In Montenegro I Think of Sandwiches—Not the Bread Kind.

Aging on the Run, Former Yugoslavia, Nationalism

  In Montenegro, I think of sandwiches. Not the mustard/mayo, whole wheat-or-rye kind. I think about rivers, lakes, and bays, sandwiched between mountains. These are waterways of unsurpassed beauty.  From where I sit overlooking the Bay of Kotor, one can get to...

Five Questions about the Economy and Politics of Tirana, Albania

Aging on the Run, Balkans, Public History, Sustainable Economies

“I accepted the story I heard on foreign media: that the [1997] Albanian civil war could be explained not by the collapse of a flawed financial system but by longstanding animosities between ethnic groups… its plan could be disrupted only by outside...

Berat, Albania, Opens Windows to the Sky and Doors to the Stranger

Aging on the Run, Balkans, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Public History, Radical Hospitality, Social Movements

  Albania’s oldest city has 1,000 identical windows in its Ottoman-era old town, and a Byzantine city on top of one of its mountains. The Osum River runs through Berat, with buildings hugging the slopes.  A green ridged range covers its north side. South of the...

Mr. Blinken came to Albania

Aging on the Run, Nationalism, Sustainable Economies

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken came to Tirana, Albania. He did not stay long. Not long enough for a state dinner. He would eat in Munich, his next stop.  The Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama chastised him for this diplomatic slight. While Blinken was in...

Scruga, North Macedonia. To The Lake: A Journey for Peace, in time of War.

Aging on the Run, Balkans, Former Yugoslavia, Nationalism, Sustainable Economies, war and peace

I read To The Lake: A Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova, about her roots trip circling ancient lakes that border Albania, North Macedonia, and Greece. Kassabova rejects the nationalisms that poison the region while celebrating the magnetism of Lake Ohrid,...