WEBVTT - Why Does Albania Have Hundreds of Thousands of Bunkers? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.880 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:12.840 Vogelbaum here. In the wake of World War II, Albanian 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:17.279 dictator Enver Hooja began remaking his war torn country in 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:21.119 the image of Stalin's Soviet Union, which is to say 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.720 that he ruled with terrifying menace, stoking isolationism and Cold 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:30.320 War paranoia. In the nineteen seventies, with an ominous national 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:35.200 mood firmly in place, he began building the bunkers, large 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.680 bunkers and small ones. Underground bunkers and bunkers scattered openly 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:44.720 through the countryside, obvious bunkers and secret ones, all made 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.560 of reinforced concrete, most with a domed roof, as though 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.600 a strange spate of mushrooms had popped up all over 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.040 the republic. The stated idea was that these bunkers would 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:00.440 serve as defensive positions during an enemy invasion supposedly coming 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.640 any day. Ordinary civilians were trained to rush to the 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.280 bunkers in case of emergency, and conditioned by propaganda to 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.800 be ever vigilant against any and all foreign enemies. It 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.319 was part of Hoja's strategy of a people's war, which 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:21.480 relied on guerrilla war tactics executed by non soldiers. He 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.240 wanted his citizens always ready, and most were required to 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.840 do at least a little military training each year. Ultimately, though, 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.800 what was really happening was that they were being conditioned 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:37.679 to obey the hard line regime. There's a story that 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.480 says that after the first prototype bunker was built in 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.360 the nineteen fifties, Hoja asked the lead engineer how confident 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.160 he was in his creation. The engineer replied, very confident. 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.840 Hoja then ordered the engineer inside the bunker and instructed 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.920 a tank attack to test the building's integrity. The engineer 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:01.880 walked out unharmed, but no doubt shaken. After that, Albania 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:07.040 began its bunker building frenzy in earnest. Because of the 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:11.920 perpetual secrecy surrounding Hoje's administration, the bunkers were planned and 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:16.400 built with few public details. Engineers were moved among different 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.280 work sites to make it impossible for any one person 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.560 to fully understand the scope of the project. As such, 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.239 records are scarce and no one knows how many were constructed. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.480 Numbers ranged from roughly one hundred and seventy five thousand 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.639 to nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand at the top end, 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.120 that would mean one for every four Albanians at the time. 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.679 Factory employees worked around the clock to make the necessary materials. 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.280 Some bunker designs were light enough to be carried piecemeal 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.480 into the mountains by mule. Others had to be dropped 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:55.480 into place by helicopter. Some expanded into entire underground towns 0:02:55.520 --> 0:03:00.000 meant to survive nuclear strikes. The project was so massive 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.160 that it may have required three times as much concrete 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.560 as France's equally incredible Magino line, which tried and failed 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.320 to dwart Nazi hordes, which we'll have to do a 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:14.720 whole other episode about some time, and some experts estimate 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.679 that Albania's bunkers cost twice as much as the Magineu. Notably, 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.520 the bunker's strategy didn't sit well with officials in the 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.480 standing army, in part because the clunky and often cramped 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:31.959 bunkers weren't actually useful for professional soldiers, but that, of course, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.040 was beside the point for the article. This episode is 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.320 based on How Stuff Works. Spoke by email with Elidor Mheely, 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.560 an associate professor of history at Hunter College, he said. 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.360 The bunkers were also about showing off the regime's military, 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.040 technical and strategic ability at a time when Albania was 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:55.960 increasingly alone geopolitically, and in that sense they did serve 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:00.000 a function. They were concrete things, but they also cared 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.160 read a kind of symbolic value. The official party propaganda 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.760 spoke of Albania as a fortress. The regime meant that 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:14.680 metaphorically in the sense of defending communism. Indeed, Hoja had 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.200 cut off relations with neighboring Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.680 even China, feeling these countries had either strayed from the 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:26.560 hardline socialist path or else were warming relations with Western countries. 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.680 Having no allies made Albania one of the most isolated 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.919 countries on earth. The bunkers were allegedly to keep the 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.200 country safe from its many enemies, but they were in 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.240 reality just another form of propaganda. The regime knew that 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.960 they wouldn't have stood up contemporary war practices or technologies. 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.839 At one site, what started as a series of bomb 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:54.000 bunkers slowly evolved into what became an underground town. It 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.200 had huge rooms, interconnected tunnels and command centers and it 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.680 was meant to provide self sufficient shell for up to 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:05.120 ten thousand people. For half a year, the government regularly 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.880 conducted drills in which townspeople rushed to this huge labyrinth. Eventually, 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.679 they were so proficient in this exercise that the entire 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:17.320 town could sequester itself within seven minutes. Yet, because of 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.120 the way the underground city was intentionally segmented, no one 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.400 had any idea of how large it really was, not 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:29.080 even the construction workers who built it. Once inside, residents 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.120 were forbidden to move around. The bunker project ended with 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.040 the dictator's death in nineteen eighty five. In nineteen ninety, 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.200 the communist regime began to collapse. Two decades later, they 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.039 had joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and applied for 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:48.599 membership with the European Union. Today they have official candidate status. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:54.640 Mihili said, Albania has undergone dramatic changes. Albania has become 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.400 an open society, which is a big deal since it 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.479 was one of Europe's most unforgiving dictatorships. At the same time, 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.400 the transition has not been easy. Many Albanians have left 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.520 the country since, seeking opportunities elsewhere, including here in the US. 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:16.280 In the meantime, the old bunkers remain. Given their inherent ruggedness, 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:21.359 it's too costly and time consuming to remove most of them. Instead, 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.400 Albanians are converting them, often in spite of government opposition, 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:30.320 for other purposes. In rural areas. Farmers use them to 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:35.239 shelter livestock or store grain around cities. Houseless people shelter 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.800 in them, kids play around them, teens smooth in them, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.839 and beachgoers use their roofs as extra sunbathing space. Some 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.400 bunkers now serve as memorials and museums, which put the 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:51.200 horrors of the communist regime on display or bring beautiful 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:55.520 new artwork to communities. Others have been painted with murals 0:06:55.640 --> 0:07:00.120 which were banned during the regime, or converted into coffee shops, bars, 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:05.719 pizzerias or lodging for tourists. And how do Albanians perceive 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:10.200 the bunkers today, Miheli said, I am not sure most 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.800 Albanians care about them. It's mostly tourists who are obsessed 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.640 with the bunkers as a kind of curiosity. Most Albanians, 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:21.320 i would say, are worried about corruption, poverty, and whether 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:29.120 there will be a better future for their children. Today's 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.440 episode is based on the article Albania's Doomsday bunkers fed 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.560 a Dictator's Paranoia on how stuffworks dot Com, written by 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.320 Nathan Chandler. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.040 with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.920 Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.120 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.