The Great Reverse Migration

For decades, Eastern Europe has suffered a massive brain drain of people heading abroad in search of opportunity. But something remarkable happened during the pandemic: huge numbers started coming back. Can they be convinced to stay? This week we speak to urban researcher Ognyan Georgiev about his fascinating work tracking Bulgaria's returnees — and we get his predictions for which European cities are going to be the coolest in 20 years time. We're also talking about sexism in German football, Iceland's spectacular volcano eruption, and why Finland has yet again been named the world's happiest country.

This week's Isolation Inspiration: Oscar-nominated Romanian film Collective; My Family And Other Animals; and the fabulous music of our Patreon supporter (and newest jingle composer) Mariska Martina.

Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few euros / dollars / pounds a month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast.

Producer: Katz Laszlo

Assistant producers:   Andrei Popoviciu  and Priyanka Shankar

Listen to this episode from The Europeans on Spotify. For decades, Eastern Europe has suffered a massive brain drain of people heading abroad in search of opportunity. But something remarkable happened during the pandemic: huge numbers started coming back. Can they be convinced to stay?