Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers
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Bunker and dictator Enver Hoxha's of Albania — During the nearly
forty-year leadership of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha of the People's
Socialist Republic of Albania, over 700,000 bunkers were built in the
country – one for every four inhabitants. The bunkers (Albanian:
bunkerët) are still a ubiquitous sight in Albania, with an average of 24
bunkers for every square kilometer of the country.
Hoxha's programme of "bunkerisation" resulted in the construction of
bunkers in every corner of Albania, from mountain passes to city
streets. They had little military value and were never used for their
intended purpose during the years of Communist rule (1945–1990). The
cost of constructing them was a drain on Albania's resources, diverting
them away from more pressing needs, such as dealing with the country's
housing shortage and poor roads.
Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers 
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The bunkers were abandoned following the collapse of communism in 1990.
Most are now derelict, though some have been reused for a variety of
purposes including residential accommodation, cafés, storehouses and
shelters for animals or the homeless. A few briefly saw use in the
Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. From the end of World War II to his death
in April 1985, Enver Hoxha pursued a style of politics informed by
hardline Stalinism as well as elements of Maoism. He broke with the
Soviet Union after Nikita Khrushchev embarked on his reformist
Khrushchev Thaw, withdrew Albania from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 in
protest of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and broke with
the People's Republic of China after U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972
visit to China.
Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers
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His regime was also hostile towards the country's immediate neighbours.
Albania did not end its state of war with Greece, left over from the
Second World War, until as late as 1987 – two years after Hoxha's death –
due to suspicions about Greek territorial ambitions in southern Albania
(known to Greeks as Northern Epirus).
Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers
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Hoxha was virulently hostile towards the more moderate communist
government of Josip Broz Tito in the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, accusing Tito's government of maintaining "an anti-Marxist
and chauvinistic attitude towards our Party, our State, and our people."
He asserted that Tito intended to take over Albania and make it into
the seventh republic of Yugoslavia, and castigated the Yugoslav
government's treatment of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, claiming that
"Yugoslav leaders are pursuing a policy of extermination there."
Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers
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Albania still maintained some links with the outside world at this time,
trading with neutral countries, such as Austria and Sweden, and
establishing links across the Adriatic Sea with its former colonial
power Italy. However, a modest relaxation of domestic controls was
curtailed by Hoxha in 1973 with a renewed wave of repression and purges
directed against individuals, the young and the military, whom he feared
might threaten his hold on the country. A new constitution was
introduced in 1976 that increased the Communist Party's control of the
country, limited private property and forbade foreign loans. The country
sank into a decade of paranoid isolation and economic stagnation,
virtually cut off from the outside world. [wiki]
Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers
Photo — Link
Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers 
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Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers 
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Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers 
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Land of the Giant Mushrooms — Albania's Cold War Bunkers 
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