To all the YouTube users out there, this interview takes you to the other side of your screen – the production side of YouTube, in which many of the producers start out working for free. Lens of Passion was very fortunate to land in the same city (and happily stuck for a while) amidst the pandemic with 4 traveling YouTubers…
Livja B. was 8 years old. Blind bullets were penetrating normal homes and two thousand lives were claimed. This was 1997. Two billion U.S. dollars and hopes of many Albanian families evaporated in a pyramid scheme that was peculiarly endorsed by the government. The cost for a free market was hefty. Nearly seven months of violence and anarchy ended with an election – the leftist Socialist Party took power but “it could have been any snake”, said Livja. Years have gone by and she has grown to become a lawyer who also runs her family hotel in Voskopoja. On the surface…
Tirana (Tiranë in Shqip), a word so beautiful you imagine naming your future daughter that. It is the name of the capital city of Albania, or Shqipëria, meaning “land of eagles”. This country of three million population stands in the Balkans, bordering Greece to the south, North Macedonia and Kosovo to the east, and Montenegro to the north. Albania gazes out to the Adriatic sea, part of the Ionian sea and the back of the Italian heel. The nation broke free from then Ottoman Empire in 1912, but to fall into the fate of multiple regional power struggles and the two world wars. Ruled by two dictators between 1944 to 1991, Albanians had no contact with the rest of the world until late 1992, when the Parliament was restored. This also marked
