The (In)famous Albanian Bunkers

One of the first things any newcomer to Albania notices is the weird concrete domes sticking up like grey mushrooms all over the landscape. They are defensive bunkers built of concrete and steel, buried half underground to withstand tank assaults. And they are literally everywhere.

Bunker at Mt. Dajti

Where did they come from and why were they built? They were Enver Hozha's paranoid project, and he forced his people to build over 700,000 of them.

In daily life, the bunkers are so ubiquitous that their novelty wears off within a week or two. Now, every time I come across one I have to remind myself that they are indeed bizarre structures.

Here is a link to an excellent 5 minute movie trailer about the bunkers:  http://blog.concrete-mushrooms.com/?page_id=130.  Created as a master's project by two Albanian graduate students studying landscape design in Italy, it's worth a watch. The archival video from one of Enver Hoxha's nationalistic speeches is quite chilling.

A bit creepy....

For myself, I find it easy to laugh at the little domes sticking up out of the open fields or parks. On the other hand, suddenly coming across a pod of them secreted in the woods is a bit creepy.

What must it have been like to live in a society where your leader repeatedly warned you that foreign attack was likely and imminent? Did people believe it or were they skeptical? I'd like to imagine that I would have been skeptical (as I was when our leader repeatedly warned us about weapons of mass destruction). But to be honest I don't know that the two situations are comparable. In the US, we have a free press and opposing political parties, which the Albanian people did not have at that time. Also we can travel freely and therefore often can see for ourselves whether what we've been told comports to reality on the ground.

Right in the middle of Tirana

In any event, it's clear that these bunkers aren't going away. They stand as a reminder - welcome or not - of a strange historical era.