The bunkers of Albania

Albania is a country that’s learned to live with its scars in plain sight. Scattered across the landscape like some twisted dystopian crop are a staggering amount of concrete bunkers, derelict relics of a madman’s obsession. They dot the hillsides, line the beaches and haunt the city parks.

One might ponder the wisdom of the former regime, as they built one bunker for every 11th Albanian, while the country had a severe lack of food and housing. Hundreds of thousands of bunkers went up during 1975-1983 but they were were never put to the test, as they were created for an attack that never came.

You don’t build that many bunkers unless you’re absolutely convinced the world is out to get you. Enver Hoxha, Albania’s long-time dictator and self-appointed bunker enthusiast, saw enemies everywhere: Yugoslavia, NATO, even his old pals in the Soviet Union. So while the rest of Europe rebuilt and moved on, Hoxha dug in, pouring the national budget into concrete paranoia.

The road leading to Bunk’Art 1.

Today I’m in Tirana. I take a walk to have a closer look at these concrete ghosts of paranoia. Two of the largest bunkers have been converted into museums called Bunk’Art 1 and 2.

Endless corridors in Bunk’Art 1.

Bunk’Art 1 was meant to be the HQ for Hoxha. Today the decommissioned command center is a large complex of bunker tunnels where it is easy to lose your direction in the long echoing corridors. 40 rooms are scattered across five floors, where the stale air still smells like secrets.

The eye-catching entrance of Bunk’Art 2.

Bunk’Art 2 is much smaller and also easier to find since the entrance is located in the city center of Tirana.

Another interesting artifact from bygone days is the Pyramid, a grotesque structure from 1987 that was supposed to be a museum for Hoxta, but today it’s mostly derelict.

The Pyramid.

The structures are the physical manifestation of an entire nation’s trauma, one man’s madness cast in reinforced concrete. Albania is not trying to hide them. It’s learning to live with them, laugh at them, even make a buck off them. That’s resilience.