BETONALBANIA

It is said: From the outside you will notice a lot more than someone from the inside. True, for many Albanians their goals seem to be reached. A beautiful new house at the sea and a gas station on the edge of the main road between Shkodra and Lezha possibly bringing good money for the family.
I am not a stranger to the streets of Tirana or other Albanian cities. A scenery throughout the whole country, from north to south is the concreting of the landscape. New indefinable buildings of unknown function are rising not only in the big cities, but also along the motorways and all that in an incredible speed. The question on how to use concrete for building in Albania was not only about quality during the times of the communist dictatorship. The number of the bunkers built back then is huge. No one knows their exact number, estimates range about 700.000 bunkers that where ready for a population of two million Albanians. Those buildings stand as a Symbol for the psychological anxiety and cultural impoverishment in the times Enver Hoxha’s Albania. A reminder of the communist dictator’s paranoia.