Spring Day - Dita e Veres

Spring Day (we actually call it Summer Day) is celebrated every 14 March in Albania.

According to some sources, Dita e Verës derives from the Arbëreshë, an Albanian community that lives in Italy since the fifteenth century. On 14 March, the Arbëreshë of the Italian coast, collect a tuft of grass roots and soil, bringing it home to commemorate the anniversary of their emigration from Albania. In fact, some sources date back this celebration to the ancient Illyria. At that time, the feast was celebrated on 1 March, which according to the Julian calendar, corresponded to the first day of the year.

BunkArt - Inside some of the rooms

This is the most publicly hated guy in the last 25 years. He was hated even before but it was in private. Any attempt to show your hatred in public, resulted in a nice and long vacation to prison, your family moved to a shitty place and your whole genealogical tree deprived from higher education, comfortable job and even get them jail time if the prosecutor felt like they had fed your hatred. He was one good looking motherfucker though (while young). I present you, Enver Hoxha, Kim Jong Il's equivalent.

To give Caesar's his due though, this guy built post-war Albania. He eradicated malaria, illiteracy, blood feud, homelessness, unemployment etc... It looks to good to be true, hence the hatred. It all happened with a cost. We didn't have democracy, multi-party elections, free movement abroad, economic relations with the west and all that flows behind that, like technology, medicine etc etc...

I could go on and on but let's leave that for another time, if beers included :D

Notcie the walls, those are dressed with some kind of fiber. Behind the fiber there are metallic sheets and then concrete. The fiber and the metallic sheets are to prevent stone chips in case of strong explosion from outside. This fiber was very expensive back then, hence only his room is dressed with that. The next room was the bedroom but nothing important in there, just a bed.

This Sonra, German radio, was by his desk. The lamp though must be made in Albania. I remember during communism, all our household items were like mass produced. All neighbors had the same lamps, the same carpets, the same clothes and even the same TVs. We used to produce black and white TVs, did you know that?

This was supposed to be his toilet. There was this huge bathroom and this red toilet at the corner. I think this was a bad executed joke on the museum's curators side. A red toilet for a communism dictator? Come on!!! The cap is also missing. Either things got lost during the last 25 years and they couldn't replicate his bathroom, or they just didn't care. - What's there? Just a toilet? Nothing else? Fuck it, paint it red.

This room is prime minister's room. This TV is made in Albania. Notice the walls? No fibers here, too expensive.



Here is the photo of Enver Hoxha, over the PM's desk. The previous photo was in Hoxha's desk. I guess they used the one in military uniform to  aspire people to fight.



This is PM's Mimoza radio, made in Czechoslovakia. I had that very same lamp in my room. I remember my father bought like 3 of them and used the glass part for ceiling light, hanged upside down with thin cable.



Albania's map. Not much to say about this except the part that we used to recognize Kosovo as part of Jugoslavia. No particular mention on the map.

BunkArt - Tunnels

Entrance to the bunker. After the 4-5 concrete and metallic doors, there is this short tunnel which leads to more tunnels. Between them there are stairs and you get the impression that you go like 5 floors deep underground. In reality, you don't go deep underground, you just walk along the hill at a descending angle. So, you enter at the tunnel at ground level and you go like 4-5 floors down and when you get out you are still at ground level. That's because the way to the entrance is in some sort of U shape, like walking in a large trench. It's just that the tunnel is way deep horizontally. Here is a 3D rendering of it. 

When you enter, the first apartments you encounter are those of Enver Hoxha, the highest figure and then officers and that of Mehmet Shehu, ex-PM who allegedly committed suicide sometime in 1981. The first question that comes in your mind is why are the most important figures at the beginning of the tunnel? In fact, that is the end of the tunnel but it is being used as an entrance so people won't have to go upwards while inside the tunnel. That means that if someone entered the tunnel from the real entrance, it would give enough time to the commanders to leave toward safety. Or, if there was no hope leaving, they would be the last men standing.

Some tunnels are closed to the public, because the rooms are empty and there is nothing to show yet.



Maybe there are other secret levels, who knows...

BunkArt

[caption id="attachment_2517" align="alignnone" width="660"] Russian Car[/caption]

Bunk'Art is a bunker turned into an art gallery & museum. It is located in the foots of Dajti Mountain, under a hill and inside a military zone (as expected). It was built by the communism regime during the cold war era, when we truly believed that America or any other powerful nation wanted to assault us with nuclear weapons to destroy our happiness...

To reach it is fairly easy. If you're going by public transport, go to Scanderbeg Square and ask for Tufina's bus. When on the bus, ask the ticket guy to warn you when close to Bunk'Art. I guess the bus station will be on the main road while the military base is at the end of a secondary road. There are signs though, hard to miss if you're not driving.

If by car, just ask around for the Dibra Street. It is fairly famous because the main hospital and the military school are on it. After the military school, the Dibra's Street divides into Aleksander Moisiu and Teki Selnica. The first one takes you to the Albanian Film Archive, that's another institution I'll cover in one of my future posts. Just take Teki Selnica, the one on your left and drive some 500 meters and keep an eye for signs to Bunkart.

Or just let me know beforehand and I'll drive you there if I'm free. :)

At the entrance of the military base you will have to show an ID. For the moment the entrance is free of charge. Check at their website beforehand if situation has changed. However, even with a fee, it won't be more than 3-4 EUR I suppose.

Beware, the entrance of the bunker is far from the entrance of the military base, some 800 meters.

[caption id="attachment_2516" align="alignnone" width="660"] ZIM-12 Russian Car[/caption]

This is a Zim 12 Russian car donated by Stalin to Enver Hoxha. Less than 22,000 were produced all in all and only 10 made it to Albania. This one is the only one remaining. The curators of the BunkArt are even having fun with it since they have put a traffic fine at the front window citing a broken light and parking on the sidewalk :D

[caption id="attachment_2514" align="alignnone" width="660"] Moto Guzzi[/caption]

This one's description was not too clear. It says that those bikes were used by the Italian Army during the 60s and then some were donated to the Albanian Army in 2002. I know Moto Guzzi is a great brand but hey, 40 years old bike belongs to collectors, not to an army. I bet Italians pushed the contract for their maintenance as well.

[caption id="attachment_2515" align="alignnone" width="660"] Entrance[/caption]

This is the entrance to the bunker. There are like 4-5 doors one after the other and the first ones are concrete and very thick. I guess the bunker was made to withstand a nuclear explosion in its front yard too...

Old Communism Posters - Our Enver (Hoxha)

[caption id="attachment_1711" align="alignnone" width="950"] Old Communism Posters - Our Enver (Hoxha)[/caption]