The Bunkers of Albania

As you sail up the coast of this country, the one thing that is impossible to ignore are the concrete bunkers that look like they are out of a scene from an old WWII movie. They are strung out along the seashore like a cement strand of pearls. It is difficult to gaze at the landscape without it being interrupted by a round domed concrete bunker. The communist leader of Albania, Enver Hoxha, who was in power from the end of WWII until 1985 feared an invasion of his country from the west so decided to fortify it the way it was done in the war. He built over 750,000 of these bunkers. They are not only on the coast but are scattered throughout the country like buckshot. You see them in residential neighborhoods, plowed around on farm acreage and on city roads. With a population of just over 3 million, if there were two people in each bunker, they would fit about half of the population of the entire country. It is kind of sad to see how much effort and money was spent on something so useless when this country needs its resources going to much better causes. But then I could make that statement about most countries and the waste that is spent on fear of war.