It seems, wherever you go, you will come across Eastern Europeans, and by that term I would be talking about the former Soviet bloc countries, naturally including Russia. In Turkey, the shop assistant who helps you might be married to a Ukranian, and on the Greek Island of Santorini, your Moldavian waiter will tell you that most of the actual work in Santorini is done by Eastern Europeans and that he has moved there, together with his Bulgarian wife.

The next stop that you will visit will be run by a Ukranian woman who has married a local Greek and works in the shop selling goods to the tourists. It does not really come as a surprise to me, because I think that with the aging populations of countries like Greece, Italy, Spain and their very poor economies, that it is only a matter of time that they are going to have to open their doors and actively encourage a new flood of immigrants, like America did a century or so ago.

There seems to be, in many countries, a lack of desire of the local people to work for wages that are not much more than the benefits that they are used to (not that they can afford those benefits any more) whereas only a few thousand kilometres away, there are literally millions of people who would welcome a fresh start and work at those same salaries. In some ways, South Africa would also benefit from trying to attract such workers, but in that regard I would be suggesting the more skilled workers of the types we have lost in such huge numbers – ranging from doctors to nurses and engineers.