There‘s something different about Albania’s landscape. Scattered across its city streets, white-sand shorelines, rural pastures and mountain ranges lies a rugged reminder of its recent past. Wherever you go, you're likely to come across its network of concrete bunkers, built during the communist era – a period told through the eyes of author Lea Ypi as she recounts her childhood in Free, Dua’s Monthly Read for July.
Thought to be upwards of 170,000 across the length and breadth of the country, these squat, Brutalist bunkerët – often nicknamed concrete mushrooms – date back to the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, who ordered their construction due to his fear of foreign invasion (discover more about that period here). This paranoia that heightened as Albania’s global isolation increased.
Near indestructible in design, the vast majority of these silent sentries have endured the country’s democratic transition. “Each bunker began its life mass produced, identical, uniformed, just as its governing ideology had intended, yet they eventually all became individual, transformed according to the character and needs of the people that were now using them,” says photographer Rob Hackman, whose 2019 book Metamorphosis captures their post-transition evolution.
Today, some are daubed with graffiti, others sink into the sand as the Adriatic laps the shore, or stand guard on remote mountain passes. Many, though, have been given a new lease of life, housing cafes, food stalls, animal shelters or – in the case of Tirana’s Bunk’Art, which has repurposed Hoxha’s nuclear shelters – entire cultural institutions. The images below explore how Albania’s past continues to make itself known in the present.
Watch Dua’s full interview with Lea on her book Free here and discover more about the events that led to the construction of Albania’s bunkers here.
There’s More – Delve Deeper Into Lea Ypi’s Free With The Service95 Book Club...
WATCH Dua’s interview with Free’s author Lea Ypi
READ the books that shaped Lea Ypi’s writing
LISTEN to a playlist picked by Lea Ypi to soundtrack Free from start to finish
BOOKMARK five moments from Albania's recent past that put Free in context
DISCOVER our photo essay charting how communism left its mark on Albania’s landscapes
EXPLORE how natural beauty and rich history collide on a road trip through Albania’s mountains
GO FURTHER with 11 books and films that capture the complexities of political upheaval
