22 Jun,2025 By Fake Travel News
Weird, I came into the Fake Travel News office to find this email about something called “Neo-Tirana.” After downloading it, the email deleted. I spoke with a few other travel bloggers who experienced the same thing. It’s circulating among bloggers like a viral chain letter from the future. I publish it here now for your reading pleasure…well, for those who are pleased by apocalyptic tales.
⚠️ TEMPORAL TRANSMISSION WARNING ⚠️
From: June 22, 2053 | To: June 22, 2025
Message Priority: CRITICAL – TIMELINE INTERVENTION REQUIRED
By Elena Vasquez-Chen
TO THOSE READING THIS IN 2025:
If you’re reading this, our experimental quantum transmission system worked—which honestly surprises everyone, considering we built it from salvaged WiFi routers and what I’m 90% sure used to be a microwave. We rigged the “microwave” with neutrinos and nanites—don’t ask how. My name is Elena, and I’m writing from June 22, 2053. I was an urban planning professor at universities that no longer exist, though to be fair, half were basically expensive daycare centers anyway.
This isn’t a travel blog. This is a warning. The apocalypse turned out way more tedious than movies suggested. Lots of paperwork. Who knew?
We can only send limited information backwards through time—no people, objects, or detailed technical specifications. What you’re about to read is real. I’m walking through Neo-Tirana now, dodging radioactive puddles and local peacocks (apparently the ultimate survival birds).
The Great Collapse of 2037 happened because people in your time couldn’t act decisively and were too busy arguing on social media to notice society unraveling.
You still have twelve years. Please don’t spend them fighting about pineapple on pizza.
ATTENTION 2025 READERS: What I’m about to describe began in your time with problems you’re experiencing right now. The climate refugees, supply chain disruptions, political polarization, resource competition—you’re living through the early stages as I write this. Also, you probably think TikTok dance trends are important. Spoiler alert: they’re not.
The collapse wasn’t one event—it was like ignoring weird car noises until the engine explodes, except with civilization:
Each crisis was manageable alone. Together, they overwhelmed every system humans had built. Think of it like a really bad day at IKEA, but for the entire planet with more existential dread.
Albania was once Europe’s most closed country under communism. Now it’s ironically the most open—borders dissolved when people started prioritizing “not dying” over “proper visa documentation.”
Neo-Tirana won’t wow you with beauty, food, history, or nightlife. But sixteen years post-collapse, it fascinates me like watching goldfish organize a book club.
The plaza still honors the Albanian hero who resisted Ottoman invaders in the 15th century—fitting that his legacy outlasted communism, capitalism, and probably whatever terrible political system humans invent next.
The square captures Neo-Tirana perfectly: vertical gardens climbing colorful but crumbling buildings (turns out those bright Balkan paint jobs were accidentally perfect camouflage for structural damage), the hand-painted Albanian flag (still one of my favorites in post-Europe, mainly because the eagle looks appropriately pissed off about everything), and the partially collapsed minaret of the Et’hem Bey Mosque, now reinforced with salvaged steel beams in what I can only describe as “apocalyptic chic” architecture.
The Skanderbeg Collective runs the main trading hub, exchanging repaired electronics for food, medicine, and fuel. I traded a solar charger for three days of guided tours and a translator who spoke both Albanian and the novel trade language that’s emerged across the Balkans (sample phrase: “iPhone good, bread better, bullets best”).
A young boy offered to sell me his dog for a pack of batteries. I refused—I’m allergic to dogs, and antihistamines are harder to find than functioning governments these days.
Here’s something that would have blown pre-collapse minds: Neo-Tirana is run entirely by women. The transition happened organically during the early survival years when it became apparent that the same testosterone-fueled decision-making that helped create the collapse wasn’t particularly useful for, you know, not dying.
The inspiration came directly from a communist-era mural on the old national historical museum—where a female protagonist leads a resistance.
This became the template for post-collapse governance. When the Skanderbeg Collective was forming, someone pointed at the mural and said, “Her. We’re doing it like her.” And somehow, it worked. The Council of Mothers (average age: 35, average number of apocalypse survival skills: terrifying) runs everything from resource allocation to defense strategy with the kind of ruthless efficiency that would make Fortune 500 CEOs weep with envy. Men now lead childcare and repairs, thriving in support roles.
But here’s where it gets interesting: to cope with the stress of literally keeping civilization alive, these women have revived one of history’s most primal stress-relief methods—gladiatorial combat. Every Friday evening, female fighters gather for what they call “The Settling.” It’s part therapy, part entertainment, part demonstration that the people running this place could absolutely destroy you in hand-to-hand combat if you get out of line.
The men in Neo-Tirana seem perfectly content with this arrangement, possibly because the previous system of male-dominated leadership had achieved the minor accomplishment of ending civilization. Plus, the gladiator fights have dramatically reduced domestic disputes—turns out communal screaming at recreational violence is like marriage counseling, but with more blood and significantly less talking about your feelings.
This communist-era concrete pyramid became a digital center before collapse, then finally found its calling as social organization headquarters—proving sometimes the world must end to find good real estate.
Now it’s the world’s most utilitarian mall: hydroponics growing slightly glowing tomatoes, the “Geek Squad of the Apocalypse” repairing electronics, textile production (post-collapse fashion is surprisingly practical), and communications using ham radio mixed with interpretive dance.
At night they project movies on exterior sheets—last week’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” brought laughter and frequent “amateurs” comments. Movie night wasn’t always fun. The ‘Titanic’ screening broke them when the ship’s lights finally went out—because that’s exactly how their world had ended, one flickering system at a time. An elderly man whispered ‘I remember when the streetlights worked,’ and it started an avalanche of memories: birthday parties with electric mixers, long-distance calls to grandmothers, grocery stores with infinite choices. They mourned until the sun came up, then went back to arguing over who got the last tomato.
Couples still climb to the peak for filtered kisses under brighter stars. Romance in Neo-Tirana: finding someone whose radiation burns complement yours.
The 1997 civil war memorial, built from bullet casings, now serves as a community warning system: three rings for raiders, five for toxic storms, continuous ringing for shelter time.
The bell’s new role amplifies rather than diminishes its memorial function. Peace isn’t just war’s absence—it’s actively staying alive together.
Neo-Tirana’s art scene thrives more than before collapse, probably because there’s literally nothing else to do after 6 PM except create art or argue about resource allocation (and honestly, the art is more productive).
My favorite piece is an evolution of pre-war art: a human heart held in cupped hands, but now the artists have cultivated bioluminescent moss (scavenged from abandoned pharmaceutical labs) to make the heart pulse with soft green light after dark. It perfectly depicts the beauty and responsibility of keeping humanity alive when all the old systems have failed, plus it provides excellent mood lighting for the adjacent black market.
Contemporary murals serve multiple functions—kind of like Swiss Army knives, but for walls. They advertise safe zones, trader schedules, and community meetings, but also carry deeper messages. One wall near the old university reads: “The world ended Tuesday. We start over Wednesday. Mandatory staff meeting Thursday at 3 PM.” Another, painted over a collective workshop entrance, shows a figure in pre-war business attire transforming into someone in work clothes, hands dirty but eyes bright. Art helps cope with grief and the loss of what was.
The relationship between human and animal has changed too. I found a touching black and white mural showing a person walking with their dog—both wearing improvised masks against the dust storms—a reminder that some bonds transcend civilizational collapse.
The famous Tanners’ bridge, where livestock and produce entered the city since the 18th century, serves almost the same function today. The bridge is still the main entry point for goods coming from the agricultural collectives in the valley, though now “livestock” means the hardy goats and chickens that survived the climate chaos (plus some creatures I’m pretty sure didn’t exist before 2038), and “produce” means whatever grows in the greenhouse complexes built from salvaged materials and what I suspect is pure determination.
The bridge is controlled by the Crossing Collective, who charge a modest toll payable in labor, goods, or information—though they’ll also accept really good jokes, which I learned after entertaining them with my impression of a pre-collapse city council meeting. Their leader, a former logistics coordinator named Mira, maintains detailed records of everything that passes through using a filing system that makes my old university’s bureaucracy look efficient.
Sound boring? Yeah, it still kinda is. But in post-collapse times, boring infrastructure is the foundation of survival. Not all bridges can be dramatic monuments to engineering—some just need to keep working while the world burns around them, which honestly describes most of my relationships before the apocalypse too.
The statue with tree-like arms now literally grows food—vines climbing bronze branches. What was symbolic became functional: a monument that feeds people.
Fan Noli fought corruption, was exiled, and ended up in America. Survivors see parallels—forced from corrupt old systems to build something new. The base bears new inscription: “From the old world’s ashes, new gardens grow.”
Message to 2025: I’m not just describing Neo-Tirana to warn you about collapse—I’m showing you what worked when humans stopped arguing about stupid things and started focusing on not dying. Every innovation these survivors created, every community structure that succeeded, every piece of adaptive technology—you could build these NOW, before you need them. It’s like insurance, but for civilization.
For Your Timeline:
Bonus from 2053: Learn repair over replacement. Survivors worship anyone who can fix a solar panel or patch a water filter.
I hope by 2053, Albania remains boringly normal—bureaucratic borders, disappointing castles, and normal-sized livestock.
I hope you read this as fiction, not prophecy. Like an elaborate “Floor is Lava” game where lava is societal collapse and furniture is functional infrastructure.
We’re sending these because you can change course. Stop arguing about pronouns, start discussing food security. Stop celebrity gossip, start community resilience. Stop doom-scrolling, start doom-preparing. Survivors say: “From yesterday’s ruins, we build tomorrow.”
If this worked, I may not exist anymore—timeline paradoxes aren’t just sci-fi. Change everything. Make my existence temporally impossible. I’m weirdly okay with that.
Save yourselves. Save us. Save everyone.
SIGNAL DECLINING… AUTO-DELETION IN 3… 2… 1…
Elena Vasquez-Chen, Former Urban Planning Professor. If I don’t exist anymore, please water my plants.
The non-fake disclaimer: Fake Travel News is a satire travel blog. We have fun creating and exaggerating travel stories from around the world, but we also love travel and the very real magic it grants to the human experience. For non-fake information on Tirana, Albania, you can visit the following link: Two Fantastic Weeks In Tirana (Albania) – Two Travel Turtles
