Migration in the 1990s

In the wider area of the historic centre, the migrants of the 1990s found housing in the areas around the Ministry of Macedonia-Thrace and Panagia Faneromeni, in western Ano Poli, in Vardaris and Dioikitirio, around the Agioi Apostoloi Square and the New Railway Station. The area’s squares were transformed through the encounter between older and newer residents and the opening of new shops. The newcomers were looking for companionship, work, transport and food. The first ethnic mini-markets appeared, selling products from the migrants’ countries of origin, while the local farmers’ markets became populated with people spreading a sheet on the street and selling caviar, vodka, old cameras from Eastern Europe or leftover household items from the former Soviet Union. Groups of Russian-speaking people, mostly men, would meet along the Ancient Agora and in nearby alleys. The 2000s and 2010s were the golden age for the many travel agencies which popped up around Dyrrachio Square, organising trips to and from various cities in Albania.   

However, for years, many of these new city residents, with the exception of those recognised by the state as ethnic Greeks, were forced to live in hiding or work illegally. It wasn’t until 1998 that a new migration law allowed most of them to acquire a permanent residence and legal work permit in the country. 

Mirlinda and her husband, both of Albanian origins, migrated in 1995:

‘We eventually ended up in Thessaloniki where our relatives were. My husband was lucky, he found work immediately. I had to stay home for four years. We were afraid that I might get caught without papers, so I wouldn’t leave the house. Only once, I rode a bus and saw the city at night. Those four years at home were the worst years in my life. The only good thing was that I became very fluent in Greek by watching television. Of course, there was no one there to tell me that my Greek was good. […]  The jobs I was offered back then were taking care of old people or cleaning, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I thought: “What was the point of studying then?” Finally, with the new laws, we could start the process of legalisation’.   

A few years later, from 2010 to 2017, when the Greek economy was forced to implement IMF mandated economic reforms, unemployment rates skyrocketed, especially among younger people, and the ensuing economic crisis affected not only the natives, but also the city’s migrant populations. That’s when many of them, especially those hailing from Albania, returned to their country of birth.