Forbes: Albania is turning abandoned bunkers into businesses

Albania's” rural areas and valleys across the mountains are filled with thousands of small concrete bunkers. These bunkers were built from 1960 to 1980 during Enver Hoxha's communist rule.

In fact, Albania has had a turbulent post-war history, becoming hostile to all its potential allies for three decades, first Yugoslavs, then Soviets, and finally Chinese in a series of diplomatic and ideological rifts.

Fearing an invasion by Yugoslavia, Greece, NATO, even from the former Soviet Union ally, Hoxha was convinced that instead of trusting partisan tactics that freed Albania during the LIB, he had to protect the whole country simultaneously. As a result, Hoxha applied the policy of “bunking” that was applied to the construction of thousands of bunkers across the country.

The principle was that, instead of relying on a professional army, each Albanian had to take up arms and take refuge in the nearest bunker in the event of invasion. But of course, the invasion never came and bunker construction costs were a waste of Albania's resources, as in terms of material goods and working hours to plan, build and train for the use of bunkers.

The bunkers were abandoned after the fall of the Communist state, and many today are just relics. But in view of their amount, many Albanians have turned them into real estate during these decades. Bad Mark Djetrosan, a tattoo artist, has turned a bunker in Shkodra into a tattoo salon, broadcasts ates.

Many other bunkers have become part of the city's life by converting pizzeria, bars, and even goads. Their use has attracted the interest of many Albanian and foreign architects. Saimir Christo, professor of architecture and deputy dean at POLIS University in Tirana, has been part of the team in the ambitious “Bed & Bunker” project.

A University Search Project POLIS and FH-Mainz in Germany “Bed & Bunker” brought together professors and students from both institutions working to reinstate existing bunkers in the gorele, with beds and breakfast for tourists.

“Albania is a beautiful country... bunkers can serve to accommodate tourists. They can perform various functions such as small museums or display spaces. The possibilities are endless”, Saimir says.

The economic potential of unused bunkers in my opinion is infinite. Not only for the purpose of turning bunkers into functional space used by individuals, but because of their high number, they represent other values for Albania in the international respect”, he points out.

Albanian-Canadian architect Elian Stepa is part of a project similar to “Bed & Bunker”, titled “Concrete Mushrooms” (Beton Carving) presents conceptual proposals and guides for converting abandoned bunkers.

The growth of rebunking projects is directed to tourism, which is a success story in Albania in recent years. Recognising an exponential increase earlier in this decade and continuing a considerable increase today, the fertile <x0 natural” of Albania's bunkers means that there are easily suitable infrastructure in all the country's attractive natural destinations.

However, the continuation of such large - scale schemes has been questioned. Amid clashes since the end of communist rule and the 1997 crisis that came due to destructive and uncontrolled pyramid schemes, many Albanian bunkers have been destroyed.

Despite that, Professor Christo is optimistic about the future of conservation and development of bunkers.

It is unfortunate that some of them have been destroyed mainly to be sold for scrap by different individuals. Measures must be taken to protect, individualize and start plans to reuse them. The bunkers are contour structures because of what they represented in the past. However, we have managed to bring back former symbols of war and Albania's closure into symbols of peace and hospitality”, he emphasises.

Since April 2016, “Bunk '%Art”, a former bunker set up by Hoxha and his associates, has become a contemporary art and history museum where exposures are expected and is one of the most interesting points in Tirana”, concludes” Forbes”