In Albania, young, well-educated people are looking for career prospects. Germany lacks skilled workers. So has everyone won? Not entirely.
Sotir Zahoaliaj is sitting in front of a café, the only one in Brataj. In the shade of the sprawling plane tree, the morning heat is still bearable. On the round wooden table in front of him is a glass of raki – the clear fruit liquor that is part of every good conversation in Albania.
It is a beautiful village in the Albanian mountains, a few large, old trees, a small village square. Inhabitants: nobody knows exactly. Sotir Zahoaliaj is 73 and has lived in Brataj for 73 years. A river swirls through the valley next to it, the turquoise-blue water finds its way between smooth boulders and forms deep pools that invite you to swim. A centuries-old stone bridge swings over it. The air is hot and smells of rosemary and rockrose.
The best time, says Sotir Zahoaliaj, is summer. That’s when the sons and daughters come home, and Brataj is full of life. Down by the river, people grill and swim, sunbathe and jump. Every summer, for three or four weeks a year. The rest of the time, Sotir Zahoaliaj sits at the table under the plane tree. It’s lonely in the village without the young people, he says. But he also advised his son to leave.
Nowhere else in Europe are so many young people leaving their homeland as in Albania. In 2022 alone, there were 36,000, out of a population of 2.7 million. They see no prospects in the country; wages are too low, corruption too omnipresent. One in three people born in Albania now lives abroad: in Italy, Greece, but increasingly also in Germany.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
