Discover the abandoned Cold War bunkers in 'Europe's North Korea'

Albania's paranoid past

Paranoia was rife during the Cold War, and even some of those in charge allowed suspicion and insecurity to poison their minds. Albania’s radical former leader, Enver Hoxha, was among them. So scared was he of being invaded that the isolationist dictator dedicated half of his iron-clad 40-year rule to the countrywide construction of defensive bunkers. Completed in their thousands, many of them remain today – albeit in various degrees of dereliction and, in some cases, regeneration.

Read on as we delve into the dramatic story of Hoxha’s bunkers and discover those you can still see for yourself…

What exactly was the Cold War?

Spanning almost 50 years from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s, the Cold War was the ultimate battle for supremacy between the clashing ideologies of communism and capitalism. Very few nations were left untouched by its impact, though the central rivalry was between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Intent on securing a buffer zone to protect the USSR against future invasion, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin – through various dishonourable means – helped communism gain ground in several countries in post-war Eastern Europe. By 1949, Albania had become one of numerous Soviet satellite states in the region.

The rise of Enver Hoxha

Enver Hoxha came to power at the end of World War II and subsequently forged the most oppressively controlled society on the continent at the time, later earning Albania the nickname ‘Europe’s North Korea’. Inspired by Stalin’s politics, Hoxha’s regime saw the brutal eradication of any critics, rivals and resistance, the confiscation of private property by the state, the closure of religious institutions and the refocusing of all cultural and intellectual exploits to serve the socialist cause.

His ruthless rule also revolutionised the economy in Albania, marking its transition from a relic of the Ottoman Empire to a modern, industrialised nation. Here, a child kisses the feet of a Hoxha statue in Tirana, the capital.

Birth of a dictator

Before Hoxha (pictured) advanced as a politician in the 1940s, he was a teacher at his alma mater in Korçë, a city in southeastern Albania. When the fascist forces of Italy invaded his country in 1939, Hoxha was dismissed from his post for refusing to join the Albanian Fascist Party and moved to Tirana. There, he opened a tobacco store as a front for the headquarters of a communist partisan cell.

Assisted by comrades from Axis-occupied Yugoslavia, Hoxha founded the Albanian Communist Party in 1941 and ascended the political ladder. His philosophy of ‘gjithmone gati’ – being ‘always ready’ – was influenced in part by this chapter of his life.

Going it alone

The Albanian leader was a fierce nationalist who did not take kindly to external interference in his country’s affairs, excoriating any fellow communist state that threatened to undermine his power or jeopardise Albania’s independence. Over time, Hoxha grew increasingly distrusting of once-close allies like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and China, eventually severing ties with all three of them.

Albania also withdrew from the Warsaw Pact (a military alliance between the USSR and Eastern bloc countries) in 1968, with Hoxha vowing that it would succeed as a model socialist republic on its own. But in his isolation, Hoxha only grew more and more anxious about the imagined threat of foreign invasion.

Shielding from the enemy

As well as fearing getting caught in the crossfire as the world teetered on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, Hoxha was convinced that the likes of Yugoslavia, the “imperialist United States and social-imperialist Soviet Union” were all plausible threats to Albania’s safety and sovereignty. He also believed the country was vulnerable to NATO attacks from Italy or Greece, and that danger could also come from pro-Soviet Bulgaria.

Knowing Albania’s comparatively small military would be crushed by any of these potential foes in conventional combat, a paranoid Hoxha instead adopted the tactic of ‘bunkerizimi’ – bunkerisation – in the 1960s.

Bunker building begins

Devised to fortify Albania’s lines of defence, bunkerisation was only made possible with forced labour. At the time, most of the country’s population were required to report for annual basic military training, and Enver Hoxha made it their civic duty to bring his vision of ‘bunkerizimi’ to fruition. Almost every major factory was commandeered for the sole purpose of creating prefabricated structures which were later assembled in the field.

As a result, thousands upon thousands of bunkers were secretly built across Albania, changing its landscape indefinitely. The frenzied construction spread from city to countryside to coast, covering the nation in sinister, igloo-like behemoths.

A colony of concrete

Most completed bunkers were of the QZ type (Qender Zjarri or ‘firing position’) – concrete pods designed for one or two people, built in small defensive groups. These were the brainchild of engineer Josif Zagali who, like Hoxha, had been a partisan during World War II. The QZ’s distinctive domed roof, clearly visible in this photo, was intended to repel bullets and shell fragments. A prototype was famously tested under fire with a person inside to prove its efficacy.

PZs (Pike Zjarri or ‘firing point’) were larger artillery bunkers that served as command posts for rows of QZs. Even bigger bunkers were established in urban districts to hold hundreds of civilians at once, while coastal bunkers were reinforced with iron to protect them from naval missiles.

An expensive endeavour

The bunker-building campaign ramped up intensity between 1975 and Hoxha’s death in 1985, consuming some 80% of the army’s resources. While some sources put the total of Albania’s concrete and metal bunkers at an exaggerated 750,000 (supposedly one for every four citizens), the government has said that the figure is closer to 175,000. By 1983, 173,371 bunkers had been completed out of a planned 221,143.

Each individual unit is thought to have cost the equivalent of a two-bedroom apartment to build. Their construction undoubtedly aggravated Albania’s economic turmoil, aiding its slide into poverty by diverting crucial funds away from public services. Even today, Albania is counted among Europe’s poorest nations.

Hoxha’s haunting legacy

Enver Hoxha used to say that the fortification of Albania was the most worthy investment of his people’s sweat, and that every drop of sweat was a drop of blood saved on the battlefield. But although the bunkers’ ubiquitous presence spread from the country’s northern border with Montenegro to the Ionian beaches of the Albanian Riviera facing Corfu, they were never used for their intended purpose. It's thought that the bunkerisation programme claimed 100 workers' lives for every year of construction.

While attempts have been made to dismantle some of them, most of the bunkers remain in situ because they’re too difficult and too costly to remove – they were built to be virtually indestructible, after all. The Albanian government has since declared them protected public property.

Lingering reminders

Visit any part of Albania today and you’re likely to stumble upon at least one of Hoxha’s ominous Cold War curios. While some lie abandoned and forgotten, others have been repurposed as animal shelters, storage facilities, makeshift guesthouses, restaurants, bars and even tattoo parlours.

Bunkers have served as everything from clandestine lovers' meeting spots to much-needed homes for displaced peoples, including Kosovan refugees. They’ve been incorporated into children’s playgrounds, parks and cemeteries, with many also standing as monuments and museums devoted to the country’s turbulent past. In the following slides, we’ll take a closer look at some of those still dominating cities, mountain valleys, beaches and roadsides.

Bunk'Art 1, Tirana

On the outskirts of Albania’s capital city, carved through the bowels of the Skanderbeg mountain range, is a huge former anti-nuclear bunker transformed into a museum and art centre. Bunk’Art 1 was inaugurated for its original function in 1978 by Enver Hoxha himself and was designed to provide refuge to the country’s political and military elite in the event of a nuclear strike.

Codenamed ‘Facility 0774’ in Hoxha’s day, its 106 underground rooms are spread over five storeys, with visitors entering through a gloomy tunnel almost twice the length of a football pitch.

Bunk'Art 1, Tirana

Inside, the museum walks tourists through Albania’s communist history while opening up chambers that were once a fiercely guarded state secret. You’ll see what would have likely been Hoxha’s sleeping quarters had the nation ever been attacked during the Cold War, as well as an intimidating hall used for meetings of the Political Bureau.

Due to Bunk’Art 1’s subterranean location, it’s advised to bring a light jacket or jumper as the temperature is significantly cooler than that outside.

Dajti Adventure Park, Tirana

Also in the forested Skanderbeg Mountains, just east of Tirana, the newly opened Dajti Adventure Park (pictured) falls within the eponymous national park of Mount Dajti, Albania’s most accessible mountain. Reached by the Dajti Ekspres cable car, the adventure park offers a unique opportunity for families with young children to traverse zip lines and aerial assault courses, while also being introduced to the country’s emblematic bunkers.

Some, like this one pictured, have been incorporated into Dajti Adventure Park itself, while others can be spotted from the top of the mountain.

Bunk'Art 2, Tirana

Following the success of Bunk’Art 1, Bunk’Art 2 opened in 2016 in the heart of Tirana. It tells the shocking stories of those persecuted by the Sigurimi, Hoxha’s secret surveillance police, and is the first memorial dedicated to the victims of communism in Albania. It’s thought that some 100,000 Albanians were targeted by the Sigurimi between 1945 and the collapse of communism in 1991.

Codenamed ‘The Pillar’, the bunker covers 1,077 square feet (1,000sqm) and boasts eight-feet-thick (2.4m) reinforced concrete walls, intended to shelter the Sigurimi and interior ministry staff in case of a nuclear attack.

Bunk'Art 2, Tirana

Like the thousands of other bunkers peppering Albania’s landscape, The Pillar was never used for the purpose it was designed for. Today as Bunk’Art 2, it catalogues the human cost of Enver Hoxha’s brutal regime, verifying that at least 6,000 people were executed by his secret police force.

Displayed on the interior of the bunker’s grey cupola (pictured) are the faces of some of those killed on the dictator’s orders. One of them belongs to Sabiha Kasimati, an old school friend of Hoxha whose pleas for him to stop murdering innocents signed her death warrant.

Cold War Tunnel Museum, Gjirokastër

With its beautiful UNESCO-listed old town and picturesque mountain surroundings, it’s hard to believe the city of Gjirokastër harbours such dark connections. This is where Enver Hoxha was born, his childhood home since opened to the public as the Ethnographic Museum of Gjirokastër.

Another landmark of Hoxha’s legacy here is the Cold War Tunnel Museum which, unlike Tirana’s manicured Bunk’Art venues, has remained largely untouched since the communist era. The underground bunker was planned to be used as an emergency shelter during an invasion and built in utmost secrecy in the early 1970s.

Cold War Tunnel Museum, Gjirokastër

The 59 rooms in the Cold War Tunnel aren’t as curated or informative as their counterparts in the capital’s museum bunkers, but the intention is to instead provide an unfiltered snapshot of what these facilities were really like. Specific rooms fulfilled specific functions for specific personnel, from government ministries and local government to party elites and interrogators.

The decontamination, generator and air filtration rooms were all part of the preparations for atomic warfare. Today, they're eerie monuments to Hoxha’s paranoid bunkerisation initiative.

Lin

Strategically positioned on the shores of Lake Ohrid, which forms part of the border between Albania and North Macedonia, this QZ bunker could have been on the frontline if Hoxha's fears of invasion had ever become reality. Now, the concrete relic is enjoying a surprising new life as a Greek Orthodox shrine.

Perched on the far edge of the peninsula near the lakeside village of Lin, the tiny chapel is so secluded that you can only see it on the final stretch of the walking path. It’s possible to step inside, where framed pictures of Orthodox icons decorate the walls and candles wait to be lit in worship.

Himarë

One of thousands of abandoned bunkers littering the Albanian Riviera, where the Adriatic and Ionian coastlines of the country converge, this stout sentinel lies broken and bruised on the rocky shores of Potam Beach.

Overlooking bubblegum-blue Himarë Bay, the bunker was originally intended to defend Albania from an amphibious attack by the likes of Greece or Italy, but it never experienced the kind of action Enver Hoxha was so anxious about. Now it cuts quite the sorry figure – see how some of its building materials have been stripped away.

Sazan

It wasn’t only the Albanian mainland fortified under Enver Hoxha. The verdant island of Sazan is home to a rumoured 3,600 bunkers, hollow remnants of its former function as a Cold War military base. Never inhabited by civilians, but now frequented by boatloads of tourists every summer, Sazan is as mysterious as it is ruggedly handsome.

The island made the headlines in 2024 when it was revealed that Ivanka Trump, the US president’s daughter, and her partner Jared Kushner were planning to revamp the isolated enclave and turn it into a luxury resort.

Borsh

This quaint and quiet village on the Albanian Riviera has grown in popularity in recent years, due to visitors seeking out its bunker-strewn beach, one which happens to be the largest on the country’s Ionian coast.

Mimicking the route Hoxha feared potential invaders might take, modern international visitors are encouraged to fly to the Greek island of Corfu first and then board a ferry to Saranda in order to reach Borsh. There are a few concrete bunkers in the village itself, as well as some nearer the sea.

Highway SH-8

Linking the counties of Fier and Vlorë, the SH-8 highway is Albania’s most scenic road. It snakes along the Adriatic and Ionian coasts of the country before climbing into the Ceraunian Mountains. Built in the 1920s, it runs for 98 miles (158km) and takes around three hours to drive in its entirety.

Punctuating the zigzags and bends of the route are a number of derelict QZs, including this one painted to look like the sunglasses face emoji. It’s an odd juxtaposition, but one that doesn’t fail to make roadtrippers smile.

Llogara Pass

The highest point of the SH-8 is the Llogara Pass, which stands at 3,422 feet (1,043m) above sea level. The view from here is spectacular, especially on a clear day when you can see the different hues of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas merging. You’ll find a slew of Hoxha’s bunkers up here too.

Most of them are of the smaller QZ type, like those pictured, but you’ll also find the so-called ‘Big Bunker’ on the slopes of the Llogara Pass. A rare sight, it towers over three floors above ground and would have provided Hoxha’s troops with the perfect vantage point.

Theth

Theth National Park forms part of the Albanian Alps, a range of peaks also known as the Accursed Mountains which Albania shares with its neighbours Montenegro and Kosovo. Given its proximity to what Hoxha deemed possible outside threats, the valleys and hillsides of Theth were fortified with dozens of Cold War bunkers to deter perceived enemies of the state.

Those hiking the Qafa e Pejës (Peja Pass) from Theth will spy several of the incongruous concrete mushrooms along the way.

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