Tirana Day 2

I've always argued that there's two types of authoritarian leader; firstly you have bog standard psychopaths and then there's the deeply paranoid psychopath who has managed to completely divorce themselves from reality. Pol Pot and the Kims sit comfortably in the paranoid category. However a lesser known but equally effective member of the latter group is Enver Hoxha, the Stalinist who led Albania for 40 years too long after World War Two. Pol Pot distinguished himself by carrying out perhaps the most successful genocide in modern history. The Kims have achieved a Marxist utopia where everyone is equal; that is equally poor. Hoxha also pursued poverty creation as a policy, but arguably his greatest claim to fame was building bunkers.

Today was our day to check out two of Hoxha's finest bunkers in Tirana. Not so long ago estimates suggested that Hohha built over 700 000 bunkers in Albania. More recently, estimates have dropped to a miserly 175 000 bunkers.
So what inspired Hoxha to build all of these bunkers when his country was a basket case by any objective measure of economic development. To put it simply he was deeply paranoid. Just like Stalin, being inside Hoxha's inner circle, was one of the most dangerous jobs in the country; you never quite knew when he could turn on you. He also applied this logic to foreign relations. If you weren't Albanian then you were a threat to the communist utopia that Hoxha was attempting to build. The whole of Albania was literally fenced off from the world and tourism was every bit as regulated as is the case in present day north Korea. Male tourists with long hair and beards were forced to have a haircut and a shave by a state sanctioned barber on arrival in the country. With such a strong fear of the outside world, it's only a matter of time before you develop a completely irrational fear of invasion by an enemy force, so the solution is to start building bunkers to protect your people.

BunkArt1 is about 20 minutes out of Tirana, depending on traffic. Catch the Porcelan bus (that's not a typo) from the city and it's a short walk to the entry. Make sure you have cash, as card is not accepted. You'll be swept away by the sheer insanity of the size of this bunker. The bunker was built to protect Hoxha and his cronies in the event of nuclear attack. Given that he had made enemies with the USA and the USSR and wasn't far from falling out with China, when this bunker was built, his paranoia about nuclear annihilation perhaps wasn't quite so crazy. There's 106 rooms to visit, all of which are accompanied by detailed texts explaining various aspects of the period. All of this is meticulously researched and written in Albanian and English so there's no excuse for leaving a miserable Google review.

If we weren't feeling paranoid enough after a session in BunkArt1 we decided to up the ante with a visit to BunkArt2 which is located right in the city centre. This bunker was constructed between 1981 and 1986, so the madness continued after the death of Hoxha. It's a minnow compared to number 1, given that it only contains 24 rooms. It was built so that the Ministry for Internal Affairs would be protected in case of, you guessed it, a nuclear attack. It now contains a terrific display that explores the history of policing in Albania. Believe me it's not a nice story.

After all this stuff about bunkers, paranoia and police, we decided it was time to head out for an evening walking tour. Our guide was sensational and provided a really great overview of Albanian history as well as taking us to some great sights around the city centre.
When Hoxha wasn't building bunkers he was building himself a house in the centre of the city with the help of his daughter, who happened to be an architect. For a man who hated things non Albanian, his house had a distinctively modernist flavour, maybe even a touch of Frank Lloyd Wright. Meanwhile everyone else lived in hideous Soviet style boxes with zero aesthetic appeal.

Our guide also introduced us to the rather impressive Et'hem Bey mosque which dates back to the 18th century. While Hoxha was building bunkers, he was busy destroying churches and mosques. He had declared Albania to be the first atheist state in about 1968, but the USSR had beaten Albania to the title. Somehow or other Et'hem Bey survived the madness.

The centre of town is definitely worth checking out in the evening. Hoxha did his best to make the city look ugly with his building program, but the evening light attracts the eye to the more palatable aspects of downtown Tirana.