Bunkers in Albania
Bunkers in Albania | |
---|---|
Site information | |
Condition | 1967-1986: Military Bases
1986-2024: Bars/Shops |
Site history | |
Built | 1967 | –1986
Built by | People's Socialist Republic of Albania |
In use | 1967–1991 |
Materials | Concrete, steel |
Demolished | Partly |
Concrete military bunkers are a ubiquitous sight in Albania, with an average of 5.7 bunkers for every square kilometer (14.7 per square mile). The bunkers (Albanian: bunkerët) were built during the Hoxhaist government led by the Leader Enver Hoxha from the 1960s to the 1980s, as the government fortified Albania by building more than 750,000 bunkers.[1][2][3]
Hoxha's program of "bunkerization" (bunkerizimi) resulted in the construction of bunkers in every corner of the then-People's Socialist Republic of Albania, ranging from mountain passes to city streets. They were never used for their intended purpose during the years that Hoxha governed. The cost of constructing them was a drain on Albania's resources, diverting them away from dealing with the country's housing shortage and poor roads.
The bunkers were abandoned following the dissolution of the communist government in 1992. A few were used in the
Background
From the
His government was also hostile towards the country's immediate neighbours. Albania did not end its state of war with Greece, left over from the Second World War, until as late as 1987 – two years after Hoxha's death – due to Greek territorial ambitions in southern Albania as well as Greece's status as a NATO member state.[6]
Hoxha was virulently hostile towards the government of
Albania still maintained some links with the outside world at this time, trading with
Military doctrine
Starting in 1967 and continuing until 1986, the Albanian government carried out a policy of "bunkerisation" that saw the construction of hundreds of thousands of bunkers across the country.[9] They were built in every possible location, ranging from "beaches and mountains, in vineyards and pastures, in villages and towns, even on the manicured lawns of Albania's best hotel".[10] Hoxha envisaged Albania fighting a two-front war against an attack mounted by Yugoslavia, NATO or the Warsaw Pact, involving a simultaneous incursion by up to eleven enemy airborne divisions. As he put it, "If we slackened our vigilance even for a moment or toned down our struggle against our enemies in the least, they would strike immediately like the snake that bites you and injects its poison before you are aware of it."[11]
Albania's military doctrine was based on a concept of "
Partisan strategy was mountain-based guerrilla warfare, in which they took refuge in the mountains and launched raids into the less defensible lowlands. By contrast, Hoxha aimed to defend Albania's national integrity and sovereignty "at all costs",[14] which necessitated defending the lowlands as well. The bunkers were therefore intended to establish defensive positions across the entirety of the country. Smaller ones were laid out in lines radiating out within sight of a large command bunker, which was permanently manned. The commanders of the large bunkers would communicate with their superiors by radio and with the occupants of the smaller bunkers by making visual signals that could be seen through slits.[15]
The regime also sought intensively to militarise civilians. 800,000 people out of a population of about three million served in defence in some way, ranging from the regular armed forces and reserves to civil defence and student armed youth units. Many sectors of the government, state-owned businesses and the public service were also given roles in defence, meaning that almost the
Citizens were trained from the age of 12 to station themselves in the nearest bunker to repel invaders.[10] Local Party cells organised families to clean and maintain their local bunkers,[11] and civil defence drills were held at least twice a month, lasting for up to three days, in which civilians of military age of both sexes were issued rifles (but no ammunition).[18]
Members of the
Construction
The bunkers were constructed of concrete, steel and iron and ranged in size from one- or two-person pillboxes with gun slits[10] to large underground nuclear bomb shelters intended for use by the Party leadership and bureaucrats.[20] The most common type of bunker is a small concrete dome set into the ground with a circular bottom extending downwards, just large enough for one or two people to stand inside. Known as Qender Zjarri ("firing position") or QZ bunkers, they were prefabricated and transported to their final positions, where they were assembled. They consist of three main elements: a 3 m (9.8 ft) diameter hemispherical concrete dome with a firing slit, a hollow cylinder to support the dome and an outer wall with a radius 60 cm (24 in) larger than the cylinder. The gap between the cylinder and outer wall is filled with earth.[21]
At various places along the coast, large numbers of QZ bunkers were built in groups of three, linked to each other by a prefabricated concrete tunnel. Elsewhere bunkers were constructed in groupings around strategic points across the country, or in lines across swathes of territory.[22] Tirana was particularly heavily defended, with thousands of bunkers radiating out in fifty concentric circles around the city.[23]
The QZ bunker was designed by
Zagali himself was promoted to the rank of colonel and became chief engineer of the Albanian Ministry of Defence. However, Hoxha's paranoia led to Zagali being purged in 1974 and imprisoned for eight years on false charges of "sabotage" as a "foreign agent". His wife went insane, his family was shunned by friends and acquaintances, and his daughter died of breast cancer. Zagali later said that it was "a painful and tragic fate not only for me and my family but for thousands and thousands of such families in Albania who have experienced the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha".[24] His experiences were later used as the basis of Kolonel Bunker, a film by Albanian director Kujtim Çashku.[11]
Command and control bunkers
The command-and-control bunkers, known as Pike Zjarri ("firing point") or PZ bunkers, were also prefabricated and assembled on site. They are far larger and heavier than the QZ bunkers, with a diameter of 8 metres (26 ft). They are made from a series of concrete slices, each weighing eight or nine tons, which were concreted together on site to form an interlocking dome. Fully assembled, they weigh between 350 and 400 tons.[25]
Large bunkers and tunnels
There was also a third category of larger "special structures" for strategic purposes.[26] The largest were bunker complexes tunnelled into mountains. At Linza near the capital, Tirana, a network of tunnels some 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long was built to protect members of the Interior Ministry and the Sigurimi (the secret police) from nuclear attack.[20] Elsewhere, thousands of kilometres of tunnels were built to house political, military and industrial assets. Albania is said to have become the most tunnelled country in the world after North Korea.[24] The tunnels were built in conditions of great secrecy. Engineering teams were not allowed to see construction through to completion but were rotated from site to site on a monthly basis.[20]
Impact
The bunkerisation programme was a massive drain on Albania's weak economy. The construction of prefabricated bunkers alone cost an estimated two percent of net material product,[11] and in total the bunkers cost more than twice as much as the Maginot Line in France, consuming three times as much concrete.[27] The programme diverted resources away from other forms of development, such as roads and residential buildings. On average, they are said to have each cost the equivalent of a two-room apartment and the resources used to build them could easily have resolved Albania's chronic shortage of housing.[28] According to Josif Zagali, building twenty Qender Zjarris cost as much as constructing a kilometre of road. It also had a human cost; 70–100 people a year died constructing the bunkers.[24] In addition, the bunkers occupied and obstructed a significant area of arable land.[28]
The bunkerisation of the country had effects that went beyond their ubiquitous physical impact on the landscape. The bunkers were presented by the Party as both a symbol and a practical means of preventing Albania's subjugation by foreign powers, but some viewed them as a concrete expression of Hoxha's policy of isolationism – keeping the outside world at bay. Some Albanians saw them as an oppressive symbol of intimidation and control.
Albanian author
Hoxha's strategy of "people's war" also caused friction with the Albanian Army. The bunkers had little military value compared with a conventionally equipped and organised professional army. As one commentator has put it, "How long could one man in each bunker hold out? How would you resupply each individual bunker? How would they communicate with each other?"
Many other military figures, such as bunker designer Josif Zagali, were also caught up in the 1974 purges.[24] The introduction of a new constitution two years later sealed Hoxha's absolute control of the military by appointing him as Commander-in-Chief of the Albanian People's Army and Chairman of the Defence Council.[31]
Post-Hoxha
The bunkerization programme was stopped soon after Hoxha's death in 1985, leaving Albania's towns and countryside dotted with vast numbers of defensive bunkers.[10] The bunkers still feature prominently in the Albanian landscape.
A BBC reporter described in 1998 how they were ubiquitous on the road between Tirana and the city's airport, "looking down from every hillside, sprouting out of every bank".[27] The solidity of the bunkers has made removal difficult. Some have been removed, particularly in cities, but in the countryside most bunkers have simply been abandoned. Some have been reused as housing for animals or as storehouses; others have been abandoned to lie derelict due to the cost of removing them.[32]
The extreme secrecy of Hoxha's regime meant that
Although the bunkers were never used in a real conflict during Hoxha's rule, some found use in conflicts that broke out in the 1990s. During the
Kosovo Albanian refugees took to using bunkers as temporary shelters until aid agencies could move them into tent camps, while NATO troops stationed in Albania relocated dozens of bunkers to fortify their base at Kukës.[29] The Kosovo Liberation Army also used them as defensive positions during the Kosovo War,[38] though this was not without its risks; on at least one occasion bunkers along Albania's border with Kosovo were mistakenly bombed by NATO aircraft.[39]
An acute shortage of housing after the fall of communism in 1992 led some Albanians to set up homes in abandoned bunkers,[40] though the lack of running water and sanitation meant that the area around inhabited bunkers soon became contaminated and unhealthy. A few bunkers have found more creative uses. In the coastal city of Durrës one beachside bunker has been turned into the Restaurant Bunkeri,[32] and another bunker in Gjirokastër was turned into a café.[40]
There have been various suggestions for what to do with them: ideas have included
In November 2014, a "five star" nuclear shelter built near Tirana for Hoxha was opened as a tourist attraction and art exhibition. The large bunker contains a museum with exhibits from World War II and the Hoxhaist period.[42]
Albania's bunkers have become a national symbol. Pencil holders and ashtrays in the shape of bunkers have become one of the country's most popular tourist souvenirs.[32] One such line of bunker souvenirs was promoted with a message to buyers: "Greetings to the land of the bunkers. We assumed that you could not afford to buy a big one."[43]
See also
References
- ^ Obscura, Atlas (2013-09-27). "Albania's 750,000 Concrete Cold War Bunkers". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2022-10-23.
- ^ "Bunkers of Albania". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2022-10-23.
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- ISBN 978-1-84511-105-2.
- ISBN 0-415-16423-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4384-2819-2.
- ^ a b c d e f Vrazo, Fawn (19 April 1999). "Cold-war Bunkers At The Ready In Albania: Half A Million Dot The Land. Once Laughable, They Now Are Eyed As Potential Havens". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f The Trauma Controversy, p. 177
- ^ ISBN 978-1-85065-290-8.
- ^ Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity, p. 211
- ISBN 978-0-7546-7932-5.
- ISBN 978-1-84162-246-0.
- ISBN 978-1-86064-624-9.
- ^ Portway, Christopher (12 April 1986). "Nervous waves from iron fists". The Times.
- ^ "Albania looks beyond Hoxha". The Times. 4 October 1984.
- ^ Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity, p. 213
- ^ a b c "Albanian quandary: How to use old regime's mountain hideouts". AFP. 3 November 2010. Archived from the original on 8 November 2010. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
- ^ Stefa, Elian; Mydyti, Gyler (2009). "Concrete Mushrooms: Bunkers in Albania" (PDF). Politecnico di Milano. p. 74. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-03-26. Retrieved 2012-01-21.
- ^ Concrete Mushrooms: Bunkers in Albania, p. 67
- ISBN 978-0-8018-5621-1.
- ^ a b c d e "Josif Zegali, projektant albanskih bunker". Naša borba (in Serbian). Belgrade. 4 January 1998. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
- ^ Concrete Mushrooms: Bunkers in Albania, p. 75
- ^ Gallanti, Fabrizio; Zunino, Maria Giulia (11 May 2010). "Concrete Mushrooms". Abitare. Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
- ^ a b Howden, Daniel (5 July 2002). "Albania's relics of paranoid past". BBC News. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8133-3502-5.
- ^ a b Myre, Greg (20 May 1999). "Refugees Using Albania's Bunkers". Associated Press.
- ^ a b Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy, p. 632
- ^ Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy, p. 633
- ^ a b c The Trauma Controversy, p. 179
- ^ Warrick, Joby (11 January 2005). "Disposing of Albania's Chemical Cache – Forgotten Arms Had Little or No Security, Raising Fear About Similar Stockpiles Elsewhere". The Wall Street Journal Europe.
- ^ Mema, Briseida (22 July 2009). "Albanian tanks rid beaches of 'nightmare' Cold War bunkers". Spacewar.com. Agence France Presse. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
- ^ "Nice beach, shame about the bunkers". dailytelegraph.com.au. The Daily Telegraph. 23 July 2009. Retrieved 2012-03-17.
- ^ "Albanian Government Bombs Town as Strife Is Rife". The Washington Post. 6 March 1997.
- ^ Holmes, Charles W. (19 May 1999). "Conflict in the Balkans: Serb troops harassing Albanian villages". The Atlanta Journal.
- ^ Walker, Tom (25 May 1999). "KLA takes cover in Cold War bunkers". The Times.
- ^ Gray, Denis D. (31 May 1999). "Fighting spills into Albania, villagers, refugees flee". Associated Press.
- ^ a b Semini, Llazar (27 December 1993). "Anti-imperialist bunkers are a boon to Albania's homeless". Reuters.
- ^ Neuffer, Elizabeth (14 November 1994). "1,001 uses for Albania's many bunkers". The Boston Globe.
- ^ "Albania opens huge Cold War bunker". BBC. 22 November 2015. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
- ^ Shenon, Philip (13 April 1996). "Dictator Liked Bunkers. My, They Mushroomed!". The New York Times.
External links
- Mushrooms of Concrete from International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
- Paranoid Dictator’s Communist-Era Bunkers Now a National Nuisance from Wired Magazine
- Awaiting the Enemy that Never Came: The Bunkers of Albania from Atlas Obscura
- Underground Bunker of Enver Hoxha Official Website
- Albania Has a Bunker Problem from War is Boring