The long river of history is running endlessly, there are calm waves, there are also waves, let Xiaobian take you into history and understand history.
Located in the Balkans, Albania is a small, narrow and mountainous country. Bordered by Greece to the south, Montenegro to the north and Macedonia to the east, it has a territory of only 28,000 square kilometers and a population of just over three million people.
But what is strange is that it is such a poor and backward country, in the 1960s and 1970s, they built as many as 360,000 bunkers on its territory. These bunkers are generally three or four meters in diameter, and the main body is located underground, above the ground, revealing only a dome like an inverted iron pot.
("Bunker Country" Albania)
These bunkers have survived to this day, and the discerning people know at a glance that they have only one role, that is, military purposes. It is doubtful why so many bunkers were built in tiny Albania.
First, the stubborn small Balkan states.
Albania is small in size and has a small population. Although the resources are abundant, but suffering from the inability to exploit, it has not only been economically backward, the national strength is weak, and the military is also unremarkable.
But what is admirable is that this small Balkan country has a lot of personality, and in the 1960s and 1970s, Albania, which is known as a socialist country, dared to fight with the Cold War us and the Soviet Union at the same time.
You should know that at that time, in order to live better, many small countries chose sides and sides, hoping to live under the shade of large countries. But Albania is very dignified, not only daring to confront the Soviet Union, the boss of the socialist camp, but also daring to directly and openly confront the United States, as the boss of capitalism.
At that time, for various reasons, the relations between our country and the Soviet Union quickly changed from close to mutual accusations, and the entire socialist camp followed the rest of the Soviet Union and almost one sided with the Soviet Union, vying for accusations against our country. But Albania, a small European country, was different, choosing to side with China under Hoxha's leadership.
As a small country in the region, it is reasonable to meet the source left and right between the big countries, and it is prudent to survive. But Hoxha, who had great power ambitions, not only contradicted the Soviet Union, but also blatantly offended the United States. In the end, he fell out even with my ally, my country, which had been aiding him, and Yugoslavia, which had the Balkan tigers.
(Former Albanian leader Hoxha)
Second, the construction of bunkers is always ready for war.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet Union was at its peak, and the Balance of the Cold War was broken by the Internal Chaos of the Vietnam War in the United States. The Soviet Union pressed forward step by step, attacking everywhere, threatening war against Albania every day. And the United States also wants to preemptively overthrow Hoxha and cultivate pro-American forces.
Hoxha knew what his death would bring and what kind of fate he would bring, so he had always been insecure. So he shouted the slogan of "holding a pickaxe in one hand, holding a gun in the other, and resisting the enemy from the outside."
Under the guidance of the policy of guarding against the military offensive of the United States and the Soviet Union, the Albanian people mobilized and gathered the material, financial and manpower of the whole country to build bunkers for ground defense warfare throughout the country.
Some of these bunkers stand in front of and behind the houses, some lie in the fields, and some are hidden on the beach shores of the sea. They have both open and dark bunkers, as well as a group of bunkers connected into one.
Some military experts said that the bunkers in Albania can be called the World Bunker Museum, and almost all the bunkers that appeared in the war can be found here.
However, at that time, Albania's national strength was weak, its economy was backward, and it simply did not have the industrial capacity to build such a huge project. Fortunately, before falling out with my country, they won a large amount of cement and steel reinforcement assistance from our country. Since then, they have gathered the strength of the whole country and built as many as 360,000 bunkers in a period of more than a decade.
Albania's construction of these bunkers cost a total of $175 million, or an average of $250 per bunker, which is a real pain for the people and money of small countries that have not yet solved the problem of food and clothing.
(Bunkers everywhere)
Third, it has become an obstacle to development.
Hoxha built these bunkers in the hope of using them to resist enemy aggression, so they were built very strongly. But until Hoxha stepped down, these bunkers didn't come in handy.
After the upheavals in Eastern Europe, Albania turned to the West, and these reinforced concrete bunkers were reduced to ruins. Because they are all over the field, they seriously affect the local industrial and agricultural production and become an obstacle to development.
So the Albanians, again, had to devote a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to the demolition of these bunkers. But because most of them were built underground and built very strongly, the demolition of them was not smooth.
According to the soldiers in charge of the demolition, the demolition of these bunkers, in addition to consuming a large amount of explosives, but also the use of bulldozers, cranes, excavators and other large mechanical equipment. But even so, only a few hundred bunkers have been completely demolished in a few years.
Later, the government simply sold these bunkers to interested people. As a result, some of these outdated buildings became private warehouses, some were decorated as bunker hotels, and near the border areas were reserved for military training or exercises. But the vast majority of them are lying in the wilderness and mountains, becoming the imprint of history.
Well, today's sharing ends here, and we'll see you next time