is to be done?”

And that is my concern as well. Why do Albanians find themselves unable to respond to this cultural, social and most importantly moral illness? Is it a lack of understanding of this phenomenon? I think not. Then is it a lack of knowing how to respond in a way that it is effective? May be “yes” and may be “no”.

I do not purport here to have an answer to the issue nor to understand all of its implications and cultural aspects, however, I agree with Ambassador Whithers and his call for action. Some of the practical things he mentioned include these:

• The political elite of Albania should lead by example.
• Change the immunity law, which protects senior officials in courts, in Parliament and in other offices from prosecution.
• The political leadership of Albania should empower the institutions that seek justice.
• Public responsibility: citizens who see corruption or victims of corruption, protesting it, criticizing it, exposing the incidents of corruption, demanding more of the leadership to do something about corruption.

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