I may have shared some information about Albanian bunkers in my previous post about Albania, but I'm sure you don't know the full story.
Are you wondering where in #urbex this story with the title "Abandoned project" and not an object came from?
Everything will be clear to you if you read the text to the end.
After the end of World War II, at the head of the Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha comes to the country.
During the war, he was the leader of the resistance movement that fought against the government regime that provided assistance to the Italians and Germans during the war.
And after the end of the war, he became the communist dictator at the head of Albania, until his death in 1985.
Enver Hoxha was a loyal supporter of Stalin's regime (Joseph Stalin was the leader of the USSR until 1953). By supporting the policy of the leader of the USSR and leading a bad foreign policy, Enver Khodza had bad relations with all the countries of the West.
After Stalin's death, he clashed with the communist countries in the east so that Albania remained isolated and under the dictatorship of one man.
Due to the great fear and paranoia of the war conflict, in the early 1970s, Enver Hodza gave the order to begin the construction of defense bunkers, which will serve to defend the country and the regime in the event of a military attack on Albania.
In 25 years of "Burkenization" of the entire country, from the mountain peaks in the east, through all the cities, to the Adriatic and Ionian seas on
in the west, more than 750,000 bunkers of various shapes and purposes were built, all of them reinforced concrete structures.
From small bunkers for two soldiers that could withstand a tank attack and shelling, to large ones located in cities that could withstand a nuclear attack.
If we know that the construction of the bunker cost, on average, the same as a smaller apartment (30-40 square meters), it is clear how much material, concrete (and money) Enver spent in this project. During that time, the road infrastructure is falling apart, and there is almost no housing construction in the cities.
Only after Enver's death in 1985, when the wasteful waste of state money on the construction of bunkers at the paranoid request was stopped, Albania slowly began to be built.
The bunkers that were built were never used for defensive purposes because Albania was never attacked by other countries.
Bunkers were used as a meeting place for young couples (as the population was poor and young people did not have cars, these bunkers were an ideal shelter from the eyes of the public, for their love encounters), as warehouses or stables for cattle in the mountain recesses.
Due to the shortage of housing, some of the larger bunkers were permanently inhabited, while homeless people lived in smaller bunkers around the cities.
Today, there are still many of these bunkers in the cities, on the beaches, in the mountains, along the roads, an average of 5.7 bunkers for every square kilometer...
Their demolition began in 1990, but the costs are too high, so the work is being done slowly.
Those bunkers that threaten the safety of the population and tourists are removed first.
Some of them have been turned into museums and tourist attractions, like this one in the center of Albania's capital, Tirana, where one of the bunkers designed to defend against a nuclear attack is located.
Apart from the dome visible above the ground, below is a real small city of corridors, rooms and large halls, which could fit a lot of people.
Other smaller bunkers are either left with no purpose (apart from throwing garbage into them, which is a very ugly habit) or are used for advertising purposes or decorations on the streets. Some of them are painted, glazed, in some there is a kiosk for selling newspapers, and I saw one of the smaller ones in the city center that is used as a pizza oven.
In any case, this is a story, not about one abandoned building, but about 750,000 of them. An incredible number...
