Part 3 - Bunkers like Star wars

My favorite and most intriguing of the country were the countless number of small concrete bunkers that the rural landscape, and at times, could even be found tucked in amongst the major city buildings. They honestly looked like something out of star wars. The bulk of what I saw were small, two person or so bunkers, almost resembling overgrown concrete mushrooms. They all had the same dome top, with four steel or iron rings on the top about the size of two fists. The main part of the bunker was a large cylinder, with a incredible heavy metal door on one side, and then slots on the opposing side, for firing out of. The bunkers are all built to withstand direct fire, and even to take mortars, if I remember correctly. they were built by a communist dictator who was worried about the Bourgeoisie invading. Needless to say, they never got invaded.

The communist built some 700,000 plus bunkers (they lost track of some, so I hear). That is about one bunker for every four Albanians. A rather staggering amount of bunkers if you think about it. Most of the country sees them as a nuisance. Farmers farm around them, buildings are constructed nearly on top of them, orchards are planted with the only breaks in the trees being a bunker that happens to get in the way of the rows. It was said that the bunkers cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 to remove completely. Several of them can be seen toppled over, where the earth has eroded out from underneath them on a hillside. I saw some that even looked to be submerged by the surrounding landscape, where time had filled in the ground around them.

In addition to these small bunkers, I also saw a couple of medium sized ones, enough to park a car inside. I heard that there were also some that were really big enough to park a tank inside. On the interior walls of these medium bunkers and larger sized bunkers, were paintings, depicting how to use the guns that were mounted inside the structures. The thought was that the peasants were going to be the ones to defend the country, so they communists, made sure to give them picture instructions for use of the guns.