Tirana - Bunker

Founded in 1614 by the Ottomans, centered on the Old Mosque. The site has been inhabited since the Iron Age and was likely the core of the Illyrian Kingdom of the Taulantii. Following the Illyrian Wars, it was annexed by Rome. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, most of Albania came under the control of the eastern Byzantine Empire. Tirana remained small and insignificant for a long time until it was designated the capital of Albania at the Congress of Lushnja in 1920. A place with just a few thousand inhabitants became the largest and most important city in the country. King Zogu had a palace built here and, with Italian help, ministries and a boulevard were constructed.

At the beginning of WWII Albania was occupied by the Italian fascists. In 1941 the Communist Party of Albania was established and under Enver Hoxha it became the center of the Albanian communists. The city was liberated in November 1944, after a heavy battle lasting several days between the partisans and the Wehrmacht, in which numerous historical buildings were destroyed. A few days later Hoxha proclaimed Albania's independence in Tirana.
During the communist rule the city was redesigned, with a number of buildings demolished. Tirana's former Old Bazaar and the Orthodox Cathedral were razed to the ground in order to build the Soviet-styled Palace of Culture. Because private car ownership was banned, mass transportation consisted mainly of bicycles, trucks and buses.

After democratization, Tirana slipped into a period of anarchy as necessary laws just did not exist at that time. Illegal buildings were built everywhere. From 1999 onwards, the illegal buildings in the city centre were demolished and the green spaces restored.

In the 21st century, Tirana experienced an economic boom. Numerous modern high-rise buildings were built.
From the end of the Second World War until his death in 1985, Enver Hoxha pursued a Stalinist-Maoist political style. He broke with the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev, withdrew Albania from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 in protest against the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Czechoslovakia and broke with China after US President Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Hoxha was as well a fierce opponent of Josip Broz Tito's government in Yugoslavia.

Enver Hoxha probably developed a kind of paranoia out of fear of foreign intrigues and conspiracies. He must have feared an attack on Albania from all sides, encapsulated himself (and Albania) and drew up a plan to ‘defend every inch of Albanian soil’. This plan envisaged the construction of 750,000 bunkers.

The exact number of ‘pillbox bunkers’ built is unknown. Estimates are over 350,000, but a list from 1983 shows only 173,371 bunkers, which still corresponds to six bunkers per square kilometre.

Here is one in the centre of Tirana.