On 29 September 2021 we welcomed 25 students from different countries at our postgraduate programme in "Southeast European Studies: Politics, History, and Economics" at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. After one and a half year of remote teaching we came back to face-to-face teaching. Professor Nikolaos Tzifakis  delivered the keynote speech on “The Vicious Cycle of Authoritarianism, Nationalism, and Underdevelopment in the Western Balkans” and gave us food for thought for the whole year.