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Bunkers in Albania

Bunkers in Albania
Bunkerët në Shqipëri
 Albania
One of over 173,000 bunkers in Albania during the rule of Enver Hoxha
One of over 750,000 bunkers built in Albania during the rule of Enver Hoxha
Site information
Condition Not in use
Site history
Built 1967 (1967)–1986 (1986)
Built by People's Socialist Republic of Albania
In use 1967–1991
Materials Concrete, steel
Demolished Partly

The concrete bunkers of Albania are a ubiquitous sight in the country, with an average of 5.7 bunkers for every square kilometre. The bunkers (Albanian: bunkerët) were built during the communist government of Enver Hoxha from the 1960s to the 1980s; by 1983 a total of 173,371 concrete bunkers had been constructed around the country.

Hoxha's programme of "bunkerisation" 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 more pressing needs, such as dealing with the country's housing shortage and poor roads.

The bunkers were abandoned following the collapse of communism in 1990. Most are now derelict, though some have been reused for a variety of purposes including residential accommodation, cafés, storehouses and shelters for animals or the homeless. A few briefly saw use in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.

From the end of World War II to his death in April 1985, Enver Hoxha pursued a style of politics informed by hardline Stalinism as well as elements of Maoism. He broke with the Soviet Union after Nikita Khrushchev embarked on his reformist Khrushchev Thaw, withdrew Albania from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 in protest of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and broke with the People's Republic of China after U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China.

His regime 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 suspicions about Greek territorial ambitions in southern Albania (known to Greeks as Northern Epirus).


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