There is hardly a landscape in Albania where a concrete hemisphere does not appear. On beaches, along roads and in fields, bunkers built during the rule of Enver Hoxha stand. They are the most visible sign of one of the most closed dictatorships in Europe, but they are far from the only oddity of the regime.
Hoxha was born on October 16, 1908 in Gjirokastra and led Albania from 1944 until his death on April 11, 1985. For more than four decades, he built a state that gradually distanced itself from almost all of its allies. After the break with the Soviet Union in 1961, Tirana became closer to China, but these relations also ended in 1977. Thus, Albania was practically left alone, and political isolation became an official doctrine.
Bunker for every fear
Hoxha's most famous obsession was turning the country into a concrete fortress. The exact number of bunkers built is controversial: various publications cite estimates from about 168,000 to 700,000-750,000 facilities. What they have in common is that they were built for a war that never came.
In Tirana, the regime also built a huge underground complex designed to shelter Hoxha, the government and the top party leadership in the event of a nuclear attack. The facility has five underground levels, corridors, meeting rooms and conditions for extended stays. In Kukes, an underground city is planned with a hospital, bakery, printing press and command center, in which up to 10,000 people can live for up to six months.
“People were starving, and they kept building bunkers“, historian Enriqueta Papa told “The Guardian“.A country without religion
In 1967, the authorities began a campaign against all religions. Temples were closed, destroyed or turned into warehouses and public buildings. The 1976 constitution entrenched the ban and declared Albania the first officially atheist country in the world. Religious rites are persecuted, and clergymen come under the blows of the repressive apparatus.
Home as a command post
Fear does not remain only in state buildings. Hoxha's house in Tirana was built in the 1970s and has more than 100 rooms. It has a swimming pool, numerous guarded spaces and an escape tunnel to an underground shelter. The bedroom doors are covered with soundproofing material. The house also kept televisions on which Hoxha and his wife sometimes watched recordings of interrogations of accused opponents of the regime.
The cult of the leader continues after his death. A huge pyramid has been erected in the center of Tirana, intended as a museum of Hoxha. The building later changed its purpose, but it remains a symbol of the time when the personality of one person determined the politics, architecture and everyday life of an entire country.
Sources: theguardian.com, latimes.com