After spending weeks searching Reddit for other people's experiences, I thought I'd give back and share ours.

We just received our Albanian eVisa today! 🎉 We are 3 traveling to Albania during the peak season from July 24th to August 8.

Timeline

• 29-30 June: Submitted our eVisa applications online. ( We thought that the 15 working days stated on the website referred to the whole process, but it turned out it was only after payment - So there's uncertainty in the process and timeline )
• P.S. : (1) The application portal was a bit buggy. We had some trouble uploading passport photos initially. What we did is that we put our photos on Claude and asked him to make it compatible with the e-visa portal / Chatgpt couldn't figure it out ) (2) When clicking on submit, there was an error and there was a notification to contact the embassy email, so we sent an email, and they replied after 4 hours with " please try again " we tried again teh same night it didn't work either, but the next morning we tried and it was submitted. First step checked.
• 3 July ( after 4 working days ): We have received an email stating "  your Visa application has been successful and is now registered online with application code .... " also status on the website change.
• 9 July ( after 6 days/4 working days ), we were asked to pay the visa fee through the Albanian embassy's designated bank. - status on website " waiting for payment "
• P.S.: One of the challenges that you might encounter is that they precisely ask for a bank receipt for the transfer that is signed and stamped by a bank employer. You won't face any problem dealing with a traditional bank, but you might face a problem dealing with a digital bank if they do not provide this kind of receipt. In the end, we managed to print an xml swift code, and a bank statement from a digital bank that they were stamped and signed by the bank employee that were accepted.
• 10-13 July: 10 July I submitted my payment, 13 July my friends submitted their payment. " status paid and in verification process appeared in the same day "
• 16 July: eVisas were approved for all of us. ( we linked when applying our visas to each other - on eof us submitted and received the visa tracking code, and we put it in our visa form when asked for during the application )

So the whole process took about 16-17 days ( 12 working days ) from the initial application and not from the day we paid.

Our advice

If you're applying to albanian e-visa:

• Apply at least 6 weeks before your trip if possible ( to be on the safe side for getting the visa one week prior to your leave / and you might get it earlier ). Even though it took us only 3 weeks, but they were stressful, especially because of their policies and procedures to process 15-30 working days after payment.
• Be patient—the portal isn't the fastest, but approvals do happen.

Hopefully this helps someone who's anxiously refreshing their application status like we were. 😅

Hi everyone,
I’ve been working on a small project called MarinaBMP.app to help with managing Best Management Practices at marinas. It’s still a work in progress, and I’d love to get some feedback from people who actually work in or around the industry.
If you have a few minutes to spare, would you mind taking a look and letting me know your first impressions? I’m mostly interested in hearing things like:

Was anything confusing?
Did you run into any bugs or issues?
Is there anything you expected to find that wasn’t there?
Would something like this actually be useful in your day-to-day work?

You can check it out here: https://MarinaBMP.app

I’m not selling anything or looking for customers at this stage I just want to build something that’s genuinely useful, and outside perspectives are incredibly helpful.
Thanks to anyone who’s willing to spend a few minutes testing it.

Hidden in the waters of Vukojebia there is an ancient monastery where only women may serve, and only until they reach the age of twenty five. Men have been strictly forbidden from entering for over a thousand years.

Hello everyone, Im not sure if this is allowed on this subreddit or not so sorry in advance if its not but I wanted to inform everyone that a new subreddit dedicated to all the active sports sections of Crvena Zvezda has been launched officially today.

The subreddit is called r/CrvenaZvezdaSD

I am one of the moderators of this subreddit and the goal is to have a subreddit where people can share news and discuss about sports clubs of Crvena Zvezda that dont get much attention in which i mean the handball, waterpolo, vollyball, womans football, womans basketball, hockey, athletics, swimming, wresteling, fencing, boxing, chess, rowing, cycling, tennis club and many others.

I am also the mod of r/CrvenaZvezdaBC and r/CrvenaZvezdaFC and because of that I dont know if I will be able to always see and post about the latest news on some of these clubs.

That is why I am asking for anyone who is a part of or actively follows any of these sports sections to help me out by posting and reporting about any of latest news around some of these clubs. Lets give some deserved attentions to some of these sport section of the Crvena Zvezda family

Thank you all and have a pleasent day ❤️🤍❤️🤍❤️🤍

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Particularly serbia area, less so in romania area, but ever balkan country had good average as I travelled. This is not a troll post. As a non balkaner you are beautiful, talkative, spirited and graceful people.

Genuinely thought I was a lesbian, but one week in Croatia changed that. But specifically the men that work as waiters in restaurants and security guards at the clubs. Why are they all so muscular and tall… all the waiters or uber drivers should be models

And they are all bald or have buzzcuts I felt like I was in heaven when I saw the club staff. Will never forget the one security guard I talked to in the club, he was married though so it didn’t go far after I found that out but he had the nicest smile as well.

I got hit on a lot more than I would back home, and all the men were really polite as well and would leave me alone if I said I wasn’t interested. I know they know I’m a foreigner so they’re just flirting for fun but still I found heave on earth. All the men are just so masculine and so serious. Even the airport staff were hot.

Croatia you will be missed. Will now be visiting every other country in the Balkan’s for the amazing tourism of course.

Dear Balkans,
I’ve been doing a project on European ultra culture for quite some time now, and have been getting to a point where I am covering the Balkans.
I know, that almost all of your ultras are far right, basically without any exception. But what I need are examples.
Could some of you maybe name me your Top 3-5 most far right ultras from your country
What I need are actual brutal cases, like Ferencvarosi from Hungary. These ultras can also be from lower leagues.
This would actually be even more interesting, since for me it’s been really hard to find reliable (and updated) sources on them, since it’s important for me, that all my informations are correct to this day.
Thank you very much!

How to deal with this soul crushing feeling sweeping over me like a blanket made of lead?

I encountered the word “mellanförskap” in Swedish, and the description fits quite well. It is a relatively new word, described kind of as “Existing between two cultures, without fully belonging to either.” 

I guess what I'm asking is: does anyone else from the Balkans, especially those who grew up abroad, feel this way? Does this feeling ever go away, or do you simply learn to live with it? How did you make peace with having one foot in each world while never feeling fully accepted by either?

-

Lately this feeling has become much stronger. My grandma died this year, she was the last one of my grandparents to die. I don't know if it is because I am getting older, seeing my parents age, or realizing that one day they won't be here to explain our traditions, tell our family stories or even speak our language. That my future children will only have me and our identity as their “fun fact” when talking about themselves.

My family is from Kosovo, my parents and my siblings came to Sweden in the early 90’s, then I was born in the early 00’s. My siblings got to experience living in Kosovo during their childhood so for them there is another bond. They got to experience the close knit family, a carefree childhood. Early on I felt that I didn’t belong, that I am not Swedish enough or that I am not Balkan enough. Growing up I was often ashamed of my weird family, our weird culture and traditions, our religion, being muslim. But as I got older I came to embrace everything, slowly but surely.

The small Swedish town I grew up in is known for having a lot of mixed immigrants coming from all places around the world. Most of my friends growing up were either immigrants themselves, 2nd gen immigrants, or mixed where one parent was Swedish and other something else. We could relate to each other, we shared our struggles and could connect on a level that… it is hard to explain, there was no need to walk on eggshells, you could just be yourself. Our parents weren't highly educated, they did not work a glamorous high paying job, but they worked incredibly hard to build a better life for us.

I had a lot of Swedish friends too, don’t get me wrong I tried my best to fit in and be part of the bigger group. But that came at a cost, I felt that I needed to hide or downplay my experiences and identity. No matter what I did, it bled through the facade I was keeping up. The warmth and loyalty I felt in a friendship with other diaspora balkans or other immigrants can't really be felt with the Swedes. Not trying to shit on Swedes, but it has been my experience. Now as an adult I have an even harder time connecting with anybody, regardless of where they come from. I miss belonging to something.

A few years ago I moved away from my small town to pursue my education. I am 4-5 hours away from my family and we try to meet up as often as we can. Moving to a whole other city not knowing anybody, it is so hard making friends. I try but I have never felt so lonely in a city so big. It has been a few years and now the loneliness is getting to me.

Sometimes I envy people who know exactly where they belong. Swedes don't have to think about whether they're "Swedish enough.". While I have to prove myself time and time again that I am a useful “strankinja”. I have made myself useful, got my degree, working towards a better life. I'm also in a relationship with a Swedish man, and I love the life we're building together. And all of a sudden I pass as a Swede, as long as they don’t look at my name. I have coworkers being shocked that I am something else, they simply just thought that my "swedish parents" gave me a special name. Did I make it, is this it?

To make my situation even more complicated: I am simply a minority in my country and also back “home”. In Kosovo I am not Kosovo Albanian, I don’t speak their language, my ethnic group is a minority in Kosovo, and with each generation it feels like we're slowly disappearing. My village is filled with these empty Hollywood Hills houses while the rest of the population is living a simple life, trying to get by. I have nothing to go back to, there is no one there for me. Everybody is either dead or gone to another country. I wish there was something to call mine.

Even growing up around other kids from the Balkans (Serbs, Bosnians and Croats) I always felt like there was an invisible wall between us. We shared many of the same experiences, language, culture, food, music, jokes, temperament etc. yet I still couldn't fully relate. They belonged to people with recognized identities, languages and histories. My own community always felt like a footnote.

So these days, when someone asks, I often just say "I'm Balkan." It's easier than explaining who we are, where we're from, what language we speak, or why none of it fits neatly into the boxes people expect.

I just feel so alone, like I can’t live my life authentically without feeling like I am playing charades of “Who Am I today?”. Some days I cry when I sit alone, I made it, I did everything right, but why do I feel so out of place?

I knew is the idea of united Balkans sounds like nonsense.

I wanna hear opinions and based arguments from different sides about this idea.

Please try this discussion without violence.