in Albania are millions of bunkers. Millions of these pillboxes were sunk into the fields and hillsides, most of them during the 1970s under the rule of Enver Hoxha when Albania left the Warsaw Pact. The most frequent type is the small, single-person bunker with two slits above the ground. The bunkers are set 4 to 5 feet into the ground and are, therefore, difficult to remove.
The small bunkers are laid out in lines radiating down from a large command bunker (such as those pictured immediately below) and have a line of sight back to the command bunkers. The large bunkers were permanently manned; the small bunkers were not. In the event of an invasion, every able-bodied male was expected to collect a gun and and take up position in his assigned pillbox until ordered to leave it.
The commanders in the large bunkers had radio contact with their superiors, and from their positions they could control the road or valley along which the invaders would be coming. The men in the small bunkers, further down the chain, could receive visual orders by looking through the slit on one side of their pillbox, and shoot the invaders through the other.
If you believe it to be paranoid to think that your country is about to be invaded, consider that between 1947 and 1953 Britain and the United States did in fact attempt to infiltrate anti-communist agents into Albania on multiple occasions. These attempts failed dismally; all of the agents were captured almost as soon as they landed, and were either killed on the spot or executed after being tried as spies.
To see particularly clear examples of the strategy behind the positioning of the bunkers or simply to see extensive and relatively intact bunker sites, try the following areas: a few miles south of Peshkopia near the village of Melani, the Drinos valley between Gjirokastra and the Greek border and in central Albania just south of the big roundabout at Rrogozhina overlooking the Myzeqe plain.
Of those that are still standing, most bunkers are used as outhouses, a place to store animal feed, stolen goods or, ummm, to dump used cartons of oil apparently…
Even up in the mountains, look around a little and you will find the ubiquitous bunkers:
The business end of one of the bunkers:
Doesn’t look like much fun to me… This is what the bunkers look like on the inside:
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Бях чувал за тези бункери, но днес за пръв път ги видях...нямам думи. Идиотизма на Енвер Ходжа е бил наистина в болестна форма. Трябва да се поровя малко и да разбера повече за тази патология на човешкото творение...
