Entrance to BUNK'ART
I leave sizzling August heat behind and enter a cool, faintly damp corridor lit by harsh LED light. The door behind me - a foot thick - remains opened (I turn around to check). I'm now inside Tirana’s largest underground bunker, built in the 1970s to accommodate the entire Albanian government in case of a nuclear attack. It was one of the 173,000 bunkers constructed on the orders of the paranoid communist leader Enver Hoxha. After the fall of communism in Albania in 1991, most of the bunkers scattered around the country were abandoned. This one has been converted into BUNK’ART, a history museum.
A corridor inside BUNK'ART
As one of few visitors, I can't help but feel the oppressing chill of the place. Here is Hoxha’s office and bedroom with a spartan single bed. Here is a cupboard with gas masks should you wish to venture out. Unbelievably, there is even a large assembly hall inside. In other rooms museum curators have chosen to show the history of Albania in black and white photographs covering the country’s occupation by Italian fascists in 1939-1943, German invasion in 1943-1944 and isolated communist dictatorship under Hoxha until his death in 1985. The exhibition is excellent. It unnerves and devastates.
On a walking tour of Tirana
Back outside I am grateful for the sunlight. I catch a ray cheekily pointing to a fig tree with a handful of ripe fruit. I help myself to a few honey-dripping figs and catch a bus back into the centre of Tirana. Here I join a walking tour led by a couple of local guides. It’s not the sights that I am after - I want to learn about the people who have inherited the country’s painful history. I am not disappointed. The guide Eri, who is in his early 40s, tells us many personal anecdotes which help to understand Albania today. He recalls how Christian missionaries arrived in Tirana and used to give out free chocolates after sermons. Eri attended the sermons diligently every Sunday because he had never even tasted chocolate before. And then he tells us a story about bananas, which first appeared in Albania in 1991. “My mother thought they weren’t real - she was too afraid to taste one!” Other tourists laugh in disbelief. I simply nod recalling my own “bananaless" childhood in the Soviet Union.
Exploring eerie underground bunkers and learning about incredible hardship under self-imposed economic isolation isn’t everyone’s idea of a summer holiday. After leaving Tirana I visit Albania’s picture-perfect castles of Berat, Gjirokastër and Shkodra, ancient Roman and Ottoman ruins at the archeological park of Butrint, swim in idyllic waters of the Ionian sea and hike in the majestic Accursed Mountains. In-between I travel by bus munching on sweet figs and I keep spotting creepy bunkers, popping by the road all over Albania. My mind travels back to the underground labyrinth of Tirana and its heart-breaking stories. Perhaps one needs a dash of bitterness to appreciate a perfect summer break.
Exploring eerie underground bunkers and learning about incredible hardship under self-imposed economic isolation isn’t everyone’s idea of a summer holiday. After leaving Tirana I visit Albania’s picture-perfect castles of Berat, Gjirokastër and Shkodra, ancient Roman and Ottoman ruins at the archeological park of Butrint, swim in idyllic waters of the Ionian sea and hike in the majestic Accursed Mountains. In-between I travel by bus munching on sweet figs and I keep spotting creepy bunkers, popping by the road all over Albania. My mind travels back to the underground labyrinth of Tirana and its heart-breaking stories. Perhaps one needs a dash of bitterness to appreciate a perfect summer break.
Berat
Hiking in the Accursed Mountains
A random bunker in a park in Tirana
RSS Feed